One explanation could be that the city has staggering poverty affecting specific pockets of the population. Omaha has the unenviable position of ranking 1st among U.S. cities for the total number of African Americans who qualify as low-income.Below: aftermath of Omaha's newest black homicide and its effect on an investigating officer:
John Crank, a criminal justice professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, points to a clustering of the killings in the city’s most socially deprived areas, mainly in the north.
“Most Omaha neighborhoods had no homicides,” says Crank. “The majority of violent crime and killings are isolated to specific areas.”
“A lot is gang-related, a fair amount of retaliation. Then you have crime committed by gang members that are not acting on behalf of their gangs.”
In reality, the homicide rates for Omaha are dwarfed in comparison to murder data from the tough streets of Chicago or Detroit, since Nebraska has a small population.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Violence Policy Center: Nebraska the most dangerous state for black Americans
Omaha's mostly black-on-black gang violence vaulted Nebraska, with only about 1.8 million people, into a first-in-the-USA Black homicide victimization rate of 34.43 per 100,000.
Fatal stabbing of Belize cross-dresser renews attention to hostile climate fostered by foreign activities of anti-LGBT U.S. ministries
The Reporter, a Belizean newspaper, reported two men fatally stabbed Joseph Sanchez, 18, in the chest early on Jan. 12 while walking on a street in Belize City, the country’s largest city.
The publication said authorities found Sanchez wearing a blouse, a short skirt and women’s underwear.
Channel 5 Belize reported police have concluded Sanchez was the victim of what the television station described as “an armed robbery turned violent.”
Sanchez’s brother, Abner Sanchez, told the Reporter he feels the two men deliberately targeted Sanchez — reports have emerged that Sanchez had previously received death threats from a man with whom the 18-year-old had been previously involved.
“It was a setup because they called him out of his bed,” Abner Sanchez told the Reporter. “He doesn’t normally walk those hours. He was always picked up.”
...Caleb Orozco, co-founder of the United Belize Advocacy Movement (UNIBAM), an HIV/AIDS advocacy group, expressed concern over the Belizean government’s response to Sanchez’s murder.
“It is my hope they don’t contaminate evidence in this case,” Orozco told the Washington Blade last week, citing a 2009 murder in which a court released the suspected perpetrator after alleging authorities forced him to confess to killing his partner.
...Anti-LGBT violence and discrimination remain a serious problem in Belize in spite of the government’s recent efforts to combat it.
A Southern Poverty Law Center report highlights U.S. religious groups that have backed Belize Action, a group that opposes efforts to overturn the Central American country’s anti-sodomy law. The organization said these efforts have inflamed existing homophobic attitudes in Belize
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Mob attacks Ivory Coast home of three LGBT activists; cops told men to leave neighborhood
 |
| Photo: Alternative Cote d’Ivoire |
Soon after returning home from work shortly before 7 p.m., Touré said, the three Alternative CI staff members noticed that a crowd of about 60 people had assembled outside, whistling and banging on pots and pans. They threatened the occupants of the “faggot house,” shouting, “We will kill them,” “We don’t want fags in our city,” “We don’t want people with AIDS in our neighborhood,” “We’ll kill you all,” “We don’t want people working with AIDS and queers here,” “Damn you! We’ll burn your ass.” Alternatives Cote d’Ivoire reported further:
The mob kept up the racket as it tried to break down the doors of the house with rocks and metal bars. They threw garbage and human excrement, then prepared Molotov cocktails to burn the building and the people inside. The police arrived just in time to intervene...
On the day after the Jan. 20 attack, the LGBT activists and police met again at the police station and immediately began arguing.
The argument began after the chief asked a colleague whether he had “handled the case of the queers who disturbed public order.”
The chief then turned to the Alternatives CI staff and said, “You’re the ones who are pimping and running a brothel, huh?”
Touré denied it and added, “You should listen to us first.”
“But you admitted that yesterday in the presence of the duty officer,” the chief said.
Touré denied that also.
The chief responded, “So you mean that the officer lied? In any case, I don’t want to hear about homosexuality in my town.”
Agence de Presse Africaine (APA) ... [adopted] the neighbors’ anti-gay position in an article that Abidjan.net titled, “Eviction of a group of homosexuals in a posh neighborhood of Abidjan.”
