>Escaped Egyptian tycoon attempts to smuggle out tons of antiques

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Airport Customs stopped yesterday evening 100 parcels allegedly belonging to Egyptian tycoon Hussein Salem, which were headed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The parcels weighed three tons together and included paintings, antiques, carpets, gold plated trays, gold statues, expensive watches, clocks, clothes and items that may be subject to the Egyptian Law for the Protection of Antiquities.

Sayed Ibrahim, the head of customs, said that airport officials became suspicious when they realised how heavy the packages were and decided to check their contents. He added that the parcels belong to an export company and included papers associated with a Saudi Prince and were heading to Jeddah. The bags were being smuggled by a person holding a Palestinian passport.

Ibrahim informed the airport’s prosecution office who revealed that the items belong to a businessman who is trying to smuggle them out of the country. Ibrahim adds that the items included photos of Salem with Arab leaders and kings, as well as with ousted president Hosni Mubarak and his former chief of staff Zakaria Azmi, along with a carpet with Salem’s name written on it. This led airport officials to believe that they belonged to the businessman, and a committee was formed to investigate the matter.

Salem is one of the closest friends of Mubarak and owns a significant number of touristic sites in Sharm El-Sheikh and shares in the East Mediterranean Gas Company (EMG) which exports gas to Israel. On 10 March, the Cairo Criminal Court confirmed a decision to freeze all his personal and family assets. Salem fled the country on 26 January, one a day after the revolution began.

via Escaped Egyptian tycoon attempts to smuggle out tons of antiques – Politics – Egypt – Ahram Online.

>Minister: About 1,000 relics stolen during Egyptian uprising

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Thieves stole around 1,000 relics from museums and archeological sites across Egypt since protests against the government broke out in January, Egypt’s minister for antiquities Zahi Hawass said Sunday in a newspaper interview.

“We are investigating all the incidents to find the items. Up until now we have identified many culprits, criminals who were looking for gold or mummies and who lacked knowledge of the value of the items they stole,” he told Spanish daily El Mundo.

“They were not organized, they lived near the archeological sites where the objects were kept. They would take advantage of the night to enter the archeological sites and pillage,” he added.

“About 1,000 objects were stolen, none of them major items. There is an inventory of everything and it will be difficult for the items to leave the country.”

The inventory of all the items that were stolen during the uprising and the weeks of unrest that followed will be given to UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, Hawass said.

The tomb of Hetep-ka at Saqqara and the tomb of Em-pi at Giza as well as the Egyptian museum in Cairo, which houses most of the King Tutankhamen collection, were among the places targeted by thieves, he added. …

via Minister: About 1,000 relics stolen during Egyptian uprising | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today’s News from Egypt.

>Superman comic stolen from Nicolas Cage is found

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A 1938 comic featuring Superman’s debut that has been recovered in a storage locker in the US appears to be the copy stolen from Nicolas Cage, police say.

The 47-year-old actor, who accepted an insurance payout after the 2000 theft, said last week’s find, in Los Angeles, was “divine providence”.

He said he was hopeful the “heirloom”, a mint condition copy of Action Comics No 1, would be returned to his family.

In March 2010, a copy of the comic sold for $1.5m (£920,000) at a US auction.

Detective Don Hrycyk, of the Los Angeles Police Department’s art theft department, said an investigation into the theft and recovery – from a locker in the San Fernando Valley – was in its early stages.

He said a number of false leads had been generated over the years, including a 2002 tip-off that the comic was in a safety deposit box in Tennessee.

When detectives followed the lead, they found a replica of the comic’s cover wrapped around a woman’s underwear catalogue.

Detective Hrycyk said it was unclear if Cage would be reunited with the comic and that the actor would have to work out details with the insurance company.

Action Comics No 1 – of which 100 are said to still be in existence – sold originally for 10 cents.

Comic book fan Cage was once linked to a film version of Superman and has a son called Kal-El – the birth name given to the indestructible hero.

via BBC News – Superman comic stolen from Nicolas Cage is found.

