IE Chatter

Death in the Desert: What in Bloody Hell?

Early reports indicate two people were shot and killed at a Palm Desert Toys R Us today.  So, far the only thing available is a story on MSNBC stating that at one point two teenagers were in an argument before a gun was pulled by a third person.

And then there is the story of the Wal Mart worker being trampled to death. 

Incredible.  All in the name of consumerism. 

Free Speech in Rancho Cucamonga?

An organization that questions the existence of God and the purpose of religion recently paid to place a billboard ad in the City of Rancho Cucamonga. However, city employees contacted the billboard company after they had received complaints from residents and politely asked the company to remove the billboard.

The billboard company obliged.

The text of the billboard was simply:  "Imagine No Religion".

In the grand scheme of things...not a very controversial statement. 

The foundation's co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, said the billboard is meant to encourage a debate on religion by using the John Lennon-inspired message.

Gaylor was shocked over the city's role in the billboard's demise.

"The city has no business suggesting our billboard be censored," Gaylor said. "They're not allowed to interfere over religious controversy."

It was the second billboard to come down following city request.

In September, the city asked a different sign company to take down an advertisement on Foothill Boulevard advertising a vagina rejuvenation procedure.

Whether or not you agree with the message, I don't think its any business of the city to meddle in this issue.  Now...vagina rejuvenation...how do you advertise that exactly? 

The World Can Be a Dark, Lonely Place -- The Internet Spotlights It

A teenager broadcasted his suicide over the internet as onlookers egged him on and then watched in stunned horror.

Initially dismissed as a prank by administrators, the man was later encouraged by forum users to terminate his own life, and then used the website Justin.tv to broadcast his death on the internet.

He was seen online consuming a quantity of pills, then lay on his bed with his back to the camera.

After users noticed the man was not moving, they tracked down his address and alerted authorities.

The internet is interesting in that respect.  You can be simultaneously available to millions and still feel isolated and alone.  It is a strange construct. 

A suicide note was posted on the forum by Briggs:

“I hate myself and I hate living. I think that if someone who knows me reads this they will know who I am. So I will leave this unsigned. I am an a@#hole. I have let everyone down and I feel as though I will never change or never improve.”

More Wild Wild West Action on the Rez

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department searched for carjacking suspects on the Soboba Indian Reservation.

Although things have died down, you can see that the tension still exists.

Authorities were called to the reservation by a construction crew working there who reported being carjacked by three men about 6:30 a.m. at gunpoint.

The crew was approached by the men, one armed with a handgun, another with a rifle, who stole their work truck, sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Gutierrez said.

The construction crew was not injured and tribal government assisted law enforcement searching the reservation for the carjackers.

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"The Tribe was surprised by the show of tanks and scale of response deployed to address the incident," said a statement from the tribe that singled out Worby. "Despite the tactic, the Tribe worked for a more diplomatic and uneventful surrender."

Economy Taking On Water

A New York Times article further illustrates our worsening economy highlighting the acres of new cars that have been temporarily "abandoned" by manufacturers due to declining sales at the port of Long Beach.

Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times.

For now, the port itself is the destination. Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands of cars worth tens of millions of dollars are being warehoused on increasingly crowded port property.

And for the first time, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Nissan have each asked to lease space from the port for these orphan vehicles. They are turning dozens of acres of the nation’s second-largest container port into a parking lot, creating a vivid picture of a paralyzed auto business and an economy in peril.

If you are in the market for a car, drive down to the port and try to buy one cheap.  LOL.

Real Estate Prices Down; Sales Up

The Press Enterprise did a story featuring DataQuick data that shows home prices are continuing to slide, while the sales of homes is rising.  Of course, two thirds of these homes being bought and sold are foreclosures, which is pummelling the market.

The best thing that could happen is for home sales to continue their rapid pace so as to work out the foreclosed inventory, get prices down to their bottom and then return to some kind of normalcy. 

The median price of a home in Riverside and San Bernardino County is now $230,000 and $200,000, respectively.

Chicken Little Gets His Due (Or, Peter Schiff o\/\/ns Talking Heads)

YOU HAVE TO WATCH THESE CLOWNS GET OWNED!

Are You An Idiot To Keep Paying Your Mortgage?

