As a guide dog handler, (currently between dogs), I have run into my fair share of unbecoming individuals, stupid preconceptions, etc. but nothing compares to the
this women who sprayed bleach in a guidedogs eyes
This article states.

Lawler told police she “thought it was a vicious animal” and feared it would be a danger to other customers, so she grabbed a spray bottle of Clorox cleaner off a shelf and sprayed the animal in the eyes and back.

I understand not everyone in canada/the US may not be from this continent, let alone canada or the US, but this does not, under any circumstances give you cause to pull such an absolutely boneheaded move.

“I realize now it was a mistake,” Lawler said when reached by telephone Monday. “I have a fear of dogs. It was just a big dog with a big head. I was just afraid.”

I understand fright, but I do not condone the reaction.
Let’s move on.

Lawler said she takes medication for schizoaffective disorder, and paranoia is one the symptoms associated with her mental illness.

sorry, I call absolute and utter bullshit. Mental incompitency? Hell no. The dog was wearing a harness, and clearly visible, so again, I bullshit on letting the meds control your actions, because that’s what your saying is your excuse, sorry, I don’t believe it.
oh, it gets better.

Although the dog wasn’t exhibiting aggressive behavior, Lawler said she got scared when she saw it and asked Shore to leave the store with the dog. When that didn’t produce results, she said she resorted to the spray bleach to get rid of the animal.

So the dog’s calm, not causing problems, but you *still* resorted to bleach, you fucking moron.
She felt the dog would go wild, bite someone, seriously? kindly fornicate something.

But I still feel like a dog doesn’t belong in a place like a grocery store.”

one. the dog’s a service animal, highly trained, so what you feel is still no grounds for your actions.
In my opinion, she shouldn’t get one year or a $5000 fine, she should get both and never allowed to own an animal ever!
What do you think, do you think the punishments too leaniant?

As someone that’s been watching the
rogers
vs
crtc
go round and round since october, 2010, it came as no surprise when the following
story
rolled across my desk.

CRTC Slaps Rogers for Throttling Non-P2P Traffic
Posted by Jason Koblovsky on Saturday, January 21, 2012 – 01:38
January 20, 2012 – The Canadian Gamers Organization got word today that the CRTC’s enforcement division has found Rogers to not be non-compliant with CRTC net neutrality policy, and that it’s throttling software and hardware are actively misclassifying a wide range of applications and communication ports. The CRTC has cited evidence obtained and published by Cisco Systems (the hardware and software vendor Rogers uses for throttling), and has threatened a show/cause hearing on this subject if Rogers’ response is insufficient or fails to respond. If it goes to a hearing, the CRTC could file an order with the courts to force Rogers to reimburse affected customers.

In its letter the CRTC stated:

As you know, prior Commission approval is required pursuant to section 36 of the Act, as described at paragraphs 126 and 127 of TRP CRTC 2009-657, for implementing a technical ITMP that results in:
• noticeable degradation to time-sensitive traffic, or
• the slowing of non-time-sensitive traffic to the extent that it amounts to blocking the content and therefore controlling the content and influencing the meaning and purpose of the telecommunication.
Within two weeks, I look forward to you either presenting us with a rebuttal of our evidence or providing us with a plan to come into compliance with the Act. Failure to provide a meaningful rebuttal or an effective plan will result in my recommendation to Commissioners to hold a show-cause hearing. I look forward to your response by 12:00 pm, February 3, 2012.

“This is a historic day in Canadian tech and telecom history. This is a big win for not just Canadian Internet users but also for game developers, who have also been extremely frustrated with the use of throttling. We hope that the evidence uncovered today by the CRTC’s investigations will also help game developers improve online environments. Their product is being hindered by Cisco’s throttling equipment causing problems with connectivity and lag in a lot of gaming environments.” Co-Founder Jason Koblovsky stated.

Co-Founder Teresa Murphy added, “I think we’re all just glad that the CRTC looked further into the issue and essentially agreed with our October 14th response to the Commission where we stated other games and programs were being affected by faulty throttling equipment and software. Jason, myself, and I’m sure many other gamers on Rogers Cable Internet, are all looking forward to the day that this entire fiasco is resolved, as its been a long time coming now. I hope in the future, Rogers will run more extensive testing of their throttling rules before pushing them to all their systems. I also hope that in the future, if a Rogers employee promises to their customers that they’ll have the update reverted because it caused problems with multiple programs (as what happened in October 2010 on the Rogers forum on DSLReports.com – a forum which Rogers employees release official statements on), Rogers will actually follow through on the promise instead of leaving customers blowing in the wind.”

