As some of you know, I am now a BzzAgent. Working with Bzz allows me to try new products for free or at discounted rates. All that they ask is that I use the products, review them honestly, and then share those views with friends, family, and the general public. With that in mind, I’m also going to use this space to share my adventures with the various products I am asked to try. If you’d like to be a BzzAgent as well, drop me a line here, and I’ll see about getting you hooked up with Bzz.

In addition, I will be updating this more often (famous last words, I know) with more about my homelife, my housework, my career ambitions…and those news stories that get under my skin.

And so, onward!

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-health/20080708/MED.Autism.Research/

Fringe autism treatment could get federal study

Wed Jul 9, 7:46 AM EDT

Pressured by desperate parents, government researchers are pushing to test an unproven treatment on autistic children, a move some scientists see as an unethical experiment in voodoo medicine.

The treatment removes heavy metals from the body and is based on the fringe theory that mercury in vaccines triggers autism — a theory never proved and rejected by mainstream science. Mercury hasn’t been in childhood vaccines since 2001, except for certain flu shots.

But many parents of autistic children are believers, and the head of the National Institute of Mental Health supports testing it on children provided the tests are safe.

“So many moms have said, `It’s saved my kids,'” institute director Dr. Thomas Insel said.

For now, the proposed study, not widely known outside the community of autism research and advocacy groups, has been put on hold because of safety concerns, Insel told The Associated Press.

The process, called chelation, is used to treat lead poisoning. Studies of adults have shown it to be ineffective unless there are high levels of metals in the blood. Any study in children would have to exclude those with high levels of lead or mercury, which would require treatment and preclude using a placebo.

One of the drugs used for chelation, DMSA, can cause side effects including rashes and low white blood cell count. And there is evidence chelation may redistribute metals in the body, perhaps even into the central nervous system.

“I don’t really know why we have to do this in helpless children,” said Ellen Silbergeld of Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was invited to comment on the study to a review board of the national institute.

Despite lawsuits and at least one child’s death, several thousand autistic children are already believed to be using chelation (pronounced kee-LAY’-shun), their parents not content to wait for a study.

Among those parents is Christina Blakey of suburban Chicago, who uses chelation and a variety of other alternative therapies, including sessions in a hyperbaric chamber, on her 8-year-old son, Charlie.

Before he started chelation at age 5, Charlie suffered tantrums. When she took him to school, she had to peel him off her body and walk away. But three weeks after he began chelation, his behavior changed, she said.

“He lined up with his friends at school. He looked at me and waved and gave me a thumbs-up sign and walked into school,” Blakey said. “All the moms who had been watching burst into tears. All of us did.”

There is no way to prove whether chelation made a difference or whether Charlie simply adjusted to the school routine.

Autism is a spectrum of disorders that hamper a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others. Most doctors believe there is no cure.

Conventional treatments are limited to behavioral therapy and a few medications, such as the schizophrenia drug Risperdal, approved to treat irritability.

Frustrated parents use more than 300 alternative treatments, most with little or no scientific evidence backing them up, according to the Interactive Autism Network at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Md.

“With a lot of mothers, if they hear about a treatment, they feel like they need to try it,” said project director Dr. Paul Law. “Anything that has a chance of benefiting their child, they’re willing to give it a shot.”

More than 2 percent of the children tracked by the project use chelation. If that figure holds for the general population, it would mean more than 3,000 autistic children are on the treatment at any time in the United States.

Chelation drugs can be taken in pill form, by rectal suppository and intravenously.

Dr. Susan Swedo, who heads the federal institute’s in-house autism research and wants to study chelation, gained notoriety by theorizing that strep throat had caused some cases of obsessive compulsive disorder. The theory was never proved.

She proposed recruiting 120 autistic children ages 4 to 10 and giving half DMSA and the other half a dummy pill. The 12-week test would measure before-and-after blood mercury levels and autism symptoms.

The study outline says that failing to find a difference between the two groups would counteract “anecdotal reports and widespread belief” that chelation works.

But the study was put on hold for safety concerns after an animal study, published last year, linked DMSA to lasting brain problems in rats. It remains under review, Insel told the AP.

