Update 2 yr old missing in Orlando

The news did a report a few minutes ago that a new concrete pad had been put down recently at the house where Casey was staying - they determined it was around the time the Caylee went missing.  It did not say if they were digging it up but I would assume that they are already in the process of doing so.

This whole story has continued to draw interest because there can be no closure until the little girl’s body is found.  It also continues to haunt millions of us who look at that sweet child’s face wondering how this mother could hurt such a beautiful child.  No matter what a person is going through, there are always options available and killing should never be one of them.

It brings tears to my eyes every time I hear or read an update.  I wish I could hold this little girl in my arms and protect her from the evil that befell her.  Again I find myself wishing that there was some tell tall signs of evilness so that we could identify them and keep the innocent safe.

Latest update on missing FL girl

I just finished reading an update on the missing child in FL.  I am more disturbed now then I was before because police found possible decomposition smells, dirt and hair in the defendant’s car that match the child.

Casey lied to her own parents about having a job, about the babysitter, and where she was staying.  Maybe part of the key to finding the daughter will be to figure out where they had been staying the past month prior to the report of the missing child.

Now, I have a big problem with the fact that her mother, Cindy, seems so willing to believe her.  Could this blind way of acting be one of the reason’s Casey felt the need to lie to her parents to begin with?  Children who feel a lot of pressure to always be perfect and exceed often lie to parents rather then risk disappointing them or asking them for help.

I don’t believe the child is alive.  I believe Casey killed her and buried her somewhere that makes sense to her - someplace accessible by her car and not far from a roadway.  Maybe she’d bury her in a favorite place of the child.  Maybe the mother fell on hard times and reached the end of her rope - killing the child rather then trying to continue to support her.  I’ve read stories of people who lock their children in cages, closets and basements because they can’t afford to pay a babysitter when they go to work.  Maybe this is something like that which ended up getting out of control causing the child’s death.  Maybe Casey didn’t want to admit to her mother that she couldn’t take care of the little girl - after all, she lied to her about having a job.

Unable to face her parents or the consequences of the death, Casey may have thought she could just get rid of the child’s body and no one would be the wiser.  She might have gotten away with it if family hadn’t started asking about her.

Maybe she drove around with the body in the car until the parents started pressuring her - that would account for the smell of decomp.  At this point, I think Casey really needs to come clean about what happened, tell the police where the body is, and deal with the consequences.  The longer it drags on, the guiltier she looks and the more sane because she is working so hard to cover it up…which would blow her chance at an insanity plea.

I don’t think her mother is helping her any by declaring the girl’s innocence.  She should be demanding her daughter tell the truth rather then making excuses for her to lie.  Quit telling her what a good mother she was - instead tell her that she needs to tell them what happened and that, whatever it is, as her mother she would forgive her.  That would give Casey the emotional and mental support she needed to tell the truth and get it all off her chest.

Of course, that is all my opinion which doesn’t count for much in this day and age.

Deforestation of Brazil

According to May figures, deforestation in the Amazon of Brazil has seen a slight decrease over the month of April.  The government places the slow down on the boom of other agribusiness such as soybeans, beef and sugar.  Brazil desires to position itself as an agriculture powerhouse capable of solving not only the food crisis but the energy crisis as well through the production of different crops.  So much so that he has made no qualms about the crops being more important to the government then the deforestation of the Amazon.

However, the point here is that the deforestation did decrease in May.  So what are the figures, you may ask?  In May, roughly 420 miles of the forest disappeared due to logging…for perspective, that is slightly smaller then the city of Los Angeles.  That is only slightly less then  in April which saw roughly 433 miles deforested.

I find this rate of deforestation extremely alarming.  The Amazon happens to be the world’s most diverse biospere with 1 in 10 known species can be found in this tract.  That is 1 in 10 known species of plants, animals and reptiles.

Wikipedia reports that: The region is home to about 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2000 birds and mammals. To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 3,000 fish, 1,294 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been scientifically classified in the region. Scientists have described between 96,660 and 128,843 invertebrate species in Brazil alone.

Between 1991 and 2000, the total area of forest lost in the Amazon rose from 415,000 to 587,000 km², an area more than six times the size of Portugal, with most of the lost forest becoming pasture for cattle. In February, 2008, the Brazilian government announced that the rate at which the Amazon rainforest is being cut down has increased significantly over the past few months. During the last five months of 2007, more than 3,200 sq. kilometers (an area equivalent to the size of the state of Rhode Island) was deforested during a time when deforestation would normally drop.

