News: Egypt Riots. Job Market. Police Harassment. First U.S. President. Yard Sale.

News, Some New, Some Old:

Egypt Soccer Riot: Death Toll Climbs As Police Set Off Tear Gas

An Egyptian protestor reaches for a tear gas canister fired by security forces during clashes near the Interior Ministry in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 3, 2012. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) 

CAIRO — "Protesters filled the streets and clashed for a second day Friday with police who fired tear gas and birdshot in Cairo, as a deadly soccer riot focused rising public anger over lawlessness and collapsing security a year after Egypt's uprising.

Six people have been killed and more than 1,500 injured in the latest bloodshed that followed a violent melee and stampede after a soccer game Wednesday in the Mediterranean city of Port Said in which over 74 people died.

Egyptians streamed out of Friday prayers in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and several Nile Delta cities, criticizing police and calling on the military rulers led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to step down.

On Cairo's Tahrir Square – the heart of the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak a year ago – protesters raised banners and pictures of those killed in Port Said and chanted, "The people want to execute the marshal." " From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/egypt-soccer-riot-death-t_n_1252074.html

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The Middle East.

"Riots and upheaval across the Middle East dominated world headlines in 2011. Why do we need to watch this region so closely?"

 

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As Many As Three Million Long-Term Unemployed Not Counted As Jobless Rate Drops

"The job market is still on a long road to full recovery, but it took a big step in January.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by 243,000 jobs in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, up from a revised 203,000 jobs in December.

The unemployment rate declined to 8.3 percent in January, from 8.5 percent in December. But if workers who have dropped out of the labor force were included, some economists estimate, the unemployment could be higher than 10 percent."

More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/us-economy-adds-tktk-jobs_n_1252209.html

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6 Ways The Job Search Has Changed Post-Recession.

"The recession changed a lot of things. It changed the way people spend money, the way they save for retirement, the way they invest in stocks. It's also changed the way companies recruit employees. Gone are the days when companies courted prospective employees, hiring managers offered generous starting bonuses and job seekers could choose from multiple offers."  Article at: http://www.theworkbuzz.com/get-the-job/interviews/job-search-post-recession/

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POLICE HARASSMENT. LOL!

Recently, RCMP Kings Det. In Nova Scotia ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer exchange) with the topic being,  "Community Policing."

One of the civilian email participants posed the following question:   "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it."

From the "other side" (the law enforcement side) Cst. Sandy Horsnell obviously a cop with a sense of humour replied:
"First of all, let me tell you this...it's not easy. In the Annapolis Valley we average one cop for every 600 people. Only about 60% of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as "patrol") where we do most of our harassing.
The rest are in non-harassing departments that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. And at any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60% patrollers are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 5,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial business, and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 10,000 or more people a day.
Now, your average ten-hour shift runs 36,000 seconds long. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and then only three-fourths of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to this challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people which we can realistically harass.

The tools available to us are as follows:
PHONE:
People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbour is beating his wife" is a code phrase used often. This means we'll come out and give somebody some special harassment.
Another popular one is, "There's a guy breaking into a house." The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS:
We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or no driver's licenses and the like. Its lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.

RUNNERS:
Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer. Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.

STATUTES:
When we don't have PHONES or CARS and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "Statutes"; Criminal Codes, Highway Traffic Act, etc... They all spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people.
After you read the statute, you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these listed offences and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, there's this book we have that says that's not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well.

 
We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to "harass" some people.
Next time you are in my town, give me the old "single finger wave." That's another one of those codes. It means, "You can harass me."   *It's one of our favourites.* "

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On This Day:

First U.S. president elected, Feb 4, 1789:

"George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, is unanimously elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors who cast their votes. John Adams of Massachusetts, who received 34 votes, was elected vice president. The electors, who represented 10 of the 11 states that had ratified the U.S. Constitution, were chosen by popular vote, legislative appointment, or a combination of both four weeks before the election.

According to Article Two of the U.S. Constitution, the states appointed a number of presidential electors equal to the "number of Senators and Representatives to which the state may be entitled in Congress." Each elector voted for two people, at least one of whom did not live in their state. The individual receiving the greatest number of votes was elected president, and the next-in-line, vice president. (In 1804, this practice was changed by the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, which ordered separate ballots for the office of president and vice president.)