Insel said he has come to believe after listening to parents that traditional scientific research, building incrementally on animal studies and published papers, wasn’t answering questions fast enough.

“This is an urgent set of questions,” Insel said. “Let’s make innovation the centerpiece of this effort as we study autism, its causes and treatments, and think of what we may be missing.”

Last year, the National Institutes of Health spent less than 5 percent of its $127 million autism research budget on alternative therapies, Insel said. He said he is hopeful the chelation study will be approved.

Others say it would be unethical, even if it proves chelation doesn’t work.

Federal research agencies must “bring reason to science” without “catering to a public misperception,” said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and author of an upcoming book on autism research. “Science has been trumped by politics in some ways.”

Offit is concerned vaccination rates may fall to dangerous levels because some parents believe they cause autism.

Dr. Martin Myers, former director of the federal National Vaccine Program Office, said he believes giving chelation to autistic children is unethical — but says the government can justify the study because so many parents are using chelation without scientific evidence.

“It’s incumbent on the scientific community to evaluate it,” he said.

Actress Jenny McCarthy, whose bestseller “Louder Than Words” details her search for treatments for her autistic son, Evan, told thousands of parents at a recent autism conference outside Chicago that she plans to try chelation on him this summer.

“A lot of people are scared to chelate … but it has triggered many recoveries,” she said.

But those claims are only anecdotal, and there are serious risks.

Of the several drugs used in chelation, the only one recommended for intravenous use in children is edetate calcium disodium. Mixups with another drug with a similar name, edetate disodium, have led to three deaths, including one autistic child.

A 5-year-old autistic boy went into cardiac arrest and died after he was given IV chelation therapy in 2005. A Pennsylvania doctor is being sued by the boy’s parents for allegedly giving the wrong drug and using a risky technique.

No deaths have been associated with DMSA, which can cause rashes, low white blood cell count and vomiting. It is also sold as a dietary supplement, which is how some parents of autistic children get it.

A Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said the agency is “is looking into how these products are marketed.”

___

On the Net:

National Institute of Mental Health: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

If it works and it doesn’t harm the majority of children, I think it should be given as an option to treat autism. Outside of that, I used to care for a boy with pretty bad autism. It wasn’t bad to the point where he was unable to control his bowels, but it was pretty bad. After I left that job, his parents got him enrolled in a really good daycare, and his autism decreased in its severity.

Chelation has been used to treat heavy metal poisoning in adults for years…it makes me nervous to use it in kids, but if it works and causes very little damage, then…

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/06/victorias_secret_bra_blamed_fo.html

Victoria’s Secret bra blamed for woman’s rash; formaldehyde suspected

Posted by James F. McCarty June 27, 2008 18:18PM

Roberta Ritter of Parma thinks she knows Victoria’s Secret, and she wants everyone else to know it, too.

Ritter, 36, contends in a class-action lawsuit that the intimate apparel merchant sold her bras soaked in chemicals that caused itchy rashes and painful burns on her breasts.

She filed the lawsuit last month against Victoria’s Secret and its Columbus-based parent, the Limited Brands Inc., in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. A judge has yet to decide whether to grant the suit class-action status.

In court papers, attorney John Climaco accused Victoria’s Secret of peddling dangerous and defective products, of failing to warn customers about unhealthy potential side effects and of fraud and negligence for selling unfit merchandise.

“I don’t want any other women to have to go through what I did,” Ritter said in a phone interview on Friday.

A spokeswoman for Victoria’s Secret said the company is taking the complaints seriously and has launched an internal review.

“We will do everything we can to ensure our customers’ continued confidence in and satisfaction with our products,” said Tammy Roberts Myers in an e-mailed statement.

She said she believes the company will prevail in the lawsuit.

In January, Ritter bought two bras — a black satin Angels Secret Embrace and a pink satin Very Sexy push-up model — for $42 apiece from the Victoria’s Secret store at the Parmatown Mall.

She said her skin began to itch after she wore the bras for a few days. The itch turned into a rash, and the rash developed into ugly red painful welts that were hot to the touch, she said.

“I flipped out,” Ritter said. “I knew it had to be the bra. I had perfectly shaped burns where the cups were.”