Superboy (Kal-El) is a native of the planet Krypton, the son of Jor-El, Krypton’s most brilliant scientist and inventor, and his wife Lara. Finding evidence that the planet is about to be destroyed, Jor-El fails to convince the ruling Science Council, so he conducts tests with model rockets to enable his own family to escape. His tests meet with mixed success. In one experiment, Kal-El’s pet dog Krypto is lost when a test rocket carrying Krypto is knocked off course by a meteor.

As Krypton’s destruction approaches, Jor-El still has not built a rocket large enough to hold his family. With the planet coming apart beneath them, Jor-El and Lara put their two-year old son in a model rocket, launch it just minutes ahead of Krypton’s destruction, and send Kal-El to the planet Earth. Found by Jonathan and Martha Kent, an older couple with no children of their own, the child is anonymously left at a Smallville orphanage. Some days later, the Kents successfully adopt the toddler. They name the boy Clark Kent, using Martha’s maiden name for his first name. …

On his eighth birthday, Clark dons an indestructible costume woven by Martha from the Kryptonian blankets that accompanied him on his journey to Earth. He becomes the costumed hero Superboy, the first superhero of Earth-One. Around the same time as his public debut, Superboy learns of his Kryptonian origin, and several weeks later, he gives reporter Perry White the exclusive story about his alien background. Though most of Superboy’s early adventures occur in the vicinity of Smallville, he becomes famous for his superheroics around the globe. Superboy’s status as both Smallville’s hometown hero and as a national/global hero are reflected in the emergency-signal system that he establishes with Chief Parker of the Smallville Police and the President of the United States. As Superboy repeatedly ventures into interstellar space, his super-heroics also bring him fame on other worlds.

In Smallville, Superboy uses tunnels from the basement of the Kents’ house and general store to make quick, concealed exits when Superboy is needed. Superboy also maintains a secret lab in the basement of the Kent house, where he builds Superboy and Clark Kent robots to cover for him when he is busy elsewhere or otherwise unavailable. …

via Wikipedia

>Police await lab results in newspaper bombing case

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Investigators are awaiting the results of lab tests in the case of a Northern California man who was injured when an explosive device wrapped inside a newspaper exploded.Vacaville Police Lt. Randy Weaver said Tuesday the tests could help identify the chemistry of the device, the triggering mechanism and other details. It exploded March 27 in a neighborhood in Vacaville, about 30 miles west of Sacramento. Jose Sanchez-Zarco, who is 85, was critically injured when he tried to retrieve a newspaper stuffed inside a plastic bag. It was resting on the lawn between his home and a neighbor’s.The blast nearly severed his right little finger and injured his leg, arm and side. He was released last week from a Sacramento hospital, but police say he will require physical therapy.

via Police await lab results in newspaper bombing case.

Following the explosion, about 50 homes were evacuated while members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) as well as the Travis Air Force Base bomb squad searched the Browns Valley neighborhood for other possible devices and began collecting evidence, which was then sent for analysis at a Walnut Creek laboratory.

According to Helen Dunkel, public information officer for ATF’s San Francisco Field Division, on-scene evidence at such incidents is collected with careful attention to the preservation of any possible fingerprints or DNA that may have been left behind by the bomb maker.

She said investigators who respond to the scene of an explosion grid off the area, walking hundreds of feet back and forth looking for any remaining fragments from the device.

“You look high, you look low, you look everywhere,” Dunkel said, adding that the trajectory from some explosions can launch fragments onto the roofs of neighboring houses. …

Vacaville police Sgt. Jeff King said a week-old recording turned over to police by a Bay Area radio station on Tuesday in which a caller to a talk show complains about his elderly neighbor stealing his paper is not connected to the local investigation.

