The Sisyphus Comments

Letter to Passiac County Sheriff

Sheriff Speziale,

After reading a newspaper article in the Roanoke Times pertaining to the incident where deputies from your agency were stopped in Augusta County, VA for exceeding the posted speed limit, I was hoping this was another case of inaccurate reporting by the press. However, after reading two additional articles from the Newark Star Ledger, I believe that the Roanoke Times article is probably accurate.

http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1128004237178250.xml?starledger?nnj&coll=1

http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1128057660317070.xml?starledger?oed&coll=1

As the director of a Virginia regional criminal justice training academy, I plan to use this incident and your comments as an example of the worst type of abuse of police authority. How a criminal justice officer with your attitude could rise to the position of responsibility that you occupy is a mystery to me. I am proud of the professional manner in which the Augusta County deputy handled this incident. Unfortunately, your conduct has the potential to negatively impact the public perception of the police throughout this nation. You need to re-evaluate your position on this matter and you owe an apology to the Augusta County deputy and his sheriff.

Posted in General Interest | 2 Comments »

Court Official Scam

U.S. Court officials are reporting that scammers are calling unsuspecting people and telling them they have been selected for jury duty. They then ask the person to confirm certain personal information, like name and address, then ask for the person to provide his social security number and credit card number.

Court officials want everyone to know that they do not make jury notifications over the telephone and they warn not to provide any information to these scammers. Notify police if you receive one of these telephone calls.

Posted in General Interest | No Comments »

Virginia Criminal Justice Certification Rules

I discussed this issue on the CopCAST podcast but I also want to address it in the blog since the it keeps coming up. The issue is the Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) regulation pertaining to the certification of officers, deputies and dispatchers, which is one of the most misundersood regulations.

Many people don?t understand that in Virginia you must be employed by a criminal justice agency in order to be certified. Once a certified individual leaves his employment with a police department or sheriff?s office they are not longer certified ? regardless of their in-service training status.

Basically when you resign from your agency a clock starts. If you return within 24 months, you must comply with the same compulsory in-service standards as you would have had you not left employment.

If you return within 24 – 36 months, you have 120 days to complete and in-service and up to a year to complete any field training.

One you are out of employment for 36 – 48 months the criteria includes certain portions of the entry level course. After 48 months, you generally have to re-attend the entire entry level course.

So basically it is inaccurate for a person who is not employed by a Virginia criminal justice agency to say they are certified. If they have previously met all of the entry level standards, including the field training requirements, they should tell prospective employers they are ?qualified? for certification.

As always, if you have questions about this or any other regulation, contact your academy staff or DCJS.

Posted in Legal Issues | No Comments »

Website: Sports Pages

If you suffer from S.S.A.D. Sports Seasonal Affective Disorder you know there is no cure. However, there are techniques to control the symptoms. Now there is one source for almost all of your sports relief.

Sports Pages covers both college and pro sports. It also make it easy to get to your favorite columnists and other sports websites.

CLICK HERE:

Sports Pages

Posted in Useful Websites | No Comments »

Is Your Clipboard Information Safe?

Everyone who uses a computer quickly learns how to cut and paste information from one location on the computer another using Windows Clipboard. Of course, the Clipboard is a temporary storage area within Windows that holds the copied information. Is this process dangerous to use when on the internet? Well, maybe.

Most people are unaware of a problem with Internet Explorer. A JavaScript program can be used to harvest your information right off the Windows Clipboard when you?re visiting a website without your knowledge. You can check this out yourself. Just highlight this sentence and Ctrl + C (or click Edit, Copy) to copy it and then go to http://www.friendlycanadian.com/applications/clipboard.htm. If you’re using Internet Explorer, you might see whatever you copied in the box at the top of the page unless you have changed your security settings.

To prevent the javascript from working in Internet Explorer, click Tools>>Internet Options. Select the Security tab. Under Web content zones, select Internet. Under Security level, click the Custom Level button.

Under Scripting, you’ll see a setting labeled “Allow paste operations via script.” For that setting, select Disable. Then click OK. Finally, click OK on the next window. Another option would be to just turn JavaScript but many websites will not work correctly.

Another solution is to stop using Internet Explorer except to retrieve Windows Updates. Use Firefox, the free browser from Mozilla.org. Even when it is set up to use JavaScripts, something in Firefox kept the Clipboard information from being viewed. Listen to the CopCAST podcast next Sunday for more information on Firefox.

Remember, that when you copy and paste sensitive information like your credit card number, it remains on the Clipboard until you turn off the computer, or copy something else.