The article begins, “A group of homosexuals, posing a threat to the education of children in a district of Abidjan, was driven off Tuesday evening by local residents.”
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Sean Hannity sarcastically begged by gays, Tim Gunn, Nathan Lane, blacks, immigrant cab drivers and cast of Jersey Boys not to leave New York
Hannity had threatened to leave after his state's governor, Andrew Cuomo, suggested that far-right politicos running for office are not welcome in New York. At 3:26 a hardhat even promises Hannity that the Keystone XL pipeline will be routed through Central Park if he only agrees not to abandon New York.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Tiptoe through the Tulips:
the progression of a twentieth century standard
Baby boomers are most familiar with the version popularized by eccentric musicologist and ukelele star Tiny Tim, whose rendition of the song charted at #17 in 1968, the year in which he performed the standard on the Tonight Show, (below) and a year before he gave Johnny Carson his highest-ever rating by marrying 17-year-old "Miss Vicki" on the host's NBC late night talk show, attended by a studio audience of 268 family members and friends and watched later that night via tape-delay by 45 million Americans.
America was introduced to Tiptoe Through The Tulips in the now-lost 1929 two-strip technicolor talkie, Gold Diggers of Broadway (later remade in black and white as Gold Diggers of 1933) by Nick Lucus. Below is Lucas singing the song 15 years later.
AKSARBENT really likes Robbie Banfitch's cover of Tim's version used in the 2011 horror film Insidious.
America was introduced to Tiptoe Through The Tulips in the now-lost 1929 two-strip technicolor talkie, Gold Diggers of Broadway (later remade in black and white as Gold Diggers of 1933) by Nick Lucus. Below is Lucas singing the song 15 years later.
AKSARBENT really likes Robbie Banfitch's cover of Tim's version used in the 2011 horror film Insidious.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Chinese-owned AMC Theatres sics Homeland Security on man seen watching movie with turned-off Google Glass; agents searched his personal photos, phone
 |
| AMC Theatre photo: Camknows, Flickr |
"A guy comes near my seat, shoves a badge that had some sort of a shield on it, yanks the Google Glass off my face and says 'Follow me outside immediately'," said the man, who was taken into a room for interrogation... After a long time somebody came with a laptop and an USB cable at which point he told me it was my last chance to come clean. I repeated for the hundredth time there is nothing to come clean about and this is a big misunderstanding so the [ICE officer] finally connected my Glass to the computer, downloaded all my personal photos and started going though them one by one … Then they went through my phone, and five minutes later they concluded I had done nothing wrong." He wasn't apologised to, but was offered four free movie passes, which "infuriated" him.Here's what AMC evidently does consider appropriate behavior at its theatres by its employees:
The ICE's Khaalid Walls confirmed the incident took place, and AMC responded with a statement: "Movie theft is something we take very seriously, and our theatre managers contact the Motion Picture Association of America any time it's suspected that someone may be illegally recording content on screen. While we're huge fans of technology and innovation, wearing a device that has the capability to record video is not appropriate at the movie theatre."
- Making false and defamatory statements about the behavior of a customer to government agents who subsequently rifled through the private photos of said customer
- Not bothering to assess whether a device with a recording "capability" actually was turned on before accusing someone of pirating a film by rephotographing it
- Thinking it could buy off someone with four free movie passes after humiliating him, detaining him and invading his privacy
AMC, the headquarters of which is in Kansas City, MO, was previously owned by several private equity owners (including Mitt Romney's Bain Capital) which, according to a senior AMC executive, allowed the chain's venues to deteriorate physically relative to competitors, even forgoing changing bulbs frequently enough to ensure that exhibited features did not appear dim to audiences.
Here's the hypnotic anthem for the #FuckYouPutin online action
The Swedish organizers want you to photograph yourself flipping a bird to Vlad. The website is here.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Intentional goofiness of Norway's curling team uniforms trumps bizarre Ralph Lauren U.S. Olympic Team attire
Norwegian curlers, unlike "Lauren," obviously don't take themselves seriously or expect anyone who sees their getup to do anything but grin, which, if you think about it, is a pretty good strategy to win over spectators.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Vladimir Putin: Russian must 'cleanse' itself of homosexuality to improve heterosexual birth rate
In an interview last Sunday with Russian and foreign television, Putin:
...noted with pride that Russia saw more births than deaths last year for the first time in two decades. Population growth is vital for Russia's development and "anything that gets in the way of that we should clean up," he said, using a word usually reserved for military operations.