In other words, they got owned, hard.
Because I was curious, I pulled the PDF copy of the letter from
here

Letter Ottawa, 20 January 2012

Our Reference: 545613

BY EMAIL

Mr. Ken Thompson
Director and Counsel Copyright and Broadband Law
Rogers Communications Inc.
333 Bloor Street, East
Toronto, ON M4W 1G9
ken.thompson@rci.rogers.com

Dear Mr. Thompson:

Re: File 545613,
Internet Traffic Management Practice (“ITMP”),
Section 36 of the Telecommunications Act, S.C. 1993, c. 38, as amended (“Act”), and Paragraphs 126 and 127 of Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-657 (“TRP CRTC 2009-657”)

I am writing with respect to the above noted file that was transferred to the Compliance and Enforcement Sector by the Telecommunications Sector on October 27, 2011.

Compliance and Enforcement Sector staff has been reviewing this file since its referral to our sector. Based on the preliminary results of our ongoing investigation, Commission staff is of the belief that Rogers Communications Inc. (“Rogers”) applies a technical ITMP to unidentified traffic using default peer-to-peer (“P2P”) ports. On the basis of our evidence to date, any traffic from an unidentified time-sensitive application making use of P2P ports will be throttled resulting in noticeable degradation of such traffic. Enclosed please find a summary of our evidence. Full details, if necessary can be obtained by request through my office.

As you know, prior Commission approval is required pursuant to section 36 of the Act, as described at paragraphs 126 and 127 of TRP CRTC 2009-657, for implementing a technical ITMP that results in:

noticeable degradation to time-sensitive traffic, or
the slowing of non-time-sensitive traffic to the extent that it amounts to blocking the content and therefore controlling the content and influencing the meaning and purpose of the telecommunication.
Within two weeks, I look forward to you either presenting us with a rebuttal of our evidence or providing us with a plan to come into compliance with the Act. Failure to provide a meaningful rebuttal or an effective plan will result in my recommendation to Commissioners to hold a show-cause hearing. I look forward to your response by 12:00 pm, February 3, 2012.

Sincerely,

Andrea Rosen

Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer

Summary of Evidence

File 545613

This attachment summarizes evidence pursuant to the above noted file, which is an ongoing investigation of Rogers Communications Inc.’s (“Rogers”) Internet Traffic Management Practice (“ITMP”) by the Compliance and Enforcement Sector.

The Compliance and Enforcement Sector’s ongoing investigation includes examining a number of key performance indicators (“KPIs”), such as:

TCP resets, TCP syn/acks, connection status
Latency in milliseconds
TCP Window size
Packet loss
Packets per second
Average packet sizes
Retransmission of packets
Dropped connections
Active connections/sessions
Upstream available bandwidth limits
Packet sequence numbers
Other TCP and UDP traffic statistics and analysis.
As Cisco is Rogers’ vendor,1 the Compliance and Enforcement Sector had and continues to have tests conducted against information from the website of Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”). Preliminary testing results indicate that unidentified traffic using default P2P ports, as identified in the Cisco SCA BB Protocol Reference Guide,2 is throttled. Such results further indicate that:

default P2P ports for TCP traffic are subject to throttling, except port 6969, and
until December 20, 2011, all default P2P ports for UDP traffic were subject to throttling.
Compliance and Enforcement Sector staff also notes Rogers’ disclosure of its network management policy, which indicates that an application may not attain full speed if encrypted and not using a standard port for the application/protocol in question.3 Moreover, while Rogers has stated that misclassification occurs in only a few cases,4 staff notes that Cisco identifies various applications that may have been misclassified.5

——————————————————————————–

1 Rogers letter dated September 27, 2011, at 3.

2 Cisco SCA BB Protocol Reference Guide: protocol_ref_guide/protocol_ref_guide.html> [Cisco SCA BB Protocol Reference Guide].

3 Rogers Network Management Policy: [Rogers Network Management Policy].

4 Rogers letter, supra note 1 at 3.

5 Cisco Service Control Application for Broadband Protocol Pack Notes, available online: protocol_pack/PP_Note_current.html> [Cisco PP Notes].

So I monitored this story to it’s conclusion this February, and we have a
promise
from rogers indicating they’d stop throttling by the end of 2012.

Rogers promises to end internet throttling
Phased-in approach will begin next month, with all customers included by end of year
Prithi Yelaja CBC News Posted: Feb 3, 2012 3:33 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 3, 2012 6:55 PM ET
Rogers has decided to end internet throttling by the end of this year in response to a CRTC probe.
net throttling?Rogers has promised to stop “throttling” internet traffic on its network by the end of this year, in response to an investigation by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

In a letter to the CRTC Friday, Rogers stated it would stop all traffic shaping including bandwidth throttling — limiting a user’s upload or download speeds — through a phased-in approach that is to begin next month.

“New technologies and ongoing investments in network capacity will allow Rogers to begin phasing out that policy starting in March 2012,” wrote Kenneth Engelhart, senior vice-president of regulatory affairs.