Posted in Computer Advice | No Comments »

Website: Personal Information Search

It is no wonder that the CEO of Google got a little upset when a reporter did a Google search on him and then published the information. Public records like court records and professional affiliations are are available over the web.

Fortunately, you had to know what was available and where to look, until now. With Pretrieve you simply enter a name and city and you get links to databases containing public records. Hold on to your hat because the amount of information that is available will set you back on your heels.

CLICK HERE:

www.pretrieve.com

Posted in Useful Websites | 2 Comments »

Website: Internet Plagiarism Warning

I suppose internet plagiarist are much like the folks who loot during a riot. They figure that their chances of getting caught are low due to the number of other looters and other crimes that are going on at the same time. The explosion of information that is available on the internet makes it difficult original authors to control the use of their work.

However, as you might imagine, technology can also help to correct the problems that it creates. Althought there are billions of pages on the internet, a new website can help authors catch plagiarists.

The new website is Copyscape. You simply enter the address of the page that you want to check and a list of matching results are returned. The program highlights the parts from your original work that are matched to other web pages so you can visit the pages to check for stolen parts of your work.

Copyscape will even help you deal with the.

CLICK HERE:

www.copyscape.com

Posted in Useful Websites | No Comments »

CBS News Hits Rock Bottom

Ok folks, here is Ms. Nancy Giles’ resume:

Resume of Nancy Giles’

Unions: SAG, AFTRA, AEA

Commercial
Many commercials and national voiceovers. List and conflicts upon request

Television
Dream On Recurring HBO
Fresh Prince Guest Star NBC
LA Law Guest Star NBC
China Beach Co-star ABC
Delta Co-star ABC
PB&J Otter (animated) Aunt Nanner Disney Channel
Spin City Guest Star ABC
CBS News Sunday Morning Contributor CBS News
The Jury Guest Star Fox
Fox After Breakfast Co-host Fox

Film
New York Stories Touchstone Pictures , Woody Allen (Dir.)
Me and Him Constantin Films , Doris Dorrie (Dir.)
Loverboy Independent , Kevin Bacon (Dir.)
Big 20th Century Fox , Penny Marshall (Dir.)
Angie Caravan Pictures , Martha Coolidge (Dir.)
Everything’s Jake Independent
True Crime Warner Bros. , Clint Eastwood (Dir.)
Working Girl 20th Century Fox , Mike Nichols (Dir.)

Radio
The Jay Thomas Morning Show Jay’s Sidekick WTJM-FM, New York City
Giles & Moriarty Co Host WPHT-AM, Philadelphia

Theater (NY, Chicago)
Hey, Stay A While Goodman Theater
The Best Of Second City Nat’l Touring Co.
A Raisin In The Sun Goodman Theater
Mayor Village Gate
Urban Blight Manhattan Theater Co.
Police Boys Playwrights Horizons
Black Comedy: The Wacky Side Of Racism Dixon Place, Passage Theatre, Naked Angels
Notes Of A Negro Neurotic Dixon Place, EST

Education
B.A. Oberlin College

Now I am sure most of you are saying “Who the hell is Nancy Giles?” and “Why do I care about her resume?”. Of course that is understandable since her involvement in a few minor television shows, movies and plays doesn’t exactly maker her famous. After her commentary on the CBS News Sunday Morning, she is still not famous – but she has achieved the status of being infamous. However, before we move on, try to figure out what aspect of her resume qualifies her to evaluate the quality of an emergency response to a natural disaster?

I hate to keep doing this to you but you really need to read the commentary to understand why she pissed me off enough to devote a blog entry to her comments. Please click here to read her commentary.

Now that you have read her commentary, the first thing I want to point out is even Jesse Jackson had the good sense not to make such wild and unsubstantiated accusations as those that were made by Ms. Giles. I can’t help but wonder what on earth would lead a major network news organization to permit someone like Ms. Giles to go on television and make such inflammatory comments.

Ms. Giles said, “When I saw pictures of black people taking things from stores, my first thought was: “How are those Air Jordans necessary for your survival?” She is right that when folks find themselves trying to survive, they may have to do some things that they might not ordinarily do. One of the things that FEMA Under Secretary Brown admitted early on was they had not anticipated the extent of lawlessness that developed. This lawlessness went well beyond looting for food or items that were needed for survival. How does Ms. Giles justify the numerous incidents of rape or the murder of a police officer which occurred during this crisis? Could it be that the criminal element that stayed behind to loot may have contributed to the slow response? I am sure that it is difficult to render aid when you are being fired upon.