Sochi Olympic 'Security' clad in Coca-Cola logos jumps Russian holding small rainbow flag in his hometown as Olympic flame passed
Blog:
Pavel Lebedev was jumped by officials in official Olympic gear, later identified by the Associated Press as “Olympic security officials.”
What was not known at that time was that the standard uniform of the Olympic security officials who assaulted the civil rights advocate appears to sport the Coca-Cola logo. Keep in mind that no one sports the Coca-Cola logo, or any other logo of an Olympic sponsor, without Coke’s explicit permission.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Two shockingly effective ads: one disgusting,
the other heartbreaking
Both of these examples come from Copyranter. If the ad below, one of a string of stellar efforts made for the New Zealand Transport Agency, can't get leadfoots to slow down, then there is nothing mere advertising can do for them.
The second ad, for a publisher of men's magazines, actually ran in 2007, although where was tactfully not mentioned.
The second ad, for a publisher of men's magazines, actually ran in 2007, although where was tactfully not mentioned.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Omaha gunfight claims 5-year-old relative of author of city's LGBT protection ordinance
Five-year-old Payton Benson, the grand-niece of Councilman Ben Gray,
was killed by a stray bullet this morning from a gunfight a block away
from her home at 45th & Bedford just after she had put up her
breakfast plate.
A $5,000 reward from Crimestopper's general fund has been offered for information leading to an arrest.
Benson is the latest victim of the unrelenting (and frequently unsolved) number of violent crimes in Omaha that caused a neighbor of Benson's to tell KMTV that he is ready to leave town.
(AKSARBENT did not embed KMTV's coverage because it is coded to autoplay, which annoys blog readers.)
A $5,000 reward from Crimestopper's general fund has been offered for information leading to an arrest.
Benson is the latest victim of the unrelenting (and frequently unsolved) number of violent crimes in Omaha that caused a neighbor of Benson's to tell KMTV that he is ready to leave town.
(AKSARBENT did not embed KMTV's coverage because it is coded to autoplay, which annoys blog readers.)
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Redneck alcoholics now worsening U.S. trade deficit: Japanese buy Jim Beam; Bud also foreign-owned
Suntory just paid $16 billion for Jim Beam. Budweiser was acquired years ago by the Belgian/Brazilian conglomerate InBev. Miller isn't a U.S. beer either.
Related: Dry drunk Phil Robertson discovered that Satan and a permissive 60s culture — not himself — were responsible for the eight years of liquor and substance abuse in his 20s that caused him to savagely beat a bar owner and his wife over a rent dispute, sending them to the hospital and forcing his wife and small sons to fend for themselves while he hid in the woods of a neighboring state from the Louisiana State Patrol for four months.
After repeatedly kicking his wife and kids out of the house, Robertson finally straightened up.
Nowadays, the only people Robertson assaults are LGBTs, with biblical clobber phrases from the Apostle Paul.
Curiously, Robertson avoids Corinthians, even as he recites Romans with both relish and Johnny-come-lately sanctimony.
After repeatedly kicking his wife and kids out of the house, Robertson finally straightened up.
Nowadays, the only people Robertson assaults are LGBTs, with biblical clobber phrases from the Apostle Paul.
Curiously, Robertson avoids Corinthians, even as he recites Romans with both relish and Johnny-come-lately sanctimony.
CNN panelist questions Omaha police union
behavior in reposting child "thug" video
The video appeared one day after the ACLU sued Omaha police over what it contends were civil rights violations in the raid of a North Omaha house in which a wheelchair-bound woman was knocked to the floor and a cellphone, as well as the memory card and the video it contained, disappeared. A video taken by a neighbor unbeknownst to the police went viral on the Internet and four cops were subsequently fired.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Ford Exec: “We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing.”