“These changes will be introduced to half of Rogers existing internet customers by June 2012 and to its remaining customers by December 2012.”

The move follows a similar decision by Bell to cease throttling on its network starting March 1.

Internet traffic management
Internet traffic management refers to techniques used by network managers to slow down some types of traffic in favour of others. In particular, some internet service providers say they slow down applications that use large amounts of bandwidth, but don’t dramatically affect the user’s ability to use the application when they are slowed down, such as peer-to-peer file sharing.

They say that allows them to guarantee higher speeds and better quality of service for time-sensitive applications such as video streaming that don’t work properly when they are slowed down. However, problems can arise if the technology used to distinguish different types of applications mistakenly classifies time-sensitive traffic as peer-to-peer.
“This is a huge step for internet openness in Canada, and [comes] after a long uphill battle with big telecom,” said Steve Anderson of OpenMedia.ca, a grassroots advocacy group that has protested usage-based billing and is credited with preventing bills allowing electronic surveillance from being tied into the government’s omnibus crime bill.

“Within months of one another Bell and Rogers have announced that they will stop throttling the internet and limiting online choice. This has been a long time coming — more and more Canadians are up in arms about threats to internet openness, and it’s about time that big telecom bends to the public interest.”

OpenMedia.ca pushed for and won Internet openness rules in 2009, but has since been pushing for enforcement of those rules, said Anderson.

“The consumer complaints process is the sole mechanism in place and Rogers’ response to the CRTC represents a potential first step in changing this broken system,” he said.

However, Jason Koblovsky, founder of the Canadian Gamers Organization had some concerns about Rogers’ intention to end throttling.

“Rogers failed to provide the CRTC with technical data as to which games and applications they have tested themselves. Without the technical data from their tests on online games, [we] worry that Rogers’ response may be an attempt to mislead the CRTC and the public. We continue to call on Rogers to make these numbers public,” Koblovsky said.

Last month, the CRTC notified Rogers it was violating federal net neutrality rules by deliberately slowing or throttling time-sensitive internet traffic, specifically online games.

The CRTC based its findings on the results of an investigation in collaboration with Cisco Systems, the hardware and software vendor that Rogers uses.

The probe was launched last year after a complaint by the Canadian Gamers Organization that accused Rogers of hindering online games, such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty: Black Ops, in violation of the federal regulator’s guidelines.

The Telecommunications Act and CRTC regulations allow throttling of peer-to-peer file sharing programs like BitTorrent, but not of time-sensitive internet traffic like video chatting or gaming.

Rogers had until Friday to either rebut the evidence gathered by the probe or provide the CRTC with a plan to comply with the act — or face a hearing on the matter.

As part of its rebuttal, Rogers said it would cease all traffic shaping by the end of 2012.

The company successfully dealt with the issue of throttling last March, and the CRTC’s “tests were of an issue that had nothing to do with gaming,” Engelhart told CBC News in a phone interview Friday.

“We’re pretty confident we solved those problems last year,” he said.

However, “out of an abundance of caution we have toggled the equipment so it does not slow down unclassified traffic on peer-to-peer file sharing ports.”

What’s this tell me about the major cable provider?
They can’t manage their network to save their lives, they’re looking for ways out and not providing all the data, because they want to Hhide.
As this year progresses, we’ll soon see what changes are committed to the network over the year.
Happy commenting.

browsing twitter, I ran across This article that annoys me. According to the article apple will be adding even more restrictions on their apps, in what they can access on the mac computers as of march 2012. Their calling it the “sandbox”. I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll soon be seing jailbroken mac OS lions soon to remove all these stupid restrictions, just like the iphone and IOS has.
We’ll soon see, but until then, sorry I’m not getting a mac, apple can ram it right up their asses.
I want complete, unrestricted access to my computer and it’s functions, and not be dictated to by a company on what my application or applications can or cannot access, thank you very freakin’ much.
I shouldn’t have to justify why I have to have access to the interfaces for the network cards, or the local folders to read and write to, it’s unnecessary and in my opinion uncalled for. Yes the app stores the only place people may go to get apps now, but just like the IOS app store, their will come out jailbroken versions of the OS that’ll remove the sandbox restrictions, and let non app store applications work again. In the beginning we won’t need it according to the article, because applications that aren’t in the mac app store will still work, but the sad fact is sooner or later apple will remove all ability to run applications not bought through the mac app store, and then it’ll be jailbreak time, kids. The comment boards await you.
Note to the appleheads, I don’t want to here wining that I don’t give mac’s a chance, I want constructive prooven with fact responses, not that I’m just a stupid windows user with absolutely no mac experience.

Hello all;
All of you may have heard about the demise of the
qwitter
project developed and maintained by
christopher
If not. I’ll simply quote the
qwitter_hg
twitter accounts last post.

