Flash Gordon Left Me The Keys

Could not log into my eMail this morning... dug up some comical events..

Man in ID Theft Leaves Mystery Upon Death

He was an impostor in life. In death he became a John Doe.

Last July, a man identified as Joseph N. Chandler committed suicide in his apartment. It turned out he had stolen the identity of an 8-year-old boy who was killed with his parents in a 1945 car crash near Sherman, Texas.

The impostor was described by police as a loner in his 60s.

"We don't know what or who he was hiding from or who he really was," police Detective Lt. Tom Doyle said.

The man left $82,000 in a savings account, but didn't leave a will. Police said family members listed on a rental agreement led to nonexistent people or addresses.

"We thought at first maybe he was in the witness protection program, but that has been ruled out," Doyle said.

A judge has ordered investigators to try to find the man's heirs. If they cannot find any within 18 months, the money will go to the county's unclaimed-funds account.

After police found his body last July 31, the county coroner discovered the man had colon cancer that soon would have killed him.

His closest friend, a former co-worker who knew little of the man's past, was appointed by the court as executor of the estate. Two investigators he hired to notify heirs discovered the relatives they found were family members of the dead Texas boy.

Investigations learned that a man claiming to be Joseph Newton Chandler, of Rapid City, S.D., requested his first Social Security card in September 1978, at 41.

The man listed his parents as Ellen Christina Kaaber Chandler and Joseph Newton Chandler Jr. and said he was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on March 11, 1937 - all information taken from the Texas boy.

Making identification more difficult, the body was cremated soon after an autopsy, and neither the suicide weapon nor items in the apartment had fingerprints clear enough to be of much use, police said.

"This guy made a life out of another life and he made a point to stay unknown," Doyle said.

Iowa Touts Illegal Drug Stamp Tax

Caught with drugs? Better have a drug stamp.

Iowa law taxes all illegal drugs - from marijuana to cocaine. The state issues stamps, which vary in cost and color according to the drug, to be affixed to the drug to show the tax has been paid.

"It was such a horse of a different color when it first came out," said Renee Mulvey, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance. "It was just so unusual to be selling stamps to tax illegal drugs, that we expected a lot of misunderstanding."

The stamps cost $5 a gram for marijuana, $750 per marijuana plant, $250 a gram for other drugs and $400 per 10 doses of drugs that come in tablet form, such as ecstasy. The minimum charge is $215.

Some may get a good chuckle out of the idea of drug users trotting down to the revenue department to buy a tax stamp - only seven batches of stamps have been sold (none were sold last year) - but the state is making a small fortune off of those who get caught without them.

"We look at it as a way to tax the underground economy. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it shouldn't be taxed," said Pete Bodyk, operations officer for the Kansas Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which collected about $1.3 million in drug stamp tax penalties and revenues for fiscal year 2002.

Since Iowa enacted its drug tax in 1990, the state has collected nearly $4 million total in penalties and tax revenues.

The drug stamp tax came about in the 1980s as the war on drugs was getting underway. In 1983, Arizona was the first state to enact a drug stamp tax, followed by at least 20 others, said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"It was viewed by those who champion and pass such measures that if you could further stiffen the penalties on drug dealers that you would, again, make it less enticing" to buy or sell drugs, Perez said.

In Iowa, failure to affix a drug stamp is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $7,500 fine - for those who aren't habitual offenders. The civil penalty is two times what the person would have paid to get a stamp; interest accrues at 7 percent a year from the day of assessment.

"We hear all kinds of comments, pro and con, with the drug tax. We view it as a job," said Mulvey, adding that stamp collectors have described the stamps as "homely." The stamps, twice the size of those used on regular mail, come in colors such as burgundy and mustard yellow.

Today, 23 states impose a drug stamp tax, but some have had to wrangle with the right of buyers not to incriminate themselves by buying a stamp.

In Iowa, it's anonymous.

"If someone came in and purchased and it was obvious that they were making a purchase to actually put on their drugs, drug containers, we would not" call authorities, which the law prohibits, Mulvey said. "People come in to make a purchase, we keep our mouths shut."

From July 2002 through March 2003, agency officials assessed $203,256 in penalties in 11 cases - about a third of the cases they investigated.

Generally, the agency only goes after defendants who have assets and are not in prison. Otherwise, the debt would be uncollectable, officials said.

One of those 11 cases involved a $119,000 assessment against former Des Moines Area Community College President David England, who pleaded guilty in April to possessing marijuana with intent to deliver and violating Iowa's tax-stamp law. England's wages will be garnisheed for payment, Mulvey said.

The state collected as much as $637,635 in taxes and penalties in fiscal year 1994, but the amount has declined since then. Collections were $241,696 last fiscal year.