Yes.  Yes you are.  And that is why in really simple terms, the market is going to continue to get hammered for a good while longer.

This is the question that is raised in an article today.

But what about the moral obligation to pay off a debt?

Elected officials have been chipping away at that by blaming the foreclosure crisis largely on predatory lenders. In a campaign fact sheet, President-elect Barack Obama says he "recognizes that the real victims in the subprime mortgage crisis are not the lenders, but the millions of borrowers who followed the rules and whose only crime was taking out mortgages that lenders told them they could afford."

Don't you love it when really smart people say really dumb things?  Only crime?  How about being so ignorant about the basics of personal finance and oh say...operating a calculator? 

President-elect Obama--what crime did those who refused to buy more house than they could afford commit?  Because, thanks to you and many others in Washington, not only did they get screwed (by not allowing those dastardly mortgage brokers screw them), now you are going to screw them by asking them to bail out the morons who never should have purchased these homes at these prices to begin with!

Let's get real America.  This is the land of the free.  Literally.

Rialto Unified to Revisit Lucrative Pay Package

Don't get your hopes up, dear reader.  The outlandish severance package voted on at the last Rialto Unified board meeting will be revisited and revoted on, but it will still pass.

The outgoing superintendent who is taking her ball and going home after she didn't like who was elected to the school board is being lavished with an 18 month severance package by allies on the board.  She is quitting and they are bestowing upon her $300,000 in compensation.

Utterly insulting and reprehensible.

Here is some sanity:

Giving a severance package to an outgoing official who was not terminated raises legal questions, said Joe Martinez, an information technology specialist in the Chaffey Joint Union High School District.

"No one has mentioned termination. Thus, it is improper to call the money a severance package," Martinez said in an e-mail. "I am accustomed to a resignation being irreversible once it is accepted by the board. The only question to be answered is: Was the use of public funds legal?"

DELUSIONAL HOMEOWNERS!

This is too funny!

We are in the midst of a terrible financial crisis and a horrendous housing slump and some homeowners think that their properties have either maintained their bubble value or even gone up!

D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L-!

Despite dismal housing headlines and reports showing falling prices nationwide, owners in some once-hot areas still believe their home is gaining value or at least holding its own. And by hanging onto too-high expectations, sellers are unwittingly keeping the market from finding a bottom.

Real estate professionals across the country are reporting difficulty convincing sellers the true market value of their homes.

Warnie Enochs to Finally Stand Trial

Recently dethroned Murrieta Councilman Warnie Enochs will finally stand trial on 14 felony counts going back to...the birth of Christ.

That is a slight exaggeration. 

However, the Cold War began and ended...

Okay...so its actually only been an ongoing saga since January of 2006.  Anyway...a jury has been seated and we will keep you posted.  It should get interesting.  Apparently, Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone is supposed to be a witness.

Sexual Perverts Running Amok in the IE

Two stories for the faithful readers involving sexual perverts.  One is about a disgusting woman who allegedly took advantage of an autistic boy, compelling him to perform oral sex on her.  The other is about an electrician setting up peeping tom cameras in the bathrooms of women he deemed "hot".

Is it really this hard to get laid in the 21st Century?

Here are some excerpts for your perusal:

A 30-year- old woman accused of persuading a 13-year-old autistic boy to perform oral sex on her was arrested last week and charged with committing a lewd or lascivious act with a child.

Margarita Oropeza of Ontario lived next door to the De Anza Middle School student in the 1300 block of South Sultana Avenue, according to a police report attached to her court file.

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Sheriff's deputies believe David Mitchell Clark, 34, of Rancho Cucamonga, may have victimized several other people, because a search of his home yielded video footage of unidentified women in bathrooms.

Clark was arrested last week and charged with two felony counts of burglary and two misdemeanor "peeping Tom" charges.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges in West Valley Superior Court on Friday and remains in custody at West Valley Detention Center in lieu of $285,000 bail. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday.

I am a little concerned about the bail amounts for each individual.  The woman who allegedly engaged in acts with the autistic boy was only held on $100,000 bail, while the electrician who allegedly taped unsuspecting women in the nude was being held on almost $300,000 bail.

That doesn't sound fair to me.  I am much more concerned about the person who is inflicting actual physical harm on another...especially when the alleged victim is a minor versus an adult that was merely filmed.