Qwitter Mercurial: Q: Closing up shop, it’s been fun.: 13 hours ago 9/19/2011 11:08:07 AM Qwitter Client

after reading that, I got curious and poked around Q’s timeline and the thoughts that ran through my head were mixed.
I was composing in my head a response I was going to put up here, outlining my thoughts and views, but
JonathanMosen
did a much better job of it then I could ever do. So I’ll simply quote his ressitation who’s original can be found
over here.

Billy Joel once said, “I once believed in causes too, and had my pointless point of view, but life when on no matter who was wrong or right”. I was mindful of this as I saw the considerable volume of tweets exchanged over the apparent halt to development of the Qwitter client, the Twitter client for Windows designed specifically for blind people. I say apparent, because this is in my recollection the third time such a threat has been made, so I suppose only time will tell if this one is real or not. Initially, I felt compelled to comment, then I decided there was no point, and now finally, I’ve felt moved to write an extended post about this subject because I think the conduct of a number of people in the latest Twitter drama represents a pattern that is all too typical in the on-line blind community.

Although I have been using Twitter since 2007, I actually was a late adopter of the Qwitter client, beginning to use it in around November of 2009. My reason for this was because I felt uncomfortable with the aggressive online behaviour of its lead developer. A friend of mine convinced me that it was appropriate to separate the behaviour of the developer from the quality of the application, and there’s absolutely no doubt that the software is first class. It is a feature-rich, efficient means of interacting with Twitter. Without Qwitter, I am sure much fewer blind people would be using Twitter so regularly. The award given to Chris by ACB this year recognises all of this, and that recognition is richly deserved.

I have, however, remained very disappointed by the extraordinary rudeness, even contempt, that Chris has shown to many users who have made suggestions or come to him for advice. I am mindful that I am making these comments with around 20 more years on the planet than him, and in this case I think that does make a difference. I hope that if Chris is unfortunate enough to be able to review some of his tweets in 20 years time, he will do so with genuine regret. What makes our world so diverse and interesting, is that we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Some people can write code, others conceptualise great user interfaces, others struggle with very basic computer concepts that just come naturally to some. Abrupt, rude, confrontational replies, many of which give the impression that the program’s author is somehow superior to or better than his fellow blind people are hardly going to remain unremarked upon.

Developing software is of course a very different skill from supporting it. Chris is obviously superb at the former. With a bit more good will towards people, I’m very confident the Qwitter Support account could have had a large number of volunteers, and Chris could have politely directed users to that account. We can wish that users would RTFM all we want, some simply will not, it is the reality of software development, and nothing is going to change that. Nor does the fact that the software is free make it any more acceptable to treat end users with rudeness.

Chris is, of course, absolutely right that there is a high proportion of blind Twitter users who are unemployed, may have difficulty getting out and about due to financial or transportation issues, and who therefore have plenty of time to generate Twitter drama. We do have a very high unemployment rate. Just as with sighted people, there are those who have never tried to find a job, those who in the current climate have become demoralised and have given up, those who spend hours every day looking for that big break. We seldom know each other’s stories, and it is sad when we choose to make very personal, sweeping assumptions. We do tend to sew what we reap. If we dish out confrontation on Twitter, chances are very high that confrontation will come right back at us. And it has been rather like watching a school bully crying when one little kid finally plucks up the courage to hit back, to see the lead Qwitter developer complaining when some of the hurt he has caused others comes back to him.

Does that make the behaviour of those who’ve responded in that way right or justified? Of course not. The best response to confrontation is often no response at all. Various Twitter characters in the blind community who’ve come and gone, have thrived on the fact that they know which buttons to push to get a reaction. Stop responding to them, and they’d have become bored and gone away long ago.

Then there is of course what we in New Zealand call the tall poppy syndrome. There is no doubt that Chris has considerable talent. In the blind community, we are good at building people up, to tear them down. Confrontational behaviour notwithstanding, there are some people who have sought to make his life a misery, almost as if they resent what he has been able to achieve. More than that, they are jealous of it.

Developing an app such as Qwitter obviously involves a very significant commitment of time. It has not completely been a labour of love, however. I haven’t taken the time to go back and do the sums, but I know I’ve personally donated at least US$100 to Qwitter, and that many others have donated what they can. I don’t regret doing so for a moment, nor do I expect that donations have created any kind of contract, expressed or implied, that Qwitter’s development would continue indefinitely. I raise this to simply point out that while a few users may have been vexatious, some provoked, some not, the project hasn’t been totally without its financial compensation.