“It has nothing to do with our case,” King said of the tape in which the caller threatens to “throw up” in his paper and leave it out for his neighbor to grab. …

Anyone with information related to the attack is asked to contact the Vacaville Police Department at 449-5200, or call Crime Stoppers and leave an anonymous tip at 644-STOP. Crime Stoppers may pay up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest.

via mercurynews

A guy who makes it to 85 years old shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of stupid crap. I hope they find the bomber soon. I’ll donate to increase the reward leading to a conviction.

>How to rob me of $10 right now!

>I just discovered that you can download my entire CD — Xenophilia, Cafe of Love, from 2001 — free on your iPhone.

Go to the App store and get the free app called “MOG“.

Use the free 7 day trial then search for “Xenophilia” and tap the arrows to download all my songs to your iPhone.

Listen for free for a week, then you have to pay to keep listening.

I do not believe that I get a cent from people using the free version of this app to listen to my music.

I also do not think I get paid when people are paying $10/month to keep using the app after the trial.

Do not buy my CD on my web site, because you can get the whole thing, the Cafe of Love, at a price all iPhone users will love: FREE.

If nothing else, check out my song “Crop Circles”, still one of my favorite weird songs.

Similar Artists feature

Hey neat, there is a feature to find similar artists on the MOG radio. The similar artist software found: “Wild Pack of Family Dogs” by Modest Mouse. Hmm. Nah. I like my stuff better.

But wait, “Big Dipper” by Built to Spill is great. And I really like “Cha Cha Cha” by The Little One’s. Oh, and I love “Last Song” by Matt Pond, beautiful!

Okay, this is a freakin’ cool app.

But it ain’t right.

Related:

A website that sold Beatles songs online for 25 cents apiece before they became legally available has agreed to pay record companies nearly $1 million to settle a federal lawsuit.U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton Tucker signed off on the settlement between BlueBeat.com and music companies EMI Group PLC, Capitol Records and Virgin Records America on Friday. The judge ruled in December that the site violated the music labels’ copyrights and presented unfair competition.

A trial to determine how much BlueBeat owed the companies was scheduled to begin Tuesday in Santa Ana, Calif.

BlueBeat streamed and sold music by the Fab Four and other top-name acts, including Coldplay and Lily Allen, for several days before music companies sued to shut it down in November 2009. By then, the site had already distributed more than 67,000 songs by The Beatles. – cnbc

Oh wow, I found a song I sang on with Anton Barbeau. I think that’s me singing on “Please Sir I’ve Got A Wooden Leg” … and at least one other song on Anton’s “A Splendid Tray”.

Ha, oh yeah, check out “a Robot Tells Jokes” by Doug Powell. Reminds me of good times with the comedy show.

I’m falling asleep to Bill Ives version of the Beatles song Michelle. Nicely done vocal jazz.

Then Nora Jones’ “Don’t Know Why” pops up and I re-live Maui and the time I almost got married. And I see clearly for a heartbeat or two that I’m a fool hiding from the sick and wicked world, and missing, in my suit of armor, the ability to touch my dream … I drift asleep… and the iPhone I’m writing this on slips from my fingers and floats to the floor in slow motion.

>Police: Pennsylvania Woman Hid 54 Bags of Heroin, Money in Her Vagina

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David Lohr – Authorities in Pennsylvania arrested a 27-year-old woman who they say hid more than 100 items — including 54 bags of heroin and loose change — in her vagina.

Investigators took Karin Mackaliunas into custody last weekend after she was involved in a motor vehicle crash, according to police in Scranton. Officers in nearby Dunmore heard about the accident and, suspecting that she had been involved in the recent burglary of a local inn, asked Scranton police to detain Mackaliunas for questioning.

During a routine search, Scranton police Officer Nancy Baumann found three bags of heroin inside Mackaliunas’ coat, records show. Baumann placed Mackaliunas in the back of the patrol car and was taking her to police headquarters when she noticed Mackaliunas fidgeting. The two women then got into a struggle, after which Mackaliunas asked to speak with another officer, whom she told she had “hidden more heroin in her vagina,” according to the criminal complaint.

