Posts from — March 2007

CINCINNATI, OH — Next time you order a pizza around here, along with extra toppings smearing the pizza box, you may also see wanted posters for deadbeat parents.

The idea came to Cynthia Brown, executive director of the Butler County Child Enforcement Agency, while she was ordering pizza.

“It suddenly dawned on me that most people running from the law don’t eat out, they order pizza,” said Brown, whose county is north of Cincinnati.

Enforcement agencies across the country use a variety of methods to locate support scofflaws and collect past-due payments. Virginia has issued subpoenas to cellular phone companies seeking addresses and phone numbers. California’s Kern County seizes and auctions parents’ vehicles, with proceeds going to the children, said Kay Cullen, a spokeswoman for the National Child Support Enforcement Association.

State child support agencies collected more than $23 billion in child support for 17.2 million children in 2005, but the cumulative past-due child support since the agencies were first formed more than 30 years ago is $106 billion, Cullen said.

“While we have made progress, putting the wanted posters on pizza boxes is an example of the innovation and commitment that we need,” she said.

Other Ohio counties put posters on their Web sites and work with local Crime Stoppers programs, and a few contract with companies that can track people through rental and cell phone records, according to the Ohio Child Support Directors Association. Some include fliers in water and sewer bills.Butler County has printed posters with mug shots of its 10 most-wanted parents, placing them in post offices and other government buildings and sending them to Ohio’s 87 other counties. The lineup, chosen by prosecutors, is changed twice a year.

The Butler County sheriff’s office served 1,224 nonsupport warrants last year, said sheriff’s Sgt. Todd Langmeyer. The county has about 350,000 residents.

Brown approached several restaurants and chains with her idea of affixing the posters to pizza boxes, but so far only three pizzerias are participating.

Since the first pizza posters appeared in August, they have led to one arrest, Langmeyer said. “It’s a good idea any time you can put the faces out there,” he said.

The owner of Karen’s Pizzeria hasn’t heard any complaints about her participation in the poster program.

“Some customers joke about it and say they’re glad they aren’t on it,” Karen Willis said. “Most seem to think it’s a good idea.”

An attorney who focuses on fathers’ rights cases called the tactic “horrible.”

“It’s just a way of shaming people,” said Maury Beaulier, whose firm is in Eden Prairie, Minn.

Many circumstances can cause people to get behind in support payments, but that doesn’t make them deadbeats, he said.

Widespread public shaming also can devastate the children, said Michael McCormick, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

“Think how children feel to see a parent on a wanted poster and know their friends might see it,” he said.

Brown said her agency tries to work with parents by trying to help them find work and seeks most payments through civil court. Criminal charges are a last resort. Conviction on a felony count of failing to pay child support brings a prison sentence of up to 18 months, with fines usually set in the amount of the support owed.

“We aren’t trying to penalize these people,” Brown said. “We are just trying to help the kids who have a right to be supported.”

JOKESTARTERS:

• “Deadbeat Pizza can I take your order?” “Yeah, um, I’ll have the super deluxe carnivore special, with extra cheesesticks and a picture of my Dad on the box please?”
• Apparently these wanted posters include relatives other than parents. I overheard one dude ask them to “hold the Aunt Chovie.”

SOURCE:

• Seattle P-I

SPARTANBURG, S.C. –A designer in Spartanburg, SC has made a new purse that she hopes will appeal to women – made out of old bras.

The handbags are designed to look beautiful, with pretty flowers and feathers everywhere, but they hide a secret: A previous life as womens’ bras, reports CBS affiliate WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, S.C.

“There’s a little key word and that is bra in ‘Bravura’ because they are made from bra forms,” said creator Jenifer Steller. “That’s what makes them kind of exciting for women because they are carrying around their little secret.”

Steller says nature and her three daughters were her inspiration to make the handbags.

“They bring me their old costume jewelry, they bring me flowers, they bring me their left over beading and fringe so it’s a great way to recycle,” she said.

Some bags have been donated to raise money for an old Spartanburg mission, the Bethlem Center. Most are lavish so ladies can take them to weddings or even prom.

“This was created because I like the color I like the contrast in fabrics,” said Steller.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Female angle: This is nothing new – I’ve been stuffing money into my bra for years!
• I understand these new bra purses are also an excellent place to store pearl necklaces.