Whether a piece of software is commercial or not, there is no guarantee that its development will continue forever. There are many examples of software used by a large number of people where development has simply stopped. Microsoft Money is a case in point. The issue I have is the point in the development cycle at which Qwitter development is apparently ceasing. It is in beta right now. Because it is beta software, there are problems, as one would expect. Does Chris have a legal obligation of any kind to tidy up the critical bugs? Of course not. He can walk away whenever he likes, and apparently has. The question is one of moral obligation, and of his personal brand. Would I be as willing to support any future project, commercial or otherwise, by a developer who leaves a user base in the lurch like this? No, I’d think twice, because I don’t believe that this is an ethical way to treat people. Anything we do online impacts on our personal brand. If we’re abusive, people make a mental note of that. If we walk away because a few people, again some provoked, some not, have been abusive, even though the majority of us have been supportive with our praise and with our wallets, then that leaves a sour taste and a reputation that is hard to recover.

Whether you volunteer or not should not make a difference to one’s conduct. I’ve volunteered over many years for a range of positions, including leading New Zealand’s blindness consumer organisation which would be the equivalent of NFB and ACB, serving on various committees, and of course managing Internet radio projects like Mushroom FM. In all of those cases, the work involved has been considerable. It’s involved a huge investment of time and effort. And there are times when circumstances require you to walk away. But if you have to do that, you should do so by tidying up as many of the loose ends as you possibly can.

I don’t begrudge for one second the fact that Chris may have concluded that he has better things to do with his life, that it’s just not rewarding anymore. If you are copping a lot of abuse, especially when you’re younger, it’s hard to shrug that off, and easy to say, why on earth am I bothering. My only issue is that I hope he will recognise how his own conduct as contributed in part to some of the grief that has come his way, and that to protect his reputation, he at least get Qwitter 5 to a production release and make it clear that that’s the end of the project. If he does not, then I fear the bad taste the half finished Qwitter project has left in so many mouths will continue to haunt him. That would be a pity when he is clearly such a gifted young man.

As for the rest of us, maybe there’s a good number of us who might like to think twice before joining in the flame war. Most of us in the blind community are online in such a way that our interactions are filtered to us through a mechanical sounding speech synthesiser. It is easy for us to forget that the tweet we send in a quick burst of anger or sarcasm may be the one that tips a real human being with feelings over the edge. We don’t know what else is going on in their lives, how they may be feeling. If we showed a little more on-line empathy, just empathy in general really, imagine how much of a peaceful place the online world would be.

I urge Chris to reconsider wrapping up the project in this stage in the cycle, but regardless, thank him sincerely for a very significant contribution to bringing blind people around the world closer together, and assisting us to interact with equal efficiency with our sighted peers.

A few final thoughts.
Is qwitter the only accessible client on windows?
No, it’s not.
Their are others like
TWInbox
that can do the basics.
Yes, not as feature rich, but qwitter’s development cycle ending isn’t the end all of twitter for the blind community.
Would I, like Jonathan, think twice about supporting another project, weather free or paid put out by this individual if he doesn’t at least take qwitter 5.0 to a stable release before shutting down?
Yes, I honestly would reconsider ever supporting future projects developed by him because of the way he handled qwitter and it’s closure.
I understand open source, but leaving those in the blind community with extremely buggy code because your being a nazi and don’t want to at least head for a final release before giving up is insane, and rediculous.
What are others thoughts and views.
I’d love to here what you have to say on this, spoken in a constructive, adult manner.
No childish bashing.
Constructive critisisms and pieceful debate are the name of the game.
See you on the comment boards.

We start out today… with yet another clue.
This is what… the 2nd day in a row?
Doing the morning cruise through RSS feeds, we find a mother that got charged for an amber alert, why? because the mother decided to use her kid as
insurance
so a man would return her car.
Then she claimed the child was abducted, oh yeah, this is just brilliant.
Have the article in full.

The Elmira mother charged after the city’s first use of the Amber Alert system used her 3-year-old son as “insurance” when she loaned an acquaintance her car, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Stephanie A. Davila, 33, of South Walnut Street, was also accused of lying to police as they were looking for her son, Jacob Ryan Rubin Davila.
Law enforcement officials said the mother loaned her car to a man she didn’t know well and made him take the boy so he would return the vehicle.
The boy, who was reported missing Tuesday night, was found unharmed Wednesday morning at a motel room in Henrietta, a suburb of Rochester.
Stephanie Davila and the man accused of taking Jacob Davila, Quentin M. Singletary, 26, of Rochester, were both charged Wednesday with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. They are scheduled to appear at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Elmira City Court.
“Right now, I feel we’ve got appropriate charges filed,” Chemung County District Attorney Weeden Wetmore said Thursday, adding that he’d spoken in detail with Capt. Joe Kain, commander of the Elmira Detective Bureau, about the investigation.
The misdemeanor complaint against Stephanie Davila accuses her of misleading police as they looked for her son.
“When the patrol originally went over there, she flat-out told us it was an abduction of her child against her wishes,” Kain said.
That information led police to issue an Amber Alert, saying that Jacob Davila had been abducted, Kain said.
“It wasn’t until we interviewed some of her other kids, and some of the information was able to be obtained to find out that she actually did give him (Singletary) consent to take her car and one of her children,” Kain said.
Another charge may be coming: Wetmore said he may charge Singletary with unlawful imprisonment, but Davila’s actions the night Jacob Davila went missing might stand in the way.
“(Davila) insisted that (Singletary) take her son when he took the car, as insurance that he would return the car,” Wetmore said, adding that that was the reason for her charge.