Investigators took Mackaliunas to Community Medical Center for further examination, police said. Doctors there retrieved “up 54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, 8.5 prescription pills and $51.22” during a cavity search, according to the criminal complaint.

Mackaliunas was jailed on $25,000 bail on charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of possession of a controlled substance, police said.

She is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing sometime today. It is not clear whether she has an attorney.

via Police: Pennsylvania Woman Hid 54 Bags of Heroin, Money in Her Vagina.

If you count the atoms, she probably hid billions of items up there.  Here’s hoping Karin gets some help to recover and get back on the right track.  Getting busted may end up saving her life if she turns it around.

Heroin (known on the streets as horse, smack, big H, black tar, caballo, junk, TNT, skag, chiva, gear, Evil, “H”, and “Boy”) is a highly addictive drug made from the opium poppy. – link

University of Adelaide researchers have made a breakthrough in the treatment of heroin addiction which could improve treatment success rates for millions of heroin users around the world.  Researchers in the Discipline of Pharmacology have discovered a genetic variation that may help determine the most effective methadone dosage levels for individual heroin addicts. The genetic discovery reveals why some people are either less efficient or more effective in distributing drugs throughout their body to the central nervous system. Lead researcher Dr Janet Coller says accurate dosing of methadone is essential to successfully treat drug addicts because up to 62% fail to remain in the methadone program due to the severe withdrawal symptoms. “Individualised dosing may decrease the incidence of withdrawal symptoms in some people and therefore encourage them to continue with the methadone treatment.” An estimated 10 million people worldwide are heroin dependent, including 74,000 Australians, incurring enormous health, social and economic costs. “More than 40,000 people are undergoing methadone treatment in Australia and only 38% of them are staying in the program at the moment. Most drop out at the start of the treatment when the withdrawal effects are severe,” Dr Coller says.

via Jan. 29, 2007,  ScienceDaily

 

>Police: Pennsylvania Woman Hid 54 Bags of Heroin, Money in Her Vagina

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David Lohr – Authorities in Pennsylvania arrested a 27-year-old woman who they say hid more than 100 items — including 54 bags of heroin and loose change — in her vagina.

Investigators took Karin Mackaliunas into custody last weekend after she was involved in a motor vehicle crash, according to police in Scranton. Officers in nearby Dunmore heard about the accident and, suspecting that she had been involved in the recent burglary of a local inn, asked Scranton police to detain Mackaliunas for questioning.

During a routine search, Scranton police Officer Nancy Baumann found three bags of heroin inside Mackaliunas’ coat, records show. Baumann placed Mackaliunas in the back of the patrol car and was taking her to police headquarters when she noticed Mackaliunas fidgeting. The two women then got into a struggle, after which Mackaliunas asked to speak with another officer, whom she told she had “hidden more heroin in her vagina,” according to the criminal complaint.

Investigators took Mackaliunas to Community Medical Center for further examination, police said. Doctors there retrieved “up 54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, 8.5 prescription pills and $51.22” during a cavity search, according to the criminal complaint.

Mackaliunas was jailed on $25,000 bail on charges of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of possession of a controlled substance, police said.

She is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing sometime today. It is not clear whether she has an attorney.

via Police: Pennsylvania Woman Hid 54 Bags of Heroin, Money in Her Vagina.

If you count the atoms, she probably hid billions of items up there.  Here’s hoping Karin gets some help to recover and get back on the right track.  Getting busted may end up saving her life if she turns it around.

