The horror of Meth

Before-and-after pictures reveal shocking transformation in faces of users hooked on deadly drug. The photos, that show a shocking Dorian Gray-like deterioration, were compiled from mug shots of drug users that were arrested repeatedly over the years.

How Meth Effects the Brain and the Body

A sad case of Meth Mouth.  When you have money or good credit, you can repair some of the damages.  Lindsay Lohan Skipped Probation to Get Her Filthy Teeth Fixed.   WTF is going on here, early stage meth mouth?  Yet another celebrity victim, Lisa Robin Kelly, of That 70s Show.  Castmates: Topher Grace, Laura Prepon, Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Kurtwood Smith, Debra Jo Rupp, Danny Masterson, Topher Grace, Laura Prepon, Wilmer Valderrama to name a few.

Britney Spears is a Breaking Bad fan?  Did she or didn't she?

The Jael Strauss story blows away all those “Faces of Meth” ads.  Some of our local dopes and meth heads have the money to keep up appearances yet the slow decay will show up over time.  (bad, bad boys, too - William Paxson - William Konrad - Jerry Boeff - Paul Woellert).  Not everyone is as lucky with the looks department and shades can only cover up so much.  Drugs are fairly available behind bars but for the lucky ones they can stay off while they do their time.  Other  bodies have been known to deteriorate more rapid as you can observe if unfortunate enough to watch them try and work.

The playing field of Santa Barbara is not equal in the world of Rich man, poor man, methamphetamine. That is a grim fact of life. It was recently stated in a local news report that the Mexican cartels have taken over the local street gangs.  What will that mean for other dealers and abusers?  It doesn't get much more bloody, outside of a war, than the escalation in Mexico.  On our local shores the War on Drugs has been kicked up a few notches with the recent murder of a federal law enforcement officer.  We don't see how it helps when the privileged use illegal slave labor from Mexico or the US to do their dirty work.

Meth users often end up in the justice system.  From Hollywood actors to lawyers, from race car drivers and minor league baseball players to children of pastors, from surfers to teachers … from any walk of life you care to name, methamphetamine has found its takers, its so-called tweekers.

The justice system's bad case scenario and they can roam, they just can't hide from the law forever when meth is only one of their many Illegalities.   Birds of a feather do flock together.  Will meth change who you are?
   It sure did a number on Aaron Carter.

Federal Agent Killed When Drug Smuggler Rams Coast Guard Boat

Dec 2, 2012 A federal law enforcement officer was killed when a dope smuggler’s small craft rammed a Coast Guard boat in a midnight intercept of a marijuana load off the California coast, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Four suspects are in custody and a manhunt is under way for at least two others who may have escaped to a coastal island.
According to sources, the incident took place early this morning, at approximately 1 a.m., when the Coast Guard intercepted two boats — a pleasure craft and a panga boat, which is a small, fast launch — near San Clemente Island, in Santa Barbara County.

Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III, 34, of Redondo Beach was second in command of the Halibut, an 87-foot patrol cutter based in Marina del Rey.  Coast Guard News
In Memoriam – Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III

Redondo Beach:  Horne later moved to Redondo Beach, where he lived with his wife, Rachel. Neighbors told multiple television outlets Sunday that Rachel Horne is pregnant with the couple's second child.

A smuggler's vessel rammed a small U.S. Coast Guard boat off the Southern California coast, killing one Coast Guard member and injuring another

Noozhawk: Coast Guard Officer Killed When Boat Rammed
Santa Barbara Independent:  Panga Rams Coast Guard Boat, Kills Chief Officer
Ventura County Star:  Coast Guard member dies after boat collides with panga

Cops Say Legalize Drugs

Raging Panga!  

Edhat:  Panga rams Coast Guard boat, kills Chief Officer.
Edhat:  A Blackhawk helicopter full of armed Sheriffs.
Edhat:  I have an elderly friend (Vietnam Combat Vet) that needs a referral for medical marijuana.

Coast Guard Member Dies In Crash With Smuggler's Boat Off Calif. Coast (VIDEO)
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that Horne and fellow crewmembers of the Halibut "were engaged in an at-sea interdiction when they came under threat by a small vessel that rammed their small boat."

Risky Business

12/5/12 UPDATE SPECIAL REPORT: Details Revealed in Coast Guard Officer’s Death

Also How, When, and Why Pangas are Pushing into Santa Barbara Waters

Insane Comments on Drug Legalization

Meth Now Being Disguised as Liquor

Every 42 seconds in U.S. there's a marijuana arrest

Local school bus driver arrested on charge of possession of meth for sale

Afghan drug trafficking brings US $50 billion a year

80 per cent of the world’s drugs are produced in Afghanistan. 