SOURCE:

• WFRV-TV

SAO PAULO, Brazil — A Brazilian housewife was convicted and sentenced to 19 years in prison Friday for killing her husband, chopping his corpse into small pieces and frying it.

Rosanita Nery dos Santos, 52, was sentenced by Judge Casio Miranda in northeastern Bahia state after a 15-member jury found her guilty of killing retired police officer Jose Raimundo Soares dos Santos, court spokesman Francisco Ribeiro said.

Authorities said the killing occurred almost two years ago in Vila Sao Cosme, a lower-middle-class neighbourhood in the Bahia state capital Salvador, 1,500 kilometres northeast of Sao Paulo.

“On June 23, 2005, Rosanita Nery dos Santos drugged her husband and stabbed him to death while he slept,” Idmar Bonfim, a spokesman for the Salvador Civil Police Department said.

“She then hacked his body into more than 100 pieces, which she boiled and fried before hiding them in plastic bags underneath the staircase of her house.”

He said police discovered the body parts after receiving an anonymous phone call.

Bonfim said the killing was either part of a black magic ritual or an attempt “to get her hands on his life insurance money worth about 70,000 reals (C$40,000).”

Citing testimony from the woman’s relatives, he said she may have committed the crime “to avenge many years of humiliation from her husband.”

He did not provide further details.

Santos denied killing her husband but said she chopped up his body, Bonfim said.

“She claims masked assailants entered her house, killed her husband and then forced her to cut up the body and fry it because that would prevent the stench of a decomposing body from alerting neighbours.”

JOKESTARTERS:

• HIM: “Honey, what’s for dinner tonight?” HER: “You.” HIM: “No really…wha–hey, what’re you doin’ with the big knife? Hon—!” HER: Chop. Chop. Chop.
• I wonder if she ate him with a side of fava beans and a nice chianti…
• “Oh sure, I chopped his body up into dozens of little pieces Officer, but I didn’t, and wouldn’t kill him…no siree. Want an hors d’oeuvres?”

SOURCE:

• CNEWS

WATERVILLE, Maine –Bill Exner, 69, claims that a mouse stole his dentures. He has since torn up a wall in his house to retrieve them.

Exner says he has captured said thief mouse three times. Each time, the mouse escaped, and the last time the rodent made off with his lower dentures.

After this last incident, he said he and his wife Shirley scoured his bedroom after the dentures disappeared from his night stand.

“We moved the bed, moved the dressers and the night stand and tore the closet apart,” he said. “I said, ‘I knew that little stinker stole my teeth’ – I just knew it.”

They found a small opening in a wall where they suspected the mouse was coming and going, and their daughter’s fiance’, Eric Holt, stepped in to help.

“He brought a crowbar and hammer and he sawed off a section of wood and pulled up the molding and everything,” Exner said. “It was quite a job.”

They retrieved the dentures, and Holt suggested his future father-in-law boil them in peroxide and whatever else he could find to disinfect it.

The mouse apparently isn’t done. It frequently comes out and stares at Exner, his wife said.

“He’s taunting him – I swear he’s taunting him,” Shirley Exner said.

JOKESTARTERS:

• Obviously, tough times have fallen on our nation’s most beloved, oldest mouse, Mickey, who can’t even afford his own dentures anymore. Operators are standing by – won’t you call and help Mr. Mouse out today?
• Eureka! I just came up with a new product idea that will make me millions! Rodentures!

SOURCE:

• Centre Daily 

Actual “For Sale” posting on Los Angeles Craigslist:

This is 1970′s Martin Acoustic Guitar. I believe a d-35. Its all original

Has the two peice brazilian rosewood back and sides/Neck/body. Guitar is in really good shape has a few spot were laminate is worn off. And pickguard is fading on edges.

This guitar has always been mantained by professional guitar techs and was once owned by Leon Russell and Steven Segal.

Only selling guitar to help new studio I’m starting.

I’m aprofessional Engineer/Producer its my job to know good sounds and this guitar sounds great.

Feel free to call anytime 323-712-4743. PLease call do not email
thanks

JOKESTARTERS:

• Oooh…it must be a magical guitar if Steven Segal once played it.
• So this instrument most likely has a mix of Leon Russell’s and Steven Segal’s DNA. I see a mutant horror movie in its future.

SOURCE:

• Craigslist Los Angeles