Only then did she notice that her old reliable bras were made in India, but her new bras bore tags “Made in China.”

Ritter contacted Victoria’s Secret, where she said a service representative offered her replacement bras and a warning: “I guess you know what bras not to wear now.”

The company reps asked her to return the bras, but Ritter refused until she had figured out what had caused her skin problems.

A dermatologist told her the cause was likely formaldehyde, a chemical used as a preservative in fabrics to help retain their shapes.

Ritter said her skin problems went away after about a month of cortisone cream and aloe treatments. But her concerns remain.

“I tell you, that scared me,” Ritter said. “It put me out of commission for a month. I don’t want to ever go through that again.”

That is why you WASH your damned bras before you wear them! There are all sorts of chemicals that go into bra manufacturing, and only a complete MORON would wear a bra before washing it. If she did wash her bras before wearing them, she may have a case. If she didn’t, then she’s a moron, and she deserves nothing.

Common sense, people. Wearing any article of clothing without washing it first is like eating fresh fruits or vegetables without washing them first.

Also, I really hope that the bra tag said, “wash before wearing.” That would make it even more funny if she didn’t bother to wash them first.

Authorities Baffled Over Toddler Killing

Investigators Unsure Why Father With No Criminal Record Or Mental Illness Would Beat “Demons” From 2-Year-Old Son

TURLOCK, Calif., June 18, 2008

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/18/national/main4189884.shtml

(AP) Investigators struggled Tuesday to explain why a 27-year-old man with no criminal record and no apparent signs of mental illness savagely beat his toddler son to death on a dark country road.

Sergio Casian Aguiar, who worked at a supermarket in Turlock, was fatally shot by police Saturday night after he refused to stop attacking his 2-year-old son, according to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department.

Aguiar’s wife, Frances Liliana Casian, a kindergarten teacher, told detectives that she didn’t know why Aguiar would brutally beat their child and said he didn’t have any mental illness that she knew about, according to sheriff’s spokesman, Royjindar Singh. Casian and Aguiar had been separated.

Results from toxicology tests to determine if Aguiar was drunk or on drugs are expected in about four weeks.

Detectives have been interviewing friends, neighbors and family members, but they still haven’t found an explanation for the grisly killing, Singh said Tuesday.

“As of now, there’s still no reason why he did this,” Singh said. “Nobody said his behavior was strange at all. He was normal as far as they knew him.”

Aguiar had immigrated from Mexico, and family members will be traveling from abroad to make funeral arrangements and meet with Stanislaus County investigators, Singh said.

The boy was staying with his father over the weekend because his mother was out of town. Aguiar didn’t tell his roommate where he and his son were going when he left their house Saturday night, Singh said.

“We may never know why the suspect beat that child to death,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson told The Modesto Bee. “We hope to find out, but it’s going to take a lot more work.”

Witnesses said they saw Aguiar stomping, kicking and punching the toddler next to his pickup truck, which was parked on a remote, unlit road in rural Stanislaus County around 10 p.m. Saturday.

Deborah McKain, 51, who lives in nearby Crows Landing, and her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, were driving on West Bradbury Road, just outside the San Joaquin Valley town of Turlock, when they spotted Aguiar on the roadside.

She told the San Francisco Chronicle that at first she thought he was “kicking garbage or something,” but soon realized he was attacking a child. She said the child looked like a “rag doll,” unconscious with his clothes falling off. She estimated that she saw him kick or stomp the boy at least 100 times.

Robinson, a volunteer fire chief in Crows Landing, and at least one other man tried to pull Aguiar away from the boy, but the suspect kept attacking the toddler.

Robinson told reporters that “there was a total hollowness in his eyes” and that Aguiar spoke calmly when he said he was beating the “demons” out of the boy. At one point Aguiar asked Robinson for a knife.

Minutes after at least three 911 calls were placed – at 10:19 p.m. – officers in a sheriff’s helicopter landed in a nearby cow pasture. Modesto Police Officer Jerry Ramar jumped out, ran across a field to an electrified fence next to the road and ordered Aguiar to stop.