Corona Teacher in Sex Scandal Sentenced

A Corona teacher that engaged in "consensual" acts with a 16 year old student was sentenced to 2 years in prison.

Armstrong sentenced Theobald to the middle term on each count because he believed the acts involving the girl and Theobald were consensual and that Theobald was not preying on students at the school.

He also said that Theobald's involvement with the girl "was a matter of weakness" on his part.

"There was not suggested there was any force involved," Armstrong said.

Disgusting Abuse of Taxpayers in Rialto

This headline caught my attention in the paper!

Davis-Herring to get $300K severance package

The intro to the article reads:

Superintendent Edna Davis-Herring, who resigned her post on the heels of Tuesday night's school board election, will receive a severance package of $300,000 plus benefits, Rialto Unified School District officials confirmed Thursday.

Davis-Herring announced her resignation at the school board meeting Wednesday.

This is appalling.  Somebody voluntarily leaves their job and they walk away with 18 MONTHS salary!  That is ridiculous.  It is digusting.  This school board deserves nomination for The Idiot Files.

The following quote from the article sums it up better than I can:

Board member John Kazalunas was opposed to giving the departing district chief such a large sum of money.

"She wasn't forced out, why do we have to pay for it?" he said. "She's walking out on us."

Hollywood Spotlights Wineville (Mira Loma) "Chicken Coop" Murders

Up until about a week ago, I had never heard of "Wineville", never knew that Mira Loma was its new name and had never heard of the "Chicken Coop" murders.

However, the local papers have really put a spotlight on it and I simply cannot do it justice.  So, I am including some links to articles.  I found the San Bernardino Sun article (link to the Contra Costa Times reprint) featuring Jack Brown Sr. (of State Bros. fame) very interesting.  "Senior" sounded like a man's man to me.

For some reason, I was reminded of the character Tommy Lee Jones plays in "No Country for Old Men".  Just the sheer brutality of these killings and the atrociously evilness behind it.  Very sad tale.

It is easy to imagine that we are all going to hell in a handbasket and that each generation is more wicked than the last.  But stories like this really make you see how sick and twisted man has been and will continue to be.

At $11.50 a pop...I'll wait to rent it regardless of the connection to the region.

Val Verde Supe Accused of Sexual Harassment

Val Vede Unified School District Superintendent Charles Workman has been accused of sexual harassment.  He was placed on leave last week without explanation and now the speculation has been confirmed.

Workman is predictably mum on the accusations.

There was an odd passage in the article that I feel is worth highlighting because it is so bizarre:

The claim portrays him as exhibiting unusual behavior toward the two women. It has Workman claiming that he had worked for the CIA as a member of "Team 126," which had been involved in missions against Mexican drug cartels.

The claim says that Workman showed off a shotgun and ammunition he kept at the district's Perris headquarters, and that he had told Solorio and Retamar-Taveras that he was the only superintendent in Riverside County who carried a concealed weapons permit. According to another allegation, Workman once called Retamar-Taveras into his office and demanded that she take $5,000 in cash to Solorio as a " 'prescription' to make her feel better."

Gas Prices Continue to Drop

What goes up, must come down...  Or something like that.

Gas prices around the nation are dropping precipitously.  I have seen some reports where gas station owners have had to slash prices on their marquee twice in one day.  If you would like to see some of the cheapest places to find gas in your area, go to GasBuddy.com.

Riverside County and San Bernardino County prices can be found at these links.

What I find most annoying is that Californians consistantly pay more than the rest of the country due to the ridiculous environmental requirements thus forcing refiners to refine a special formula for our vehicles which make our gas more expensive. 

The other annoying thing I simply loathe is the notion that when we buy a tank of gas we are forced to pay federal excise taxes on each gallon and an additional sales tax on each gallon, including the excise tax.  So, not only are we paying two separate taxes, but the state sales tax is a tax on a tax.

Compounding the frustration is the piss poor condition of our state highways and roads.  Time and time again, oru state legislators steal this tax money and spend it on all kinds of crap and leave us with crappy, gridlocked roads.  Then their response is...lets privatize and outsource oru roads to private companies and allow them to tax...er...assign tolls to motorists for the privilege of getting from point A to point B in a timely manner.

Disgusting!