Although no one wants to say it right now, we can’t lose sight of the fact that all of the citizens of New Orleans were warned to evacuate several days in advance of Katrina. Everyone with a television was glued to the Weather Channel watching as the storm’s intensity increased as it traveled through the Gulf. Many of the victims were still in New Orleans because they chose to remain behind and ride out the storm as they had many times before.

I am confident that when this crisis is under control, congress and every other oversight committee known to man will be conducting hearings and pointing fingers. There will be plenty of blame to go around at the local, state and federal level. However, now is not the time to do so.

It amazed me that CBS would give Ms. Giles a platform to make such unfounded accusations but given their past history with the Dan Rather incident, I don’t suppose it should. To insinuate that the logistical problems that were experienced during this unprecedented natural disaster were somehow connected to race, economic status or political affiliation is irresponsible journalism at its worst. The good news for CBS and Ms. Giles is that the quality of their news operation has got to improve since they have no where to go but up – they have reached rock bottom.

Posted in General Interest | 10 Comments »

Website: Job Searches Made Simple

If you have ever tried to do a job search on the internet, you quickly discovered the problem is, there are just too many job boards. Well help is here. This site isn’t yet another job board. Instead, it helps by searching job sites. Just enter your zip code and a title, keyword or company name to get results in your area.

CLICK HERE:

www.indeed.com

Posted in Useful Websites | 1 Comment »

What’s Missing?

As I watched the television coverage of the hurricane devastation and President Bush’s speech, it struck me yesterday that something was missing. Whenever there is a crisis anywhere in the world, the United States is always among the first to offer assistance. We are several days into one of the worst natural disasters in our history and I have not heard of one offer of assistance from another country. Maybe the checks are in the mail.

Posted in General Interest | No Comments »

Free Credit Report Available for East Coast

Effective today, all of us east coasters (including Virginia) are finally entitled to a free copy of our credit report. We can take the opportunity to see what’s in our credit file at each of the three nationwide agencies.

Everyone thoughout the USA can now obtain a free report once a year.

Identity theft is a growing problem and one way to detect problems is to check you credit history periodically. Spread the word and check your credit.

CLICK HERE:

www.annualcreditreport.com

Posted in General Interest | No Comments »

Thank An Instructor

I had an occasion to go into the gym yesterday to pass along a telephone message. Shortly after I entered the room, David Scott began demonstrating how to place leg irons on a combative subject (Jim Booth). It was funny watching David talk his way through the process while maintaining control of Jim with a knee on his back. David didn’t realize it but every time he turned to address the class, he was putting increased pressure on Jim’s back and turning up the pain level.

The thing I found interesting was that all of the other instructors were smiling as they watched Jim’s discomfort because they had all been in that position themselves at one time or another. This was just another “day at the office” for these guys.

It struck me that we have a very special group of people who make up our instructional cadre, not just the DT guys but all of our instructors. If you listen to any group of instructors when they get together, they all have great stories about their experiences in the classroom. You can tell that they honestly care about what they do – teaching isn’t just a duty assignment. Our instructors teach year after year and they receive no extra pay for getting thrown across mats, riding with inexperienced drivers at 70 mph or standing beside someone who is holding a loaded gun in their hand for the first time. Even our classroom instructors spend hours of their own time preparing to teach.

Think about this the next time you attend a class. Instead of bolting from the room when it is time to go on a break or go to lunch, take a minute to say “thank you” to these dedicated individuals who give so freely of their time and expertise.

Posted in Instructor | No Comments »

Website: Sending Large Files

Do you get tired of people sending you those large media files in an e-mail? Ask them to check out “Dropload”, a better way to transfer files quickly.

All you have to do is complete the free registration, then start uploading your files – which can be up to an incredible 100 megabytes!

Once your file is uploaded, you just enter the recipient’s e-mail address and they are sent an e-mail with a link for downloading the file. Since the email only contains the link and not the actual file, you won’t bog down their inbox and the files are also scanned for viruses.

CLICK HERE:

www.dropload.com

Posted in Useful Websites | No Comments »

Website: Court Ruling References

One of our chiefs recently asked for a list of websites that he could use for legal research so I gathered up the ones that I use most frequently and I thought I would share them.

Virginia’s Judicial System
lLII: Supreme Court Collection Home
FindLaw: Cases and Codes: Supreme Court Opinions
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Posted in Legal Issues | No Comments »