“Put your hands up. Step away from the baby,” Ramar said, according to Singh.

When Aguiar stuck out his middle finger and kept kicking the boy, Ramar fired his gun, killing the suspect with a shot in the forehead.

Two deputies tried unsuccessfully to perform CPR on the boy before he was rushed to Emanuel Medical Center in Turlock, where he was pronounced dead.

Ramar, who has been a law enforcement officer for more than six years, has been placed on paid administrative leave, a routine response for officer-involved shootings.

Because the boy was beaten beyond recognition, investigators plan to use DNA tests to confirm that the toddler was Aguiar’s son. They also plan to test blood that was found inside the cab of Aguiar’s Toyota pickup, said Christianson.

“This event didn’t start at Bradbury Road. The blood and other evidence leads us to believe the suspect may have ended up there, but the crime really started someplace else,” Christianson told the Bee. “That child probably suffered fatal injuries before the motorists arrived on the scene.”

Aguiar worked at a 24-hour FoodMaxx in Turlock, where he was described as a good employee, according to a company spokesman.

Ronda Donner, manager of the Mulberry Mobile Park in Turlock, where the family lived for a few years before they moved last year, said she was “blown away” by the news.

“Nice, no trouble. Their rent was always paid on time,” Donner told the Chronicle. “I’m still kind of shocked. He didn’t seem like that kind of person.”

Authorities said they had previously misspelled the perpetrator’s name as Aguilar.

© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I’m thinking he was either on drugs or punishing the kid’s mom…or possibly both. There was a reason that he and the baby’s mother weren’t together anymore…

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/17/MNO911A396.DTL&feed=rss.news

(06-17) 04:00 PDT Turlock, Stanislaus County — A 27-year-old grocery store worker who police say punched and kicked his 2-year-old son to death on a country road calmly told motorists who stopped at the scene that he had to “get the demons” out of the boy, two witnesses said Monday.

Sergio Casian Aguiar of Turlock told people who urged him to stop late Saturday that the boy was “trash,” the witnesses said. He asked for a knife at one point and, at another, said, “Look how they make toys now.”

And when a Modesto police officer jumped off a helicopter and ordered Aguiar to stop at gunpoint, he raised his middle finger and continued his attack.

Officer Jerry Ramar, standing in a cow pasture behind an electric fence, shot Aguiar once in the forehead, the witnesses and police said. Aguiar died at the scene.

“Good shot, thank God,” said Deborah McKain, a 51-year-old resident of nearby Crows Landing who pulled up to the beating scene on a cracked two-lane road while on her way home from dinner in Turlock, 10 miles to the northeast. “That guy needed to die.”

The reason a father with no criminal record would commit such a brutal killing was still a mystery on Monday. Authorities do not know whether Aguiar was drunk or on drugs, and toxicology reports on him and his son will not be available for three to four weeks, said sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Royjindar Singh.

The boy was beaten so savagely that DNA tests will be needed to confirm his identity, Singh said. His name has not been released.

The crime shocked this agricultural community and stunned those who knew Aguiar and his wife, Frances, who had recently separated from her husband. She was in Southern California when her son was killed.

Police said Aguiar had never been arrested. He worked at the 24-hour FoodMaxx in Turlock, where a company spokesman described him as a good employee whose co-workers were traumatized by what happened.

At the Mulberry Mobile Park, where Aguiar, his wife and his son lived in a trailer for a few years before moving last year, manager Ronda Donner said she was “blown away.”

“Nice, no trouble. Their rent was always paid on time,” Donner said while pruning trees on the property, where mobile homes encircle a parched island of grass. “I’m still kind of shocked. He didn’t seem like that kind of person.”

His wife lives in a modest apartment in Turlock. A bicycle, tricycle and a toy car sat outside Monday. No one was home.

McKain, of Crows Landing, said she drove past Sergio Aguiar’s pickup Saturday night on West Bradbury Road and, at first, thought he was “kicking garbage or something.”

But she said her boyfriend, Dan Robinson, told her to back up and put her headlights on Aguiar.

“Sure enough, he was kicking a baby around,” McKain said.