The New York Times, in a new article, The Next Battle for Privacy May Be Waged Inside Your Car, reports that at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:
G.M. has introduced a camera in 2015 Corvettes which will be one facet of a so-called Performance Data Recorder that records speed (via GPS), gear selection and brake performance, going much further in recording driver habits and location than already-intrusive, government-mandated Event Data Recorders, the "black boxes" in new cars.
Jim Farley, Ford Motor Company’s top sales executive, who is known for making off-the-cuff comments, told a panel at the CES: “We know everyone who breaks the law. We know when you’re doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing.” Although he quickly added, “By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone,” and later issued a full retraction, the comments, even if overblown and meant to be provocative, fueled the concerns.
Google, which earns money by tracking computer users' habits (and scanning their emails) and brokering ads targeted at them, recently announced a partnership with G.M., Audi, Honda and Hyundai to
bring Android to vehicles by the end of 2014.
 |
| 2015 Corvette Z06, via Jalopnik |
Obviously, all the data in these new devices could be subpoenaed in litigation by adversaries or by insurance companies and used against either the drivers or owners of the vehicles, or both.
Kahliah Barnes, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center told the Times: “Consumers
should decide what level of surveillance they want to be under. None of that should be on default. You should have to opt
in.”
The EPIC is quite disturbed about the potential of Event Data Recorders, Performance Data Recorders and technologies like GM's OnStar to compromise personal privacy:
The EPIC is quite disturbed about the potential of Event Data Recorders, Performance Data Recorders and technologies like GM's OnStar to compromise personal privacy:
Automobiles are integrating computing technology that enhance the ability of others to collect location and operation data in near real time. In the data driven economy this data is of value. There are only 13 states with laws that address EDRs and vehicle operators.
- Lack of consumer knowledge of the technology's presence in vehicles
- Driver Access to EDR data
- Security of EDR data to assure chain of custody and accuracy
- Transparency on each type of event that would trigger data collection
- Universal law that outlines the purpose of the data collection and limits the use of EDR data to the purpose of the collection
- Driver control (ownership) of data
- Integration of EDR data collection with non-vehicle operation related features
- There are no limits on the number of data elements that NHSTA may require in the future
- There are no limits on EDR data collection, retention and use by third-parties
Politico discovers yet another Koch Brothers
ultra right-wing political slush fund
Politico says the Arlington, Va.-based group, called "Freedom Partners," was unknown to nearly everyone in politics; it "raised and spent $250
million in 2012 to shape political and policy debate nationwide," cutting checks as large as $63,000,000 to conservative advocacy groups:
The group has about 200 donors, each paying at least $100,000 in annual dues. It raised $256 million in the year after its creation in November 2011, the document shows. And it made grants of $236 million — meaning a totally unknown group was the largest sugar daddy for conservative groups in the last election, second in total spending only to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which together spent about $300 million.
Omaha's Big Mama's Kitchen gets a show on the Food Network
After a stint in the military and 30 years at the phone company, Patricia "Big Mama" Barron, started what has become the city's best-known soul food restaurant, where she and her manager/daughter Gladys serve delicacies including [pig] ear sandwiches at the converted kitchen/cafeteria of a closed Nebraska School for the Deaf she bought in the 90s.
AKSARBENT does not opine, it just reports.
Below is a segment (at the 13 minute mark) introducing Big Mama's Kitchen from Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. More information about the new show is here.
AKSARBENT does not opine, it just reports.
Below is a segment (at the 13 minute mark) introducing Big Mama's Kitchen from Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. More information about the new show is here.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Iowa's Heidi Cullinan won't let daughter read her explicit gay romances but her husband may edit them
USA Today interviewed Heidi Cullinan, who said that her pharmacist husband reads all her explicit male/male romance novels and does initial editing.AKSARBENT would love to know what husband Dan edits and why.
Cullinan's 12-year-old daughter isn't allowed to read the books in her series, all of which which come with
Our mom just sold Avon, but then she never went to one of those Iowa City writer's workshops.
TX Rep. introduces bill to cut off federal benefits to married gay couples; here are all 27 co-sponsors
 |
| Rep. Weber and the Texas district that elected him, including Arlington, Galveston, Port Arthur and Beaumont |
Weber's aim is to deny federal benefits and rights to legally married gay couples who live outside the jurisdiction that married them if that jurisdiction doesn't allow gay couples to get married.