Americans themselves admit that drugs are often transported out of Afghanistan on American planes. Drug trafficking in Afghanistan brings them about 50 billion dollars a year – which fully covers the expenses tied to keeping their troops there.

Drugs, Money Laundering and the Banking System

Not crazy enough for you?  

Hillary Clinton: Legalization not the answer to the drug war
"This is an ongoing debate," she said. "We are formulating our own response to the votes of two of our states as you know — what that means for the federal system, the federal laws and law enforcement."

Cops Say Legalize Drugs

The CIA, Drug Trafficking and American Politics: The Political Economy of War

US pullout from Afghanistan to reduce drug trafficking to Russia

CRY FOR HELP

One of FBI's most wanted arrested in Mexico

Mexico arrests Jimmy Kimmel look-alike and suspected murderer on most wanted list.

The Killer of His Daughter's Mother.  A cunning American boy becomes a Mexican Cartel soldier and East L.A. executioner.

How Jose Saenz, one of FBI's Ten Most Wanted, was caught after 14 years

This Official Record was collected from a Law Enforcement agency on 11/18/2011.

Hit Man Trained by Mexican Cartels

Sigreda Fernandez

Wikipedia   +  FBI   +    CAPTURED    +   ten most wanted    +

Read more:  

Nov 27, 2012 SLO:  Another panga boat found in same area as last three

Treasury Designates Ibarra Cardona Drug Trafficking Organization

Action Targets Major Methamphetamine Precursor Import Network

Mexico's Drug War Is Changing Childhood  

Police narrowly cheat death after 'mobile meth lab minivan' explosion is caught on camera

Sheriff’s Department Receives $130,000 Grant for DUI Enforcement Campaign

UCSB Burglars Busted

VIDEO

She defied Mexico's powerful drug gangs, who twice tried to gun her down

Maria Santos Gorrostieta - Astonishing HERO of Mexico's Undeclared War

They got her in the end.

MEXICO, D.F. -- The former mayor of Tiquicheo, Michoacan, Maria Santos Gorrostieta Salazar, 36 years old, was found dead Thursday morning in a vacant property in the Cuitzeo municipality (county).
Previously, Gorrostieta had suffered two attacks. one on October 15, 2009, when she was ambushed along


with her husband, Jose Sanchez, who died in the attack. She was wounded in the incident.
The other attack took place in January, 2010, when, after taking part in a public event in Altamirano City, Guerrero, she was attacked and wounded by individuals who were carrying assault rifles.

Enemy of Mexico’s drug cartels

Obit of the Day                  

The Third Strike of a Presidenta

Borderland Beat

New Frontier of the Drugwar: Prescription Drugs

Let's end the prescription drug death epidemic

Don't miss Dr. Sanjay Gupta's "Deadly Dose" documentary. 

(CNN) -- It's the biggest man-made epidemic in the United States. That's how a doctor in Washington state described it to me as we sat outside the state Capitol in Olympia.

He was talking about accidental death from prescription drug overdoses. The doctor, Gary Franklin, medical director for Washington state's Department of Labor and Industries, recounted terrifying case after case and told me it was the saddest thing he had ever seen.
I remember him telling me about a teenager dying because he had taken too much narcotic medication after a dental procedure.  READ MORE  (video)...   Prescription drug deaths: Two stories

Edie Sedgwick  was a legendary socialite, heiress, model and actress born in Santa Barbara, California. Sedgwick is buried next to her mom in Santa Barbara County's Santa Ynez Valley, near the Neverland Ranch of Michael Jackson.... cause of her death  "acute barbiturate intoxication."

“Well you’re the boss applesauce“

Michael Jackson Used Employees' Names to Score Drugs

Billionaire hedge funder's wife arrested for 'driving under influence of drink and prescription drugs' after Hamptons car crash  

SANTA BARBARA: “Candy Man” Created Need for Drug Class for Many Patients

Two female patients taken to a hospital emergency room indicated they were among numerous people who used sex to pay for drugs from suspect Julio Gabriel Diaz.
 OUT ON BAIL  

UPDATE:  ' C A N D Y   M A N '    Malpractice Dr. Julio Diaz / Facing 200 Years in Prison.