New York--though it was to be the seat of the new United States government--failed to choose its eight presidential electors in time for the vote on February 4, 1789. Two electors each from Virginia and Maryland were delayed by weather and did not vote. In addition, North Carolina and Rhode Island, which would have had seven and three electors respectively, had not ratified the Constitution and so could not vote.

That the remaining 69 unanimously chose Washington to lead the new U.S. government was a surprise to no one. As commander-in-chief during the Revolutionary War, he had led his inexperienced and poorly equipped army of civilian soldiers to victory over one of the world's great powers. After the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, Washington rejected with abhorrence a suggestion by one of his officers that he use his preeminence to assume a military dictatorship. He would not subvert the very principles for which so many Americans had fought and died, he replied, and soon after, he surrendered his military commission to the Continental Congress and retired to his Mount Vernon estate in Virginia.

When the Articles of Convention proved ineffectual, and the fledging republic teetered on the verge of collapse, Washington again answered his country's call and traveled to Philadelphia in 1787 to preside over the Constitutional Convention. Although he favored the creation of a strong central government, as president of the convention he maintained impartiality in the public debates. Outside the convention hall, however, he made his views known, and his weight of character did much to bring the proceedings to a close. The drafters created the office of president with him in mind, and on September 17, 1787, the document was signed.

The next day, Washington started for home, hoping that, his duty to his country again served, he could live out the rest of his days in privacy. However, a crisis soon arose when the Constitution fell short of its necessary ratification by nine states. Washington threw himself into the ratification debate, and a compromise agreement was made in which the remaining states would ratify the document in exchange for passage of the constitutional amendments that would become the Bill of Rights.

Government by the United States began on March 4, 1789. In April, Congress sent word to George Washington that he had unanimously won the presidency. He borrowed money to pay off his debts in Virginia and traveled to New York. On April 30, he came across the Hudson River in a specially built and decorated barge. The inaugural ceremony was performed on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, and a large crowed cheered after he took the oath of office. The president then retired indoors to read Congress his inaugural address, a quiet speech in which he spoke of "the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." The evening celebration was opened and closed by 13 skyrockets and 13 cannons.

As president, Washington sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. Of his presidency, he said, "I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn in precedent." He successfully implemented executive authority, making good use of brilliant politicians such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his Cabinet, and quieted fears of presidential tyranny. In 1792, he was unanimously re-elected but four years later refused a third term.

In 1797, he finally began his long-awaited retirement at Mount Vernon. He died on December 14, 1799. His friend Henry Lee provided a famous eulogy for the father of the United States: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

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Yesterday:

The last two days, I have had to hunt for my wallet each day.  It was hidden so well, that even I couldn't find it, or remember where I put it.  But each day it finally dawned on me after about an hour of searching.  I know where everything is, as long as it is where it supposed to be, but if I move it, I can't find it again. 

Misty and I went down to Jay's for her walk-about, and Jay came back here on his 3-wheeler.  He knew I couldn't take him home with all the yard sale stuff scattered on tables in front of my house.

As rain was forecast, we brought several tables inside the RVport, and just left two outside.  Then Jay left.  But it didn't rain.

More stuff was sold, and again the traffic died down around lunchtime.  So I was able to catch up on more emails on my laptop set up in the living room, with one eye on the yard sale.

At 2.00 o'clock, I called Jay and asked him to come help me tighten everything up some more.  He folded up all the tables, except the two made out of door slabs on saw horses, so we moved them, and their cargo, into the RVport. The sheets, which are packaged in sets, the bagged blankets, the many purses, and the bagged scatter cushions were all put back in their big bins and shoved under the tables in the RV port.  Everything was covered up, which meant the yard sale was officially closed. 

I took off in the van to pick up my pretty blue custom made yard sale signs, as I didn't want anyone else showing up here.  But someone had uprooted some of them and thrown them on the ground, then they stole the rest of them.  Sorry sods!!

By 3.00PM I was soaking in a well deserved bubble bath, watching the "Black Blizzard" on the History channel.  ("A weather phenomenon that became known as the "black blizzard'' ravaged America's heartland between 1930 and 1940; scientists re-create conditions of the time and conclude that it was not a natural disaster but a man-made one.")

Then the forecast rain came, and I was glad we had packed everything up early.

Ray, Shay and I were supposed to take our critters to the Mobile Vet Clinic that comes to our town once a month, for their rabies shots.  Ray and Shay had just driven in from Houston for the second time, and they were beat.

It will have to wait until next month, as we had all had enough for the day.