She said the child was unconscious, his clothes falling off, and looked liked a “rag doll.” Robinson, a volunteer fire chief in Crows Landing, showed Aguiar his badge and ordered him to stop, but Aguiar calmly said something like, “It’s just trash,” McKain said.

Aguiar also said, “Look how they make toys now,” McKain said, and at one point asked Robinson for a knife.

When Robinson went into the pickup to turn on the hazard lights, Aguiar stopped kicking the boy, helped him find the flashers, then went back to his attack, McKain said. She said there was blood in the truck’s cab.

McKain said her son, her son’s wife and her son’s friend were also there, as were a woman and a man who pulled up in separate cars. She estimated that she saw Aguiar kick or stomp his son at least 100 times, but she said no one tried to stop him because he appeared to be dangerous. One fear was that “maybe he had something in his pocket,” she said.

Also, McKain said, it was clear that “the baby was gone.”

Another witness, 23-year-old Lisa Mota, said Aguiar “wasn’t acting like a crazy person, running around or screaming. He said, ‘I’ve just got to get the demons out of him.’ He was very calm.’ “

Mota said she went to a counselor Monday to talk about what she saw but wasn’t ready to talk about it publicly.

“Even having witnessed it, I still can’t believe it happened,” she said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to leave my mind. For someone like me who is about to start a family, it’s a fear that there’s people out there like that – that even have the thought to kill a child.”

The roadway was still stained with blood Monday, and one neighbor had attached a teddy bear to a nearby stop sign.

Singh said authorities received several 911 calls about the beating just after 10 p.m. Saturday, and that the first officers to arrive were aboard a Sheriff’s Department helicopter that had been patrolling over Turlock. The pilot, a sheriff’s deputy, and Ramar, the Modesto police officer, landed in a cow pasture just off the roadway about 10:19 p.m., Singh said.

Ramar jumped from the helicopter before it touched down, ran about 20 yards toward Aguiar and, while standing behind the pasture’s fence, ordered him to stop beating the boy, Singh said.

McKain said Aguiar responded, “I’m not going to prison,” and when he raised his middle finger, Ramar fired.

E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Police fatally shoot Turlock man who beats toddler to death

The Associated Press –

Published 5:14 pm PDT Sunday, June 15, 2008

http://www.sacbee.com/102/story/1015583.html

TURLOCK — A Turlock man was fatally shot by police as he kicked, punched and stomped a young toddler to death in front of horrified motorists who tried to stop the attack on a dark country road, authorities said.

Investigators were trying Sunday to establish the relationship between the 27-year-old suspect and the dead child. The Stanislaus County coroner said the boy appeared to be between 1 and 2 years old based on his size, according to county sheriff’s deputy Royjindar Singh.

“It’s been a long night of wondering why, not only for the officers and the passers-by who stopped and tried to help out, but for anyone. Why would somebody do this?” Singh said.

The suspect had a child’s car seat in the back of his four-door pickup truck, which caught the attention of an elderly couple at 10:13 p.m. Saturday because it was stopped in the two-lane road facing the wrong direction, Singh said.

As they got closer, the couple saw the man brutally beating the toddler behind his truck and throwing the child on the ground, according to Singh. Two or three other cars stopped, an unusual number to be passing through the remote area surrounded by a dairy, a cow pasture, a cornfield and a farmhouse, he said.

“What we got from witnesses is he was punching, slapping, kicking, stomping, shaking,” Singh said. “They tried to intervene and get involved, but their efforts really didn’t have an effect. The suspect was engaged in what he was doing. He just pushed them off and went back to it.”

A sheriff’s helicopter responding to emergency calls from the area landed in a cow pasture at 10:19 p.m. carrying a Modesto police officer who shot the man to death after he refused an order to stop beating the child, Singh said.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate the toddler, who was not breathing when they arrived. The boy was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Singh said the coroner does not plan to confirm the identities of the suspect and victim until Monday. Because his injuries were so severe, the child will have to be identified through a blood or DNA test, according to Singh.

No children within the dead boy’s age range have been reported kidnapped or missing in Stanislaus County, he said.

The incident happened on Bradbury Road about 10 miles west of Turlock, a city located about halfway between Sacramento and Fresno.