Heroin (known on the streets as horse, smack, big H, black tar, caballo, junk, TNT, skag, chiva, gear, Evil, “H”, and “Boy”) is a highly addictive drug made from the opium poppy. – link

University of Adelaide researchers have made a breakthrough in the treatment of heroin addiction which could improve treatment success rates for millions of heroin users around the world.  Researchers in the Discipline of Pharmacology have discovered a genetic variation that may help determine the most effective methadone dosage levels for individual heroin addicts. The genetic discovery reveals why some people are either less efficient or more effective in distributing drugs throughout their body to the central nervous system. Lead researcher Dr Janet Coller says accurate dosing of methadone is essential to successfully treat drug addicts because up to 62% fail to remain in the methadone program due to the severe withdrawal symptoms. “Individualised dosing may decrease the incidence of withdrawal symptoms in some people and therefore encourage them to continue with the methadone treatment.” An estimated 10 million people worldwide are heroin dependent, including 74,000 Australians, incurring enormous health, social and economic costs. “More than 40,000 people are undergoing methadone treatment in Australia and only 38% of them are staying in the program at the moment. Most drop out at the start of the treatment when the withdrawal effects are severe,” Dr Coller says.

via Jan. 29, 2007,  ScienceDaily

 

>Call-Forwarding Scam Reappears: Don’t Be Tricked Into Dialing *72

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Officials are warning people to be careful of an old con that’s popped up again — the call forwarding scam.

Victims often think they’re doing a kindness to a stranger or for a friend. The phone rings, usually late at night, and callers tell the victim someone has been injured, and to contact an officer at the scene.

How to get the officer? By dialing *72, then a phone number.

But that *72 only activates the call forwarding function — letting the con artists make collect phone calls and pay-per call services on your dime. Many people don’t find out they’ve been conned until they receive a whopping phone bill.

It’s recently been an issue in Michigan, where the Isabella County Sheriff’s office issued a warning.

A similar scam involved someone claiming to be an inmate, saying he dialed the wrong number, explaining he has been arrested — and please dial *72 and the “right number” so he can reach his mother or family.

That’s how the scam started in 2004, when Cook County Jail inmates in Chicago used *72 to make hundreds of long-distance calls, all paid for by someone else.

Better Business Bureau officials say consumers who fall for the scam should dial *73 to deactivate the feature and report unauthorized charges to their phone companies.

via Call-Forwarding Scam Reappears: Don’t Be Tricked Into Dialing *72.

>An MP3 can be used to hack your car

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Hackers could gain access to a vehicle’s computer systems remotely, security experts from the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Washington have found.

In one example, cellphone hardware installed in luxury cars was attacked, allowing the team to inject malicious code into the car’s electronic controls. In theory, hackers could then sell the car to a thief, giving them its location and unlocking it remotely. The team also managed to take control of the car using a Trojan app on a phone that used an Android operating system and had been paired with the car’s Bluetooth system.

The researchers were able to show that software embedded in an MP3 file could install itself into the car’s firmware, enabling similar exploits to those above. If the car had a self-parking system, it could in theory be driven away by the hacker.

via How an MP3 can be used to hack your car | KurzweilAI.

>U.S. man convicted of encouraging suicides

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The former Minnesota nurse who targeted depressed people online, including Carleton University student Nadia Kajouji, has been found guilty of aiding two suicides.

William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, of Faribault, Minn., was charged in April with two counts of aiding suicide in the 2005 hanging death of Mark Drybrough, 32, of Coventry, England, and the March 2008 drowning of Kajouji, 18, of Brampton, Ont.

Melchert-Dinkel had declined a jury trial and left his fate to a judge in Minnesota. That judge issued his decision Tuesday.

Kajouji’s older brother said he’s glad to close this chapter, even though it won’t bring his sister back.

“It shows that this crime isn’t going unpunished and that’s the bottom line,” Marc Kajouji, 32, said from Brampton. “It could be a deterrent for the future.”

Prosecutors say Melchert-Dinkel cruised chat rooms for depressed people, posed as a female nurse, feigned compassion, and entered fake suicide pacts or gave instructions on how they could kill themselves.

They said Melchert-Dinkel acknowledged participating in online chats about suicide with up to 20 people and entering into fake suicide pacts with about 10 people, five of whom he believed killed themselves. …

via U.S. man convicted of encouraging suicides – Toronto – CBC News.