Here are the 27 (so far) cosponsors of Weber's law:
Rep Bachmann, Michele [MN-6] - 1/9/2014
Rep Bishop, Rob [UT-1] - 1/9/2014
Rep Bridenstine, Jim [OK-1] - 1/9/2014
Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31] - 1/9/2014
Rep Conaway, K. Michael [TX-11] - 1/9/2014
Rep Culberson, John Abney [TX-7] - 1/9/2014
Rep Fleming, John [LA-4] - 1/9/2014
Rep Flores, Bill [TX-17] - 1/9/2014
Rep Gohmert, Louie [TX-1] - 1/9/2014
Rep Granger, Kay [TX-12] - 1/9/2014
Rep Hall, Ralph M. [TX-4] - 1/9/2014
Rep Harris, Andy [MD-1] - 1/9/2014
Rep Johnson, Sam [TX-3] - 1/9/2014
Rep Jordan, Jim [OH-4] - 1/9/2014
Rep LaMalfa, Doug [CA-1] - 1/9/2014
Rep Lankford, James [OK-5] - 1/9/2014
Rep Latta, Robert E. [OH-5] - 1/9/2014
Rep Marchant, Kenny [TX-24] - 1/9/2014
Rep Neugebauer, Randy [TX-19] - 1/9/2014
Rep Olson, Pete [TX-22] - 1/9/2014
Rep Pittenger, Robert [NC-9] - 1/9/2014
Rep Pitts, Joseph R. [PA-16] - 1/9/2014
Rep Pompeo, Mike [KS-4] - 1/9/2014
Rep Rice, Tom [SC-7] - 1/9/2014
Rep Webster, Daniel [FL-10] - 1/9/2014
Rep Wolf, Frank R. [VA-10] - 1/9/2014
Rep Yoho, Ted S. [FL-3] - 1/9/2014
Zagat picks Nebraska's best pizza
According to Wikipedia, Zagat was acquired by Google on September 8, 2011 for a reported $151 million after it withdrew an 2008 IPO which failed to attract the $200 million the company sought.
Google planned to use the acquisition to provide more content and reviews for its locally oriented services. Google had initially planned to acquire competing site Yelp instead.In the absence of comments to the contrary, AKSARBENT will assume everyone in the state agrees with Zagat's selection. LOL.
On May 30, 2012, Zagat was officially integrated into Google's services, with its reviews now appearing on Google Maps and Google+ Local pages for relevant restaurants. Additionally, the Zagat.com service became free to use, but now requires a Google+ account to register.
In December, 2012, Google informed most of the former Zagat employees, who had been hired as temporary contractors, that their contracts would expire as of June 30, 2013.
Intel now encouraging workers to destroy company computers so it can sell more new chips
From the ad:
"You've been asking for an new computer for years! Are you going to watch things happen? Or make things happen?"
ABC: just 2-3 gallons of spilled coal chemical caused water emergency for 300,000 in 9 W VA counties
Update: later reports from other sources say 4,000-5,000 gallons of the
below-mentioned chemical were released into West Virginia's water.
Freedom Industries, which was unavailable for comment, allowed, according to ABC News, just 2-3 gallons of a coal preparation foaming agent, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, to overflow a containment facility and spill into the Elk River, near a huge West Virginia American Water plant nearby, one of the largest in the Eastern U.S.
300,000 people are affected in Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam, and Roane counties.
Don't tell Fox News, but socialism just made everyone in Norway a millionaire
 |
| Norwegian cross country skier Petter Northug Jr., 28, double Olympic champion with one silver, one bronze and two gold medals won in individual and team events at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games |
One in five people of working age receives some kind of social insurance instead of working, even though the "official" unemployment rate is 3.3 percent.
Why is the country so well-heeled when others are struggling under a mountain of debt?
Because in 1990 the country set up a sovereign wealth fund to invest and distribute the profits from Norway's share of the North Sea oil bonanza, officially called the Government Pension Fund Global, which is now so large it's beginning to affect the tides.
Recently the counter of Norway's central bank displayed a fund total of 5.11 trillion crowns ($931.87 billion), fractionally more than a million times Norway's most recent official population estimate of 5,096,300, according to bank's website.
The fund owns about one percent of the world's stocks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)