Prescription drugs worth millions to dealers

New York man sold oxycodone pills from ice cream truck 
         Barbiturate Abuse Overview

Black market numbers crunch

Prescription Drugs On The Black Market (video)

In Depth: The black market for prescription drugs

Prescription, over-the-counter, and black-market drugs

Bob Dylan's handwritten lyrics for Just Like A Woman. /  VIDEO

Marijuana Legalization Victories Are Already Ripping the Drug War Apart

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon says the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in two U.S. states limits that country’s “moral authority” to ask other nations to combat or restrict illegal drug trafficking.
Calderon says the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado represents a fundamental change that requires the rethinking of public policy in the entire Western Hemisphere.

Cops Say Legalize Drugs

A Brief History of Cannabis

The First Twelve Thousand Years

What Is The History Of Cannabis?

Why is Marijuana Illegal?

Former Cop to Rachel Maddow: Legalizing Pot is a "Win-Win"

It's not just hippies who want to legalize pot.  Last night on The Rachel Maddow Show, former Baltimore cop and 32-year law enforcement veteran Neill Franklin spoke to Maddow about drug policy, but rather than defend the drug war, he  said it is time for President Barack Obama to lead in drug policy reform. 

“It’s a win-win because it has been drug prohibition like with marijuana that has driven a wedge in between police and community," said Franklin, "Number one, police can get back to the business that they want to do and that is to protect people from violent people — rape, robbery, murder, crimes against our children, domestic violence. We can get back to the business of that.”

420 PATIENTS

Santa Barbara Dr. Accused of Drug Trafficking Has Posted Bail

Santa Barbara Dr. Accused of Drug Trafficking Has Posted Bail  Photo:  Dr. Diaz on Milpas Street
Dr. Julio Diaz to be Target of Solvang Family’s Wrongful Death Lawsuit.  Attorney says suit to be filed in patient death linked to Santa Barbara physician accused of over prescribing pain medications.

Julio Diaz Support Foundation       (  OUR BACK YARD  )

January 2012 LA TIMES:  Dr. Julio Diaz has been under investigation for allegedly prescribing addictive painkillers and other commonly abused drugs to patients who had no legitimate need for the medications.
The affidavit details the deaths of 12 patients. A Times review of coroners' reports identified several additional cases in which patients were treated by Diaz or received prescriptions from him and later died of overdoses.
In an interview with The Times in October, Diaz initially said he was aware of only one fatal overdose within his practice. After being questioned by reporters about individual cases, he acknowledged multiple deaths and said he shared blame in some of them.
"I do feel responsible," Diaz said in the interview, conducted in an examination room in his two-story office, which is wedged between a sports bar and a discount store. "I was the one providing the medications and perhaps there were some hints there that I should have known they were going to overdose."
Looking back, he said, the overdoses "gave me a good lesson."
Among those who died: A 49-year-old father who overdosed on painkillers after recently completing a 60-day drug rehab; a 35-year-old mother found dead in her bedroom by her young daughter, who was hosting a friend for a sleepover; an out-of-work county bus driver who overdosed on painkillers and other drugs as she grew increasingly depressed over the upcoming anniversary of her 20-year-old son's overdose death, which she attributed to her son taking painkillers that Diaz had prescribed to her.
The woman's husband, Amos Barajas, was one of several deceased patients' loved ones who raised concerns about Diaz's alleged overprescribing.

DEA Agents Arrest ‘Candy Man’ ~ Accused of Facilitating Addiction and 11 Fatal Overdoses
A 77-page affidavit unsealed this week by the DOJ lists the medications that Diaz reportedly over-prescribed most often: Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin, Norco, Fentanyl, and Methadone, to name some. Most of these drugs are taken to relieve moderate to serious pain. Many are habit-forming, and extended use increases a patient’s tolerance. The affidavit explains that numerous area health practitioners – physicians, psychiatrists, nurses, pharmacists – had written to the state medical board in recent years, expressing concern about Diaz’s prescribing practices and the frequency in which his patients would overdose, experience withdrawal symptoms, or have other issues with their medications.
Diaz, known to many as the “Candy Man,” is also accused of trading pills for sex.