“He never intended to kidnap (Jacob), or anything. He just took the kid and went to do his business in Rochester,” Wetmore said.

Wetmore said he charged Singletary with endangering “because he had the kid legitimately, but for whatever reason he decided to go off to Rochester.”
Wetmore said he didn’t know why Singletary went to Rochester with Jacob Davila, and said Stephanie Davila also didn’t know.
“She didn’t want to know what his business was,” Wetmore said.
“According to her, she thought he was just going to a local Burger King. She let her son go off.”
Kain said there is no evidence Singletary’s trip to Rochester was related to drug trafficking.
He said there may have been some drug paraphernalia in the motel room in Henrietta where deputies found the boy, but Singletary and Jacob Davila had only been in that room for a few minutes. He said they stayed in a different room at the motel.
When deputies found Jacob Davila, they questioned Singletary, one man and two women.
Kain said the three other adults whom deputies found in the room “knew nothing about Quentin Singletary … abducting a kid or anything like that. They knew (Jacob) as his girl’s baby, so they never questioned anything about it. He just kind of hung out up there with them.”
Though the three other adults in the motel room may have thought the boy belonged to Singletary’s girlfriend, Kain said he didn’t know whether he and Stephanie Davila actually had a romantic relationship.
He said the two met about two weeks ago and had seen each other a few times since then.
“Quentin didn’t even know the boy’s name,” Kain said. “If he had to think for a while, it would come to him. … (Davila) doesn’t know him; he doesn’t know nothing about her.
“That’s his lifestyle, just come and go and do his own thing. He’s not accountable to anybody …,” Kain said.
Kain said Singletary has a criminal history but didn’t elaborate except to say that Singletary had never been arrested in Elmira.
Police said they fielded perhaps thousands of calls after issuing the Amber Alert. Kain said two of those callers provided information that helped locate Jacob Davila. He said he planned to talk to both.
“They did an outstanding job and it helped us out immensely, so I’d like to commend them in whatever way I can,” Kain said.
“It’s nice when people step up and do the right thing, especially when it’s a good cause: the protecting and the saving of a little kid.”

So in short, the man in question, Kain, isn’t being charged, unless I’m missing something, and the mother is.
Please do be taking the rest of her kids to, ok?
Related: I hate stupid people, stop failing, please? thanks.

and here, we go again.
TSA, seriously
agaain

The 50-year-old pilot, who lives outside Sacramento, asked that neither he nor his airline be identified. He has worked for the airline for more than a decade and was deputized by the TSA to carry a gun in the cockpit.

He is also a helicopter test pilot in the Army Reserve and flew missions for the United Nations in Macedonia.

Three days after he posted a series of six video clips recorded with a cell phone camera at San Francisco International Airport, four federal air marshals and two sheriff’s deputies arrived at his house to confiscate his federally-issued firearm. The pilot recorded that event as well and provided all the video to News10.

At the same time as the federal marshals took the pilot’s gun, a deputy sheriff asked him to surrender his state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A follow-up letter from the sheriff’s department said the CCW permit would be reevaluated following the outcome of the federal investigation.

The YouTube videos, posted Nov. 28, show what the pilot calls the irony of flight crews being forced to go through TSA screening while ground crew who service the aircraft are able to access secure areas simply by swiping a card.

“As you can see, airport security is kind of a farce. It’s only smoke and mirrors so you people believe there is actually something going on here,” the pilot narrates.

Video shot in the cockpit shows a medieval-looking rescue ax available on the flight deck after the pilots have gone through the metal detectors. “I would say a two-foot crash ax looks a lot more formidable than a box cutter,” the pilot remarked.

A letter from the TSA dated Dec. 6 informed the pilot that “an administrative review into your deputation status as a Federal Flight Deck Officer has been initiated.”

According to the letter, the review was directly related to the discovery by TSA staff of the YouTube videos. “The content and subject of these videos may have violated regulations concerning disclosure of sensitive security information,” the letter said.

The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno of Santa Ana, said he believed the federal government sent six people to the house to send a message.

“And the message was you’ve angered us by telling the truth and by showing America that there are major security problems despite the fact that we’ve spent billions of dollars allegedly to improve airline safety,” Werno said.