People, I could go on for quite awhile about how important the rainforest’s around the world are and how, once again, we are hell bent on destroying our environment but if you are reading my blog it means you have access to the information for yourself.  It is just so disheartening to me how we abuse our environment and our Mother Earth.

George W Bush Sewer Facility

Ok, this just made me laugh.  San Fransisco, being the enlightened city that it is, has put on their ballot to vote on a name for their new sewer facility.  Yep, they are purposing to name it after our current President in a satirical attempt to show just what they think of him.

Bush has long not been popular in California and is not expected for the new sewer facility’s christening should it be voted in.  I think it is rather a befitting epilogue to a President who has flushed America down the proverbial toilet.  As far as I can tell, me being of small mind, Bush has failed to do anything constructive or helpful to this country the past 8 years.

I have always felt he has his own agenda when he ran for the presidency.  I knew he’d get is back into a war and I knew oil prices (as he has affiliation to oil companies) would skyrocket.  He has never proven himself trustworthy.

So I say “Good Show” to San Fransisco for it’s ingenuity in finding a perfect memorial to this President’s reign.

Sagging Pants

Hooray for Chicago’s Linwood suburb! They have taken the first step to restrict the offensive practice of guys wearing their pants down around their thighs! If you have sagging pants that show in excess of 3 inches of your unmentionables, you can be fined $25 according to the mayor of that city.

Of course, there are groups that say this is offensive to young black men who seem to be the biggest perpetrators of this fashion faux pas.  Personally, I just find it offensive no matter who is wearing them.  I can’t tell you how many times youngsters have tried running across a busy street only to trip or almost trip when their pants drop to their ankles.  How safe is that???

Not to mention that often, when the pants drop, their private parts are a little exposed which equates to indecent exposure.  My own son wore this style in his teens (though his pants never went down below his buttocks) and I hated it back then.

Whatever happened to actual fashion???

Second Four

The second four have started out with a bang - just what I wasn’t hoping for.  First there was an alarm at one of our facilities, then a vehicle accident with injuries, and trying to scramble to get all the paperwork finished for the evening shift.

The night shift guys are much more patient and more laid back - most of them are veterans though whereas the evening shift has newer people.  We just hired three new officers so don’t know what shift they’ll get going on.  One of the new officer’s is one of our dispatchers so here we are short again.  That really is going to stink once students come back full time and football starts.

Hopefully the rain will keep it quieter then last night - the guards are pretty much finding buildings to wait out the rain so they shouldn’t be calling in every five minutes.

Now He’s Dead

Person was riding along on his motorcycle, probably thinking about beating the severe thunderstorms home so he wouldn’t get soaked when out of nowhere, KABLAM!

I don’t know yet whether the person was wearing a helmet or even whose fault the accident was. I sent my officer’s out to help with traffic control as the City works the crash at a popular intersection. The mc driver was DOA - probably, hopefully, died instantly so felt no pain.

What is so scary to me, and so much a reminder of how fragile life is, is that he had no idea even a split second before hitting that intersection, that he had just used up his last moment on Earth. The bell tolled for him, his account for life canceled, the owl called his name, and the Grim Reaper was there to collect him.  That quickly a life can be extinguished - a person who had hopes, dreams and concerns about his life suddenly has no ties to life here at all.

Granted, we can’t think constantly about how this could be our last moment here but maybe we should take time every day to realize a lot of people won’t be alive by midnight tonight and that we never know when we might be included in that group. Appreciate the day, always. Appreciate our blessings and even our trials because having problems is a sign that we are still alive.

It’s Friday Night in Iowa City

Ohmygod! What a night so far!  We have had traffic stops, a couple of fights, several drunks, a naked man running through downtown, a man who was hit in the head who had a concussion, two people struck while in the crosswalks right outside our building, and a suspicious guy hanging out down by the river.  City has called us several times to back them up because they were so busy that they couldn’t handle it all either.  What a mess!

I really don’t know what the city is coming too.  I guess it is a sign that things are returning to normal after being so repressed by the flooding.  Students are out in force living it up on a Friday night but if they could use a little common sense, that would be nice.

It is after 3am now and the bars should be getting the last of their customers out.  The streets have cleared, the rain has stopped, and one would hope it means things will slow down now.  Our campus has become a non-smoking campus - meaning people can’t even smoke outside anymore.  It isn’t overly enforced and we haven’t had time tonight to even think about dealing with people violating the policy.  The City has also gone smoke free but they are not writing citations for people who still want to smoke.  Guess most people feel about it the way I do, if the smokers are outside, who cares?  I get tired of “big brother” always out there trying to dictate our civil liberties.

