Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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Well, perhaps calling them scam artists might be going a tad too far. Front page of today’s Las Cruces Sun-News¹ reads:

Pizza scam partners: D’ough!
Duo used bad checks to buy pies, then resold by the slice, police say

Las Cruces, NM- Two men have been indicted for allegedly using forged checks to buy Domino’s pizza and the using a Pizza Hut Uniform to resell the pizzas - still in Domino’s boxes - for $5 [a slice].

Adolfo Martinez, 33, and Mark Anderson, 26, both of Las Cruces, were indicted Thursday each on 11 counts of forgery and one count of conspiracy.

According to a criminal complaint, from March 26 through April 2, the men wrote a total of 11 checks to an unspecified Las Cruces location of Domino’s

That is just absolutely brilliant. Let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing strange at all about a couple of guys going door to door, in a Pizza Hut uniform, selling Domino’s Pizza. Nope, nuh-uh, nothing strange there. Hand me a box will you?

Granted, I have seen pizza places have workers, usually equipped with pepperoni pizza, set up a van somewhere and sell pizzas cheap there. At $5 a box though, not $5 dollars a slice! It attracts consumers who normally wouldn’t travel to where their store is located and can drum up new customers as well. But really, someone going door to door to local businesses in uniform and selling a competitor’s product? Did no one’s warning bells go off? Apparently not, because the article goes on to say that these two did make a bit of a profit, though it doesn’t specify how much.

From the sound of it, the only clue that something was up came in when every check bounced and the same two men, with the same number, kept calling in to have the pizza delivered to them. Eventually Domino’s employees caught on that something was amiss.

Martinez and Anderson, both of whom list a lengthy arrest record in their indictments, remain jailed at the Dona Ana County Detention Center on a $60,000 bond each. If convicted, they each face a maximum of 34 and a half years in prison.

The “profit” they made could not have been worth this. Although, you have got to love how their maximum sentence each is twice as long then the sentence men serve for killing their spouses. Oh the irony.

1. I found this in the copy of the Sun-News I picked up today. I haven’t found an online link to the article on their website though. If you have access to print media, you can read this article in it’s entirety on the front page of the Las Cruces Sun-News, Tuesday edition, dated April 29th, 2008. 128th year, No.29 [↩]

It started out as a test in Phoenix, Arizona, but after 90% of the travelers showed a preference for a whole body image scan versus a full body pat down, the whole body imaging machines are being rolled out at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and the Los Angeles International Airport in California soon after. The Transportation Security Administration will be purchasing, at least, another thirty machines to be placed at various U.S. airports this year.¹

The TSA claims that the images are non-invasive, the faces are blurred to protect one’s privacy, and the person (screener) viewing the travelers is situated in an enclosed booth and cannot see the passengers faces as they enter the machine or leave it. They also assure travelers that images are not stored at all.²

It truly seems like TSA is watching out for traveler’s privacy rights while, at th same time, using the best methods available to keep security tight. At least until you read this segment in the CNN article:

Travelers will continuously and randomly be selected to go through the machine. While signs will inform them of the pat-down option, screeners will not announce that choice. But passengers electing not to go through the millimeter wave machine will be given the option of the pat-down.

We know people are notorious for not reading or paying attention to signs. So if you don’t believe you have a choice in the matter and are told you have to go through the body scan machine or kiss your flight goodbye, what are you going to do? The machine of course! Now if that isn’t underhanded and sneaky I don’t know what is.

1. Taken from this CNN article. For more details, please read this article. [↩]
2. Read this article to get a better understanding on how it works. [↩]

The US Supreme Court has upheld the use of lethal injection as a means of execution for prisoners. Two Kentucky inmates challenged the use of lethal injection, citing it as cruel and unusual punishment, which has resulted in executions, nationwide, being put on hold while the court reviewed the case. The court rejected the case by a vote of 7 to 2 however.

Now, if only they would do something about inmates sitting on death row for years (sometimes even decades) before finally getting executed.

States began using the three-drug method in 1978 as an alternative to historic methods of execution such as electrocution.

However, in recent years there have been botched lethal injection executions in Florida and California, in which inmates took up to 30 minutes to die.

A 2005 study also sparked controversy by suggesting the amount of sedation given might not be enough to stop the inmate feeling the painful effects of the other drugs - but would prevent him crying out.

I can understand the concern over their deaths not being quick which essentially results in the prisoner being “tortured” to death. (I confess that a part of me thinks they probably deserve it, but that’s for another time.) However, when it comes to execution, it seems that lethal injection is actually the most “humane” method to date. Death by electrocution, is messy, painful, and takes a long time to be sure the prisoner is dead. Firing squad, also does not ensure that death will come quickly. Unless one of the shooters hits a vital spot, say the heart, there is no guarantee that the prisoner will die quickly and not in severe pain. Hanging/strangulation, again, not necessarily quick either. Unless the neck snaps immediately, they’re going to hanging there for a bit.

Frankly, I can’t help but to wonder if this was really just another attempt to have execution eliminated entirely.

That would be China’s solution to making the air safer to breath for the Olympic athletes in Beijing during the upcoming Olympic games. Never mind the fact that they’ve known since 2001 that they would be host to the games and that they promised the pollution levels would be down by the time of the games. They’ve had well over six years to work on their pollution, but has China done anything?

That would be a big fat NO.

So, on July 20th, 2008 all building construction will come to a halt. No construction, digging, pouring or laying concrete, and no outdoor spray-painting. Also, some 19 businesses have also been told to cut their emissions by 30% as well. So basically, they’re hoping that this 3 week halt of construction will lower the pollution levels in time for the games. A three week period to do what they could have been working on for the past couple of years. Talk about a last ditch effort combined with stupidity.

I’m still at a loss as to why Beijing is hosting the games anyway.

A big step in the ever ongoing battle against breast cancer was recently announced. How is it that the cancerous cells can spread to attack the lungs? This was something that was never understood, and thus, fighting it proved exceptionally difficult. That’s no longer the case. The cancer sends out a signal or “relay” to the tissue that it plans to target, the lungs. This relay molecularly weakens the targeted tissue thus allowing the breast cancer cells to pass through the capillary walls and penetrate the lung.

Key to this study is a signaling molecule called TGF-beta. Early in cancer progression, TGF-beta acts as a tumor suppressor, inhibiting cancer growth. Later, it actually stimulates cancer progression and metastasis. Massague was interested in how tumors trigger this molecular dichotomy.

His team began by identifying a molecular signature, a pattern of gene expression of 153 genes that identifies tumors that are both expressing and responding to TGF-beta. They then applied that signature to hundreds of primary breast tumors. (source).

This might seem like such a small step forward to some, but this progress has been long sought after and I for one am glad to see that we are gaining ground in this fight at long last. After all, understanding the enemy and finding its weak points are the first steps in defeating it.