The pilot said he is not in trouble with his airline, but a supervisor asked him to remove public access to the YouTube videos.

He does, however, face potential civil penalties from the TSA. He said he would likely go public when it becomes clear what the government plans to do with him.
He still hasn't gone public, but further research indicates he did resign as an FFDO. from this article we have:

The pilot said he had resigned his position as an FFDO and was told by a TSA representative the resignation would result in the case being closed. The pilot’s attorney, Don Werno, said he was waiting for formal written confirmation.

In my opinion, why should he have to resign his job, because he showed flaws in a security system? it doesn’t make sense.
from the same article we have this

Current regulations require flight crews to pass through a TSA checkpoint, while ground crews can gain access to the same aircraft simply by swiping a card at an unmanned door.

“How effective is security when everybody on board is screened and everybody on the ground isn’t?” the pilot asked.

How safe do I feel now knowing that?
Should the ground crew not go through *the exact* same screening everyone else does?
I stand behind my previous claims, I’ll stay with greyhound, at least, until such time, as stuff like this is put in place for ground transportation.
Then I may just stop traveling crossboarder all together.
TSA, kindly, die.

a note to a list moderator;
Please kindly stop acting like a fucking prick to me.
your not god, and never will be.
Teling me repeatedly that a topics off topic on a *tech* list when it’s not then banning me after the list owner specifically told you not to, is a violation of your moderator privilidges.
I hope you never become a moderator again.
I’m glad you got your ass fired.
with no love,
me.

Me and my rss scrolling catching up on the past day’s worth of feeds since the 19th, brought me to this
article
regarding an $80-million lawsuit that Jo-Anne Blair is filing against both the housing company and the property management company of the building on 200 welsley street.
As you may or may not know, some 1500+ people were ripped from their homes back in september when a massive 6 alarm blaze ripped through this downtown highrise.
I personally know one person that’s been effected in this building, but you, my dear readers, may no many, many more.
What brought this to my attention was the article that
680 news
referenced.
That national post article is linked
here
and quoted below in it’s entirety.
My comments and thoughts will follow the article.

Wellesley fire victim files $80-million lawsuit

Aaron Lynett/National Post
Jo-Anne Blair stands outside of her fire-damaged building at 200 Wellesley Street East in Toronto, Friday evening, November 12, 2010. Blair has filed a class action lawsuit against Toronto Community Housing over the fire.
December 18, 2010 – 10:00 am

Jo-Anne Blair has a hard time sleeping at night. She constantly checks to see that her smoke alarm is working. The wail of a fire truck sends her into a fit of panic and she smells things burning even when nothing is.

It has been nearly three months since a fire ripped through a high-rise building on Wellesley Street and forced some 1,500 people to flee their homes. Most have been able to return, but not Ms. Blair, who lived across the hall from the purported epicentre of the blaze. She was marooned on her balcony for six hours before firefighters gave her a thumbs-up through the sliding door and escorted her out through water that came up past their ankles.

A week later, Toronto Community Housing had relocated her to a townhouse near Main and Danforth, where she’s had to “beg, borrow and steal to get some furniture to sit on.” Grateful for her share of the donations collected from across the city, she longs to return home.“You can sit at your table in the morning and can have your coffee. You go to bed at night and you have your own pillow,” said Ms. Blair, a former bookkeeper who lived at 200 Wellesley since 1984. “When you get up in the morning, do you look at your children’s pictures [or] your personals that belong to you?”

She is spearheading a lawsuit against Toronto Community Housing Corporation, which owns the complex, and Greenwin Property Management, which looked after it, alleging they breached their duty of care. She is suing both parties for $80-million, with the intent that the proceedings are certified as a class-action.

Ashley Hutcheson for National Post
.In a statement of claim filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Ms. Blair alleges that she, “on several occasions,” alerted Greenwin to the potential fire hazard caused by a neighbour’s “hoarding” of stacks of paper and other material.

Fire officials initially said a lot of combustible material in a unit on the 24th floor appeared to be fuelling the flames, but the cause remains unknown. The Office of the Ontario Fire Marshall is investigating.
“Notwithstanding these warnings, Greenwin failed to make any, or did make inadequate attempts, if any, to remedy the problem,” according to the statement of claim. It alleges the defendants failed to keep the building up to fire, or safety codes (her fire alarm did not go off) and didn’t help occupants obtain adequate shelter, food or medicine in the aftermath of the crisis.

“It’s not about being uncaring, because I don’t think TCHC is uncaring. I think they care, they’re in the social housing business,” said Brian Shell, Ms. Blair’s lawyer. “I think it’s about the inability to effectively reach out to the community at a moment of high stress and tension. It may be an issue of expertise, or it may be just an issue of lack of creativity. Too many things going on. They are focused on how to figure out how to dry off the building, but they’ve forgotten they have hundreds of people spread out across the city.”