At the same time, state narcotics agents continue to make bigger drug busts every year, such as the $6 million worth of cocaine found hidden in a car stopped along Interstate 80 last January.

So, could the state be collecting even more in revenues?

Not necessarily, Mulvey said. Budget cuts have hampered collection efforts - and those caught with a large cache of drugs might not be able to pay, she said.

"Because the street value is so high, does not mean the people have the money to pay the tax. After all, their drugs did not get sold," Mulvey said.

There also is some question about whether the agency would be able to collect from someone who was not a resident of Iowa.

"It's much more difficult to collect tax when the individual is out of state," Mulvey said.

Marijuana activist James Getman, who had about $30,000 in savings seized for failing to pay the drug tax, said he agrees with the slogan "no taxation without legalization."

He attended "The Greater Mississippi River Valley Tea Party" held in Rock Island, Ill., about 10 years ago to protest the tax.

"It was like the Boston tea party, we (were) rebelling against an unjust tax," said Getman, director of Iowa Norml, a nonprofit organization supporting the reform of marijuana laws.

However, Getman said, the group did not throw marijuana into the river in protest.

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On the Net: National Conference of State Legislatures: http://www.ncsl.org/

Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance: www.state.ia.us/government/drf

NORML: www.norml.org

U.S. Troops Seek Women's, Baby Products

What do U.S. soldiers use to cope with the grit and heat of Iraq? Why, cottony women's underthings, diaper ointments, pantyhose, and moist wipes with the aroma of baby powder.

Drugstore products usually reserved for women and babies are all the rage among U.S. troops in Iraq.

"In the middle of the desert, somebody would've traded you his sister for a pack of baby wipes," said U.S. Army Military Police Sgt. James Karm, 29, who patrols west Baghdad in a Humvee. "You could've got anything you wanted."

And baby wipes, according to Spc. Rebecca Burt, "are the only thing that takes camouflage makeup off."

Women's panty liners - an absorbent patch with an adhesive back - are perfect for mopping a sweat-basted brow that bakes under a helmet.
"They'll put them in the front of their hats and helmets as a sweat band," Burt said while driving a Humvee with a blue plastic box of Softs baby wipes next to her seat. Otherwise, the hat band gets sweaty and dirty. Next thing you know, there's a stripe of pimples across your forehead.

"You can break out real bad," she said, yanking off her floppy cap and showing the grimy hat band.

For those long marches, pantyhose are just the thing to replace the chaffing of socks and boots with the swish of nylon. You don't wear the whole thing, just the part below the knees, Karm said while breakfasting on a tray of waffles with blueberry compote.

"Some people swear it keeps you from getting blisters," said Karm, of Bryan, Texas.

Soldiers' packages from home are loaded with such gear. A 64-pack of Kotex Lightdays panty liners and a package of Huggies baby wipes sits in a box next to the coffee maker at the headquarters of the U.S. Army's 709th Military Police Battalion.

Burt senses a business opportunity. She figures she'll market camouflage-packaged baby wipes and panty liners, laden with macho-guy cologne instead of flowery women's perfume.

"Some of your toughest men in the Army wear pantyhose," Burt said.

Baby powder is another big item, she said. "It helps keep sweat and smells down. If you sweat a lot, you get heat rash."

Another common sight in Baghdad is the grime-covered Humvee gunner pausing to paint his sun-dried lips with lip balm. Burt said the waxy balm also lubricates the zippers on canvas Humvee doors that get clogged with dust.

Karm swears by his diaper-rash ointment for "when you get rubbed raw from the heat and the sweat and the rubbing."

"It's the best thing for it."

Bankrupt'Flunk-Out U' Holds Reunion

They weren't the cream of America's academic crop - in fact, they were just the opposite.

Now, 30 years after Parsons College went bankrupt, alumni of the school dubbed "Flunk-Out U," a haven for those who failed classes elsewhere, have gathered to remember the good times and bad grades of their undergraduate days.

"It's just too bad it didn't last," said Hank Trenkle, class of '65. "It was a hoot."

Along with nearly 100 other Parsons graduates, Trenkle made a triumphant return this weekend to Parson's former campus in southeast Iowa, a space now occupied by the Maharishi University of Management, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the transcendental meditation movement.

Even if he could have attended Harvard or Yale - an admitted impossibility given the grades on his high school transcript - Trenkle said he still would have chosen Parsons.

"You had people with life experience here, some life history," said Trenkle, a Chicago insurance executive. "But they came here and worked through it. It was a good place to go to school."

Established in 1875 by a group of Presbyterian church leaders, Parsons operated in relative obscurity for its first 80 years. That changed in 1955 when the flamboyant Millard Roberts assumed the presidency with the goal of establishing a national reputation for the college.

