Musings in Search of a Muse

Labels: Agent Orange, budget, Federal Governemt, government, history, law, lawsuit, littigation, medical, Viet Nam, war

A soldier convicted for his role in the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager was sentenced to 110 years in prison, the longest of four soldiers found guilty in the case.

Pfc. Jesse Spielman, who was sentenced Saturday, has the possibility of parole after 10 years. The sentence capped a week of opposing views over Spielman's responsibility in the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the slayings of her family (source).

Labels: crime, government, Iraq, justice, military, murder, rape, sex offender, soldier

Man not guilty in 'dungeon' rapes
By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press Writer

A jury has found a convicted sex offender accused of raping two teen girls in an underground bunker not guilty of kidnapping, sex crimes and assault with intent to kill.

Kenneth Glenn Hinson, 48, wiped his eyes and mouth and appeared to cry after the jury read its verdict, which followed about four hours of deliberations over two days.

Authorities had charged that Hinson snatched the then-17-year-old girls from their bedroom and dragged them one at a time to the underground room hidden beneath a tool shed, where he raped and bound them with duct tape. Prosecutors said Hinson expected the girls to die because the room had no air supply.

However, Hinson testified during the six-day trial that the girls had consensual sex with him. He said they made up the story so they would be able to take drugs from the underground room, which he used to store marijuana.

The two young women were not in the courtroom when Hinson was acquitted. Their mothers wept.

If convicted, Hinson had faced a mandatory life sentence without parole under the state's two-strikes law because he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991.

The underground room was about the length and width of a mid-sized car with a ceiling about 4 1/2 feet high. Hinson testified Sunday that he had built the room over two years.

Defense attorney Rick Hoefer spent much of his nearly two-hour closing argument Sunday picking apart what he called inconsistencies in the teens' testimony, including how long it took them to call 911 after their alleged escape and whether they saw Hinson with a gun.

Prosecutors said any discrepancies in their stories might have been a result of the trauma the teens went through.

Hinson was not freed because prosecutors asked that he be held on pending burglary charges.

(source)

Labels: crime, government, law, legal, rape, sex offender, threat

"Sometime in the next few months, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress will publish the results of an ongoing investigation into the economies of World of Warcraft, Second Life, and other massively multiplayer online game spaces (MMOs). The report's number-one bullet point will address a question that the inhabitants of these spaces may soon wish had been left unasked: Do the tax laws of the real world apply to virtual-world transactions?"

For more on this, see http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070130/tc_pcworld/128270

In a similar vein: "Sweden plans to be the first country to open an embassy in popular virtual world Second Life" (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070130/tc_nm/sweden_secondlife_dc).

Labels: Congress, game, government, income, Second Life, SL, tax, virtual, WoW

Microwave experiments cause sponge disasters

• Some who tried to sanitize germy sponges in microwave got unpleasant results
• News outlets got complaints of odors, ruined appliances
• Researchers advise that the sponges must be WET before going in microwave

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Reports about a study that found microwave ovens can be used to sterilize kitchen sponges sent people hurrying to test the idea this week -- with sometimes disastrous results.

A team at the University of Florida found that two minutes in the microwave at full power could kill a range of bacteria, viruses and parasites on kitchen sponges.

They described how they soaked the sponges in wastewater and then zapped them. (Microwave zaps germs on sponges.)

But several experimenters evidently left out the crucial step of wetting the sponge.

"Just wanted you to know that your article on microwaving sponges and scrubbers aroused my interest. However, when I put my sponge/scrubber into the microwave, it caught fire, smoked up the house, ruined my microwave, and pissed me off," one correspondent wrote in an e-mail to Reuters.

"First, the sponge is worthless afterwards so you have to throw it out instead of using it. And second your entire house stinks like a burning tire for several hours, even with windows/doors open," complained another.

Aaron Hoover, a press officer at the University of Florida, said several other news organizations received similar complaints, although no one had complained directly to the university.

"We figured, 'Wow, we better let people know right away that the sponge should be wet,"' Hoover said in a telephone interview.

The university issued the following advisory: "To guard against the risk of fire, people who wish to sterilize their sponges at home must ensure the sponge is completely wet. Two minutes of microwaving is sufficient for most sterilization. Sponges should also have no metallic content. Last, people should be careful when removing the sponge from the microwave as it will be hot."

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
(Source)

Labels: government, health, microwave, safety, science, sponge, stupidity