A spokesman for Greenwin said it was “prudent” not to comment on a matter that is before the courts. Mitzie Hunter, chief administrator for the housing authority, similarly would not discuss allegations made in the suit.

She said TCH has done everything in its power to help.

“We’ve provided alternative housing, food vouchers, transit passes. Immediately following, there was assistance through the Canadian Red Cross, the Salvation Army, all of the agencies throughout the city. So we certainly want to ensure that tenants have the support they need,” said Ms. Hunter. Toronto public health has been on scene, she said, there is an onsite information desk, a 24-hour hotline and frequent newsletter updates.

In recent weeks, TCH has also offered tenants a voluntary compensation package, while admitting no liability. Tenants who live in a bachelor apartment are eligible to receive $3,300; a two bedroom gets $5,300, plus additional amounts for each occupant for the unit. They have until Jan. 21 to sign up for a cheque. In exchange, tenants give up their right to participate in the class-action suit, which lawyers say is unlikely to be certified before the Jan. 21 deadline.

“We’ve offered to help on a compassionate basis so that tenants can return to their normal lives as soon as possible,” said Ms. Hunter, who noted that former Chief Justice of Ontario Roy McMurtry, Senior Counsel for TCH solicitors Gowlings, has endorsed the plan over what could be an otherwise lengthy legal battle.

Ms. Blair may very well be reliving the day for much longer.

“To this day I will never ever be placed in another apartment. I don’t trust anybody with anything. I’m constantly having nightmares like I’m trapped and I can’t get out.”

I can understand the stress, the heartache, and the sense of loss that accompanies such a tragidy.
What I can’t understand is, why this individual feels that on top of the already high stress levels on both the tennants, and the management/property management companies, does she think she needs to file a lawsuit?
Reading the article above, and having been following this since the morning of the fire in question, I feel that everyone that can do something, has done all they can, and will continue to provide as much aid, and help as needed to bring all the tennants back to their homes.
We may never know what started this fire, or who’s responsible for it, but ladies and gentlemen, common sense should prevale in this troubling time, and instead of suing people, find ways to survive, and allow the company(s) to get back to the job of bringing you back to your home, or relocate you to another home.
TCHC, and it’s partners are doing everything in their power to get everyone back, and lawsuits like this, only slow the process.
I welcome your comments.

***note*** This post is based on factual information, and also will contain my opinion on the matters listed herein ***end note***
hello my faithful readers,
after:
This post
was posted on April 11th, 2009 I received a phone call on April 14th, 2009 from Eric Damery Vice president of blindness software products at freedom scientific stating that, no, Mr. Bryan carver did not send the message posted in that post, and can I please take it down because I was being spoofed by someone.
After receiving that call, I sent the following headers to Mr. Damery that show that indeed Mr. Carver did send this message that was in the post referenced above:

>
Delivered-To: va3duk@gmail.com
Received: by 10.103.223.18 with SMTP id a18cs371379mur;
Wed, 7 Apr 2009 10:42:26 -0800 (PST)
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Wed, 7 Apr 2009 10:42:18 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path:
Received: from partners.FreedomScientific.com (partners.freedomscientific.com [66.77.170.196])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 9si2359251qyk.56.2009.02.10.12.50.17;
Wed, 7 Apr 2009 10:42:18 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of Bcarver@freedomscientific.com designates 66.77.170.196 as permitted sender) client-ip=66.77.170.196;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of Bcarver@freedomscientific.com designates 66.77.170.196 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=Bcarver@freedomscientific.com
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Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=”—-_=_NextPart_001_01C98BC1.2EB5F266″
Subject: your jaws license .
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2009 10:42:18 -0500
Message-ID:
From: “Bryan Carver”
To: “Shane Davidson”

He calls me back and still tells me that Mr. Carver did not send this message, their are inconsistancies in capatilizations of the signature, this isn’t how his signature looks, on and on and on and on it goes and he is still insisting I remove the post.
Dear faithful reader, you’ve seen the headers, and those with an incling of technical knowledge know just as well as I do that headers, can not be faked unless you really really know what your doing.
I am stating here and now, that in my *opinion* freedom scientific is scared, they don’t want to here the customers opinion because it gives them bad PR, but I’m sorry to say, I will continue to state my opinion, and post the facts as I see it, because I don’t work for them, and I’ll gladly use the compitition and tell you exactly what I think of your products, weather you like it or not.
So I *will* not remove the post, the post remains as is.
I have a right to post the facts as I see it and I am excersising that right as a canadian citizen and as a consumer and freedom scientific will have to deal with it.
Now, if I receive an official seese and desist letter telling me to do something about it, I may or may not, we’ll just have to see when that time arrives.
Thank you all for reading and have a great night and I look forward to your comments on this ever expanding issue.