Friday, October 23, 2009

Bottom of the News… Friday, October 23, 2009

Good morning my fellow Rotarians. Today we are back in the news and our first story comes from Kentucky…

Kentucky: The Butler County, KY sheriff had a warrant out Joe Oros III who jumped bail on drunk driving was arrested in California. The Kentucky sheriff decided to drive to California pick up Oros himself and after making the 4,100 mile trip the prisoner insisted he was not wanted in Kentucky. "Yeah, yeah, every convict has a story," said the sheriff, dismissing the protest. Upon arriving back in Kentucky they discovered Oros was the victim of identity theft, and they had the wrong guy. Oros was flown back to California and he promptly filed a wrongful arrest suit against Butler County sheriff’s dept. Oros’ lawyer noted that a pre-faxed mug shot would have saved the sheriff a trip and his county a lot of money; a costly mistake for a mistaken identity. Meanwhile, Oros said he liked Kentucky so much that he is considering moving there. His attorney is working on a deal to make his move a part of his lawsuit settlement.

Washington DC: A report came out recently from Homeland Security regarding the results of a new program called "Operation Scheduled Departure." The Immigration and Customs agency launched the program in five cities with the hope that some of the estimated 13 million illegal immigrants would deport themselves. The agency targeted 457,000 illegals, all of whom had been ordered to leave the US over the past year, but had not done so. The program offered free passage back to their country and no arrests or prosecution. Early reports claimed positive responses during the initial 30-day pilot phase, which cost $180,000. However, buried in the back of the report were the real results showing that only eight people volunteered to be deported. Jim Hays, program director, said, "I don't consider the program a failure, we just didn’t give it enough time.” Sounds another great government program at work!

North Carolina: For their season opening football game against McNeese State, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill planned two stunt men to parachute into the stadium to deliver the game ball. Come game time, the officials kept scanning the sky and could not find the skydivers. It wasn’t until about 10 minutes later when UNC associate athletic director Rick Steinbacher got a phone call from the Duke AD screaming at him asking what kind of stunt he was trying to pull. As it turned out, the skydivers picked the wrong stadium and landed at Duke’s stadium eight miles away, where Duke had just started their game with James Madison University. "We thought it was hilarious,” said Steinbacher, but the Duke people apparently did not agree. “Oh well, maybe they will get over it in about five years, or maybe longer, maybe then it will be funny to them, maybe…"

And there you have it, real news all the time, the Bottom of the News on this Friday, October 23, 2009! ###

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