I can’t find words for how shocked and appalled I am by what this man did. What makes matters worse is the thought that none of the people witnessing this mounted enough courage and strength to stop this guy from killing this poor, innocent, helpless child. I know quite a few people who aren’t fond of children, yet they would not stand idly by or just make a token effort to stop someone from doing something like this to a helpless baby; as a matter of fact, many of them would probably enjoy having an excuse to beat the shit out of a poor excuse for a human being like this baby-beating beast.

I also feel appalled at the amount of satisfaction I derived from the fact that the son of a bitch was shot and killed. Instead of praying that he prayed for repentance when he died, I found myself enjoying a mental image of an enraged Jesus Christ personally flinging the murderer into Hell. (For those readers who are not familiar with Jesus’s feelings about children, he loved them very, very much, and he even chewed out his followers when they drove away the children who wanted to see and talk to Jesus, because the children’s needs weren’t as important as those of the adults, in the minds of his followers. Jesus did not agree–in fact, he went so far as to say that the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to children. He also praised the purity of faith that every child has before they become world-weary, cynical, bitter adults. I could see the normally mellow and loving Jesus losing it over being faced with someone who murdered a child so brutally.)

I’d like to know why this asshole murdered this baby, but I most likely will never find out. It was probably something stupid, like the child crying because it was hungry or had a dirty diaper or missed its mother or something. Worse yet, the bastard might have decided that killing the baby was a great way to punish the mother…or a way to get out of his responsibilities, as I suspect he was either the child’s father or tied to the child’s mother somehow.

At least the kid’s in a better place now…but I’m sure that he or she had family that loved him or her and would have taken him or her if they knew that the kid was in danger.

Yes, it’s been awhile since my last blog, but I do have a logical excuse–I had a baby!

Samantha FINALLY came out, but only after I had emergency surgery. She was in distress and managed to get her umbilical cord around her neck, but Dr. M got her out before it did any damage. She was 9 and 9 on her APGARs…not that I was awake for that, since my epidural failed.

Anyway, Samantha’s been keeping me busy. She refuses to breastfeed, so I have to find time to pump, and since I don’t make enough milk, I have to supplement with formula. She doesn’t tolerate milk-based formula well, so I’ve been giving her soy. Ever since then, she hasn’t had pure liquid stool with every diaper…but I have noticed her growing towards the sun…

Speaking of things growing towards the sun, I’ve actually started a garden in my foyer. I don’t have a yard, but I have a foyer with lots of windows and a sunny southern exposure. The only bad thing about it is that Steve’s psychotic, senile parrot has his cage there, and he spooks over the most random things.

The store is doing better, and I’ve started trying to put out roots in the community. I have high hopes that I can get a better job without compromising Samantha’s care or paying out more than I bring in to get her in a good daycare. I’ve also joined several promising parenting communities, and I have hope that advertising The Lich’s Lair as the mom-and-pop-owned store that it is will bring in other parents in the community who are looking for something safe and positive for their children to enjoy.

The only thing that bothers me about the store is the idea that we won’t be able to get away to see my family. With my current job, I can’t get away at all without losing pay, since it has no paid time off. I also would have liked attending GenCon in Indy, but it doesn’t look like I’ll get a chance to do that, either, and it pisses me off. I have a blasted BA in English–I can do better than working for practically minimum wage and NO benefits doing tech support.

Samantha is six weeks old now, and she has started to roll. She also holds her head up on her own most of the time, and I’ve caught her wiggling in time to the SpongeBob Squarepants theme song. She also smiles when I sing, so I’ve gotten to the point where I sing for her to cheer her up when she gets cranky.

We also had a tornado rip through here on Saturday. Steve’s mother called us in a panic, but the tornado opted to skip our house and take I-80 instead. No one died, which was a miracle, considering how densely populated the area is. One would think that people would be glad to get off so easy, but noooo…people had to gripe about losing stuff and being without power. While I agree that losing stuff and not having electricity sucks, being alive and not losing any loved ones is a definite plus. Besides, there were 25000 people without electricity at the time, so it’s not as if it was just happening to one person.

