Author: p6admin

CNN Stepfather accused of drowning girl, 3, for insurance

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) — The firefighters who tried to save 3-year-old Ashley McLellan, unconscious after being pulled from a pool on a winter night in 2003, noticed something strange about her stepfather: He was calm, mostly dry and never once asked them if she would live. She didn’t, and Joel Zellmer was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of killing her in an attempt to collect on a $200,000 insurance policy — just one accusation in a string of accidents that investigators say Zellmer concocted to befall the young children of the women he dated. Investigators say Zellmer has a history of dating single mothers, urging them to take out insurance policies and harming their children, including burning the hands of one and giving another a hot cup that blistered her lips.

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Interesting article about stopping all aid to Africa and why that might be the best solution after all.]]>

The Washington Post

Washington, D.C.: During the 911 calls of a recent SE fire, I heard one of the callers say the well worn phrase “If this was a fire in a white neighborhood, you would respond a lot faster?” How are you going to fight that perception? Chief Dennis L. Rubin: Wow. We arrived in less that five minutes to that call. Should we look into being Rocket Propelled? Our response times are great through-out every corner of the City. I worked five and a half years in the Trinadad section of town (E-10), we did everything that we were doing in upper northwest. I would submit that DCFD is color blind. Thanks, Chief R

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Battle of Midway. If you have never read it, I recommend this book by two Japanese naval officers who were in the battle Midway: the Battle that Doomed Japan. It is published by the Naval Institute and is part of the core reading at the Naval Acadmey. It is also a lesson for management, in that the Japanese assumed so much (wrongly) and had too much faith in their own superiority such that they were caught it the open when luck and skill went against them. ]]>

Yea, that was me in the Post. They did a story about the Podcast site and took some pretty laid back pictures. Of course, I’m not always that laid back. In fact, most of last week I was working on a new site design that incorporated CSS instead of tables (which is how it is supposed to be, so I gather). Did the Post story increase traffic? A bit, but you never really know since the Post doesn’t use hyperlinks in most of their stories (which would be much easier to track). What’s next? Not sure, but I got an email from USAToday today. We’ll see what comes of that. ]]>

The Tour de France is wide open after a thrilling individual effort by Floyd Landis. Yesterday, Landis lost the yellow jersey and 10 minutes on his fellow riders when he just ‘hit the wall’ basically. But today, he took charge from the 4th KM and took off on a solo attack up the mountains. He finished 5 minutes ahead of his nearest rider, and is now only 30 seconds off the yellow jersey going into the time trial on Saturday. It was thrilling to watch. I was trying to take a nap after a long night but didn’t get around to it as I was really engrossed in the machinations of who was going to be where in the overall standings after the day’s racing.]]>

I’ve also been watching this clip as well. ]]>

Berlin’s top World Cup official shot himself in the head just hours after the tournament ended and is now fighting for his life, police say. Kind of odd]]>