Roberts installed what became known as the "Parsons Plan," a team-teaching concept that attracted one of the nation's highest paid faculties to teach students who had either been tossed out of other schools or were unable to meet admissions requirements elsewhere.

"We brought them along slowly, like a meal, so they could digest it intellectually," recalled Harold Eastman, 87, who served as head of the sociology department from 1963 to 1971.

Roberts succeeded in raising the college's profile. In 1966, Life magazine tagged Parsons as a magnet for flunk-outs and "rich dumb kids" intent on avoiding the military draft and, by extension, Vietnam.

Bankrupt and with its admissions hampered by the end of the draft and the emergence of community colleges for students academically unfit for four-year schools, Parsons passed into history on June 2, 1973.

With the loss of the campus, the weekend reunion was bittersweet for the Parsons alumni, who came in from across the country.

"One of the things that is most difficult for us is that we have no bricks or mortar to return to," said John Braidwood of Traverse City, Mich., who arrived at Parsons in 1964 after a less-than-stellar academic performance at the University of New Mexico.

Maharishi officials welcomed the alumni back for a tree planting ceremony and processional. But absent beloved campus landmarks, the graduates felt more comfortable socializing at an Elks Club on the town square of Fairfield, population 10,000.

The reunion was organized by George C. Jordan III, who first came to Fairfield in 1959. Attending Parsons on and off for 10 years gave Jordan the dubious distinction of personally taking classes with at least two generations of the school's alumni.

The publisher of a small Massachusetts newspaper, Jordan still bristles at Life's characterization of his alma mater.

Parsons also "flunked out kids," he pointed out. "It was academically rigorous. Does taking second chance students lower your standards? I don't think so."

The alumni spent less time on academics than on summoning memories of extracurricular activities, few of them suitable for publication.

Like the time Trenkle and a group of students indulged in a time-honored Parsons' tradition of using cherry bombs to blow up rural mailboxes. That venture ended with the culprits driving a car through a cornfield - with lights off - to elude an irate posse of vigilantes from a neighboring town.

Their escapades notwithstanding, Parsons graduates emphasized they've fared pretty well in the real world.

"It's amazing, starting out at Parsons, what we all became," said Darcy Mellen-Sullivan of Naples, Fla., class of '72.

For those willing to put in the work, say alumni, the Parsons Plan nudged them toward what many once believed to be an impossible achievement: the "C" average necessary to receive a degree.

Even Jordan, after a decade of academic toil, emerged from Fairfield with a sheepskin.

His grade point average?

"Enough to get a diploma," he said.

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On the Net:

The Parsons College alumni Web site: http://www.parsonscollege.org

Tons of Booze Dumped on Farm
State environmental officials are considering levying fines and other penalties against whoever dumped more than 145,000 cases of stagnant rum at a western Pennsylvania farm.

Thousands of cases of discontinued Captain Morgan Gold was found piled on a farm in Elk Lick Township, about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh near the Maryland border.

"This was a significant mess," Stan Whitsel, a state Department of Environmental Protection supervisor, told The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown in Sunday's editions. "It was a bad situation just waiting to get worse."

State environmental officials discovered the 2,000 tons of abandoned booze and packing material in May. Whitsel declined to say how they found out about the dumped rum.

Environmental officials began routinely inspecting the farm after thousands of telephone poles and railroad ties were found dumped there last summer.

According to Whitsel, the liquor was discontinued in August by London-based Diageo, which hired Houston-based shipping company Satellite Logistics to dispose of some of the 4 million cases of the rum left over.

Somerset-based Iser Resources and Procurement then convinced Satellite Logistics it had a permit to dispose of the rum, which was made at a plant in Allentown, Whitsel said. It has no such permit, he said.

Whitsel said Diageo likely will not face sanctions because it contracted out the disposal.

Officials with Satellite Logistics did not return a phone call for comment on Sunday to The Associated Press. Marc Valentine, president of Iser Resources, had a disconnected number and could not be reached for comment.

After discovering the illegal dumping, state environmental officials said Satellite Logistics quickly cleaned up the mess. The alcohol was taken to landfills within a week, Whitsel said.

Man Arrested After Punching Police Dog

A man accused of trying to steal anhydrous ammonia has been arrested for hitting a police dog.

Seward County Sheriff Joe Yocum said deputies were staking out the Pleasant Dale Co-op tank Sunday morning after the manager reported that anhydrous tanks used for field work had been tampered with the week before.

A 39-year-old Lincoln man was seen climbing one of the tanks and opening a valve to place the chemical in a portable tank he had brought to the scene.

Deputy Brody Duncan identified himself and called for the man to climb down and to get on the ground, Yocum said. The man then fled into dense brush and trees west of Nebraska Highway 103.