*sigh* I guess that people around here so seldom see tornadoes that they have no idea how fucking lucky we were. I’m from Missouri, so I’ve ridden out a tornado or two in my time, but I know the kind of devastation that a tornado can bring. It was amusing to see how people around here freaked out, rather than keeping their heads about them, but it was also frustrating to hear all of the bitching about the material things that were lost. I mean, hell, from what I read and heard, no one even had to go to the hospital for tornado-related injuries.

Very. Fucking. Lucky.

Meanwhile, I’m minding the store while the customers play MechWarrior and Magic. Steve isn’t here, but that’s another story for another time…preferably after he gives me the rundown on his day, which he has described as quite possibly the worst day he’s had all year.

I almost told him that he had another six months to top it…but to be honest, I enjoy being alive… =p

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/fight.girlfriends.father.2.698553.html

Man Killed In Fight With Girlfriend’s Dad

CHICAGO (STNG) ? A 23-year-old man was killed in a fight with his girlfriend’s father Saturday afternoon on the West Side.

The 40-year-old father was taken into custody after the incident, and the case was initially being investigated as a homicide, but the father was later released without being charged.

Swantell McKinley, of 1416 S. Karlov Ave., was pronounced dead at 1:48 a.m. Saturday at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

McKinley was the aggressor in a domestic battery incident with his girlfriend in a second-floor apartment in the 4000 block of West Harrison Street about 1 a.m. The woman’s father attempted to stop the incident, a fight ensued and McKinley was injured, police said.

A Saturday autopsy determined McKinley died of multiple injures from an assault and the death was ruled a homicide.

I know it probably sounds vicious and unmerciful of me, but my first thought upon reading this was, “Go, Dad!” The man tried to stop the “victim” from beating his daughter, and when he wouldn’t, the dad defended his daughter. If more families would stand up to domestic violence, maybe there would be fewer men, women, and children who die as a result of the abuse they endure every day.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_re_us/toddler_beaten_5

Police: Pa. girl dies after beating

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/883757,WA08_escort_s1.article

Man out $8K after making ‘date’ with escort

BUFFALO GROVE– A man is $8,000 poorer Tuesday after providing his debit card and PIN number to an escort he hired.

According to a report from Buffalo Grove police, the man, a resident of the 500 block of Vernon Lane, told police he hired an escort last week and gave her his debit card and PIN number to complete the transaction.

Sometime between 6 p.m. last Wednesday, April 2 and 3 p.m. Monday, more than $8,000 in purchases had been made with the debit card, without his consent, the report said. He was alerted to this after his bank contacted him to advise him that his account was negative by $2,000.

The man has closed his account, police said. No other information was provided whether charges are pending against the man or the escort.

You know, it seems like it would be common sense not to provide a prostitute with one’s debit card and pin number.

Besides, where in the heck was he expecting her to scan it? Escorts come equipped with a few things, but I have yet to see one who has a credit card reader anywhere on her person.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/884257,womanshot040808.article

Woman shot after threatening deputies with sword

UNINCORPORATED ANTIOCH — A 54-year-old woman was shot by Lake County Sheriff’s deputies Tuesday afternoon, after police said she threatened to harm deputies with a sword following a disturbance near far north suburban Antioch.

Lake County Sheriff’s deputies first responded to a call of a woman throwing objects at cars near Route 83 and Eagles Nest Road in an unincorporated area near Antioch about 2:09 p.m., according to a release from the Lake County Sheriff’s office.

When deputies arrived, they were told that the woman had gone into a home in the 40300 block of North Route 83. The deputies went into the home and found the woman in the back of the home holding a sword-type weapon, the release said.

The deputies tried to make contact with the woman, asking her to drop her sword. When she refused to do so, deputies attempted to Taser her, the release said.

The Taser attempt did not stop the woman, and she continued to approach the deputies with the sword. Authorities then shot the woman, the release said.

The woman was transported to Condell Health Network in Libertyville, where she is awaiting Flight for Life to take her to another hospital for treatment, the release said.

Lake County Sheriff’s Department and the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force are investigating the shooting.

Ladies and gentlemen, there can be only one…and this one’s most likely headed for a psych ward.