No, I don’t smoke either - never have.  The policy makes me angry because, as I said, it is just one more thing government thinks they can force on us as if we are not capable of making decisions for ourselves.  It is reminiscent of Sarasota trying to enforce a “no cussing in public” ruling.  If I want to cuss in public, then damn it, I’m going to.  It is ridiculous.  I feel like lighting a cigarette and walking around just to rebel against the idiots who think they have the right to dictate my rights.

Whew, I’ll climb down off my soap box.  Just irritates me.

Assisted Colonization

Well, we knew it would all come down to this eventually. Afterall, we humans are the smartest of all God’s creatures and thus, colonizing the animal world in our own way should be how it was meant to be right?

Not only should we colonize the creatures how we see fit, we should also decide in an animal kingdom triage sort of way, what species we should let become extinct in favor of keeping other species around in this world of shortening animal habitats. Doesn’t that seem normal to everyone?

Scientists have advised that the species of Sky Island in Arizona is basically “toast” because they don’t know where they would move them so might as well let them go extinct. Who needs them anyway?

“When deciding which species to save and which to watch die, Root said one key is uniqueness. That’s why she said she’d save the odd-looking Tuatara of New Zealand, a lizard-like creature with almost no living relatives, over the common sparrow.”

“The risk of extinction has to be balanced by the potential hazard to the community where a species is relocated as well as the time and cost of making the move, Parmesan says.”

“Ultimately, the decision about whether to actively assist the movement of a species into new territories will rest on ethical and aesthetic grounds as much as on hard science,” she said in a statement.

“Passively assisting coral reef migration may be acceptable, but transplanting polar bears to Antarctica, where they would likely drive native penguins to extinction, would not be acceptable,” she said.

“Conservation has never been an exact science, but preserving biodiversity in the face of climate change is likely to require a fundamental rethinking of what it means to preserve biodiversity,” Parmesan said.

Wow, doesn’t it just make you proud to be a human? And, by the way, whose to say penguins are more unique then the polar bears? I think that is subjective and totally unfair. Let’s relocate the penguins to Alaska or Canada - let the bears have the Antarctica.

Somewhere I’m sure someone has a nice little chart with nice little diagrams of how every thing would benefit if we took over nature. Let’s make the world one big zoo. Does it irk anyone else as much as it does me??

I understand that some species are endanger of becoming extinct but is moving species around a good idea? Shouldn’t we let Mother Nature handle, well, Mother Nature? Have we done much good when we have “accidentally” relocated things in the past? Fire ants spring to mind - they came over from Africa or some such place - now look at how they’ve become an epidemic in the south.

Pretty soon I won’t have to watch the Sci-Fi channel to get my “b” movie horror fix - the reality of what we’ve done to our world will far out due what they can come up with on TV.

Busy Night

What a busy night! So much for a nice quiet one - this one was anything but.  We made three arrests, went on two fights, and did countless other things in between.  I’m worn out.

I got a little ticked at one of the newer officers tonight and talked to the LT about it.  The officer went “out” with a vehicle but gave no license plate information.  I got backup going right away but had the driver of that vehicle decided to shoot my officer before backup got there, I would have had no information on the vehicle the officer pulled over.  Yes, backup arrived quickly but still - it is standard operating procedure for the officer to give the license plate BEFORE even approaching the vehicle.  When I asked him for it, he told me to “standby” and then never gave it to me.  The second officer gave me the information when he arrived - he happened to be the LT.

Sure, chances of something happening are slim but isn’t that usually when disaster strikes? When we are least expecting it? Just irritates me.  The officer hadn’t even ran the plate himself yet soooo…had he been gunned down they couldn’t even have looked at the last plate he had ran.  Just disturbing to me.  The LT agreed and said the officer made several other mistakes too that he would address with him - one was letting the scene get out of control, something this newer officer has struggled repeatedly with since finishing the academy and training.  He is new but again, isn’t that when bad things can happen? He has to be able to maintain control or he has lost the battle.

Now I have all three officers out on a suspicious person at one of the ramps.  Such an eventful evening.

The city should start waking up here shortly - already the street sweepers are out sweeping the main streets clean for another day of hustle bustle.  It truly is amazing, when I have time to watch, seeing the city go to sleep and then wake back up.  It is two so totally different crowds too.  At 3am it is the college students headed home in their skimpy outfits, walking none to steady.  At 5am it is the business crowd in their suits, walking briskly and with a purpose totally lacking in the younger groups.

The rain seems to have retired though forecasts reveal it will be making a comeback all day today.  So much for it being too rainy for people to get into trouble.

I must say once again, it sure would be fantastic to be so rich I wouldn’t have to go to work each day.