Deputy Scott Walton and his police dog Hexa found the man hiding in the foliage.

The man refused to comply with Walton's directions and hit the dog several times with his fists. The man gave up after Hexa bit him in the lower right leg.

The man was taken to the Seward County Detention Center after he was treated for cuts at Seward Memorial Hospital. He was arrested on suspicion of felony possession of anhydrous, theft, resisting arrest, false reporting, cruelty to animals and obstructing a police officer.

Hexa was treated by a veterinarian for cuts and bruises.

Most anhydrous thefts are related to methamphetamine manufacture, Yocum said.

Singapore Plans Rating System for Toilets
Singapore plans to rate public toilets using a five-star system similar to that used to grade hotels as part of a new campaign called "Happy Toilet," an official said Monday.

Auditors will rate toilets on cleanliness, layout and ergonomics, said Jack Sim, president of the Singapore Restroom Association, which developed the rating system alongside the Health Ministry.

"We came up with this program because today when you go to a public toilet you do not know what to expect inside," Sim said. "Sometimes you are very happy, but sometimes you are very shocked - disgusted."

"When toilets are clean, people are happy and healthy," he added.

Plaques bearing star ratings will soon appear outside many of Singapore's 70,000 public toilets, which are found in food courts, shopping centers, industrial buildings and army barracks, Sim said.
The tightly controlled island nation of 4 million people is well known for its behavior improvement campaigns targeting gum chewing, spitting and people who don't flush toilets.

A three-star rating will mean a toilet is regularly cleaned and restocked with toilet paper, soap and paper towels. Restrooms that fail to meet the minimum three-star standard will receive no rating.

To received a five-star rating, a restroom has to have an especially well-designed layout so that traffic flows smoothly from the toilets to the sinks, Sim explained.

"It has to have a very good ambiance, probably with plants and pictures," Sim said. "You will know it's a five-star even without someone endorsing it."

The program is voluntary and rated restrooms will automatically be considered for the newly created Singapore Loo of the Year award, Sim said.

Environment Minister Lim Swee Say will launch the system at a ceremony later this month, E.R.R. Sim said.

Dogs Marry in Connecticut
Call it puppy love.

Two dogs - Tatiana Anjelica and Tyson Beckford Spak - exchanged vows and slobbery kisses Sunday on the Derby Green. The bride even wore a little garter, slipped over her paw.

The bridegroom wore a top hat and tuxedo.

The ceremony had its origins last year, when the two dogs were mated by their owners. But the owners' children wanted to know how the pair could have puppies if they weren't married.

"I love it because it's silly," said Laura Sambrook of Ansonia, a guest who had prepared a wedding cake, made from dog food and cheese snacks.

About 10 other canines were in attendance. Donna Garatoni brought her own 1-year-old Yorkie and Chihuahua cross, Phoebe.

Was she looking for a husband?

"Maybe, she'll meet one here today," Garatoni said.

Pizza Dough Spill Stalls Traffic in Ind.
A tractor-trailer carrying 35 tons of pizza dough overturned in southwestern Indiana, dumping a gooey mess onto the highway that stopped traffic for hours.

The truck was bound for a Henderson, Ky., milling company Sunday when the driver lost control of the rig on an off-ramp at Interstate 164 and Indiana 57 near the border of Gibson and Warrick counties. The driver was uninjured.

Firefighters and an environmental services company used a backhoe to clean up the mess.

Man Feeds Lobsters at Supermarket
Joel Freedman grew upset at seeing lobsters, with rubber bands on their claws, piled atop one another in a supermarket tank. The animal-rights advocate figured it was time to make his anger known.

Freedman bought a pound of scallops and, before anyone could intervene, lifted the tank lid and dumped them in.

Employees at the Wegmans store in this Finger Lakes town quickly surrounded him, sparking a heated exchange, Freedman said. He refused to leave, so the police were summoned. After several more minutes of loud conversation, he exited the store on police orders not to return.

Freedman, a member of Animal Rights Advocates of Upstate New York, argued that lobsters are inhumanely treated since they're not fed and are often crowded into supermarket tanks.

"As far as I'm concerned, I obeyed the law by feeding the lobsters," Freedman said in Monday's Daily Messenger about his protest last week. "I should have been able to call the cops on Wegmans."

Store manager John VanBlargan said his employees tried to explain to Freedman that putting the scallops in the tank would do more damage than good. He didn't appear to listen to arguments that he was putting "the equipment in jeopardy," VanBlargan said.

The lobsters are placed in 42-degree water, an industrywide standard, VanBlargan told the newspaper. That puts them in a "semi-dormant state," making them less aware of their surroundings, he said.

If Freedman is spotted at the store in the future, he could be arrested for trespassing, police warned.