CRY FOR HELP, lost, alone and steps away from homeless.    PILLS FOR SEX LABOR
Sandy Parnell, the wife of the Governor of Alaska, described Sex Trafficking as “modern day slavery.”
Source: United States Attorney's Office   COMMENTS
~~~~

Where are Michael Stinchfield's mug shots? UPDATE: STANLEY TOMCHIN

Is he a white business man or something?  

If he is out on bail, we would like to know if we see him around.  

Santa Barbara Independent:  Police took Michael Stinchfield into custody at around 5 a.m. in his 1724 Garden Street home after officers witnessed the women with visible injuries screaming and fleeing and from the two-story residence. Just prior to that, multiple neighbors had called 911 reporting a disturbance.

Stinchfield, 55, is booked in County Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats, attempted rape, sexual battery, false imprisonment, dissuading a victim from calling police, and a hate crime.

Police have so far released few details surrounding the incident, citing the open investigation. They did note that officers have had multiple contacts with Stinchfield in recent weeks and months, but couldn’t elaborate on those encounters at this time.

"Time to stop calling him 'Santa Barbara businessman.' New name? Santa Barbara perp.."  SHOREBIRD

Last month and his troubles made this headline: 

 Hour Long Pursuit Started in Ventura

Is this the same guy?

A judge gave these rich white men a ridiculously low get out of jail
bail but at least there were mug shots. That wasn't enough to end the abuse
or the life of crime.  Santa Barbara Criminal Court Corruption is alive and well.
Micheal Stinchfield isn't the only perp on the prowl.
(NOT A MUGSHOT)  KEYT-TV VIDEO

STANLEY TOMCHIN

UPDATE:  Another one bites the dust.  

Sports-Betting Kingpin Arrested in Santa Barbara

Feds: Stanley Tomchin a Top Player in National Gambling Ring 

with Suspected Mob Ties

The son of jailed mafia boss Vincent 'Vinny Gorgeous' Basciano has been arrested on charges of helping to run a $50 million betting ring that operated across five states from New York to California.

25 People Indicted for Involvement in Illegal Sports Betting Enterprise

Sandra, a successful businesswoman, lost everything: children, mother, home, business, health, EVERYTHING, to methamphetamine. She went to prison.

UPDATE: STINCHFIELD MUGSHOT

* "Another One Bites the Dust" 

Cops Say Legalize Drugs

Separate meth raids bring a dozen arrests in Santa Barbara  Jerry Boeff, Robert Bergere, Kelly Bergere, William Konrad

     DON'T DO METH EVEN ONCE   ~  STAY OFF THE PIPE

10 MOST DANGEROUS CITIES IN THE USA

Why do you think the drug war isn't being talked about in this election?  

LEAP co-founder, Peter Christ, appears on WGRZ-TV in Buffalo, NY and takes on all aspects of our disastrous War on Drugs. Captain Christ is vice-chair of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Buffalo Ranked 10th Most Dangerous City

Drug raid in Buffalo, NY, nets 640 ‘medicinal’ marijuana lollipops purchased in California

SAVAGES: America's backyard

Three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone tackles the drug war in

America's backyard

Stone has a terrifying and convincing thesis as to why the film has to be set in America, with American characters: "The point," he says, "is that wars come home, they come home to roost. And there are connections: one of the two main guys has come home from Afghanistan and Iraq, and he's brought all that with him, what I think are new levels of cruelty and combat technology we have out there."

The thriller Savages is in the same brutal, druggy realm of Natural Born Killers, but Stone has evolved in the past decade and a half, and the new film has a deeper, more complicated perspective. The violence isn't a kick. It's horrifying, senseless. Amid the mayhem, you think, "It didn't have to go down this way."   Why does it? Business.

Oliver Stone's film, Savages, with  Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Taylor Kitsch,  Blake Lively ,
Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro,  John Travolta ,  Demián Bichir...   C A S T
Dirty, Rotten, (Industrialized) ‘Savages’!

Salma Hayek’s Fierceness Is The Only Reason We Will Be Seeing Savages

Hayek had plenty to draw from in the lives of 

Griselda Blanco and the "La Reina del Pacífico" (Sandra Ávila Beltrán).

(Still at large though are such notorious female narcos as Ana Cristina Aguirre Monje)

The film is based on a book with the same name by Don Winslow, but while the book was released to acclaim, the film was released to mixed reviews.  The consensus is that the performances, with the exception of Blake Lively, are riveting. 

"How liberated from an agenda is this movie? 

Savages will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 13, 2012.  

WILL SAVAGES INFORM THE REST OF THE COUNTRY 

ABOUT THIS LITTLE SLICE OF AMERICAN BACKYARD? 

 Are homespun entrepreneurs/Pharma V the Mexican drug cartels coming to a turf near you?  Presidential contender Romney knows what American addicts have known for years, send the uninsured to a nearby hospital emergency room.  Some addicts go bi-weekly and are well known by staff.  "Yes every medic and ER doc knows... "  

Why not ask them?

"Drug addiction should be treated as a potentially fatal illness and not a crime"

Russell Brand

CRY FOR HELP/RUSSELL BRAND BEFORE COMMONS SELECT COMMITTEE

"My problems have gotten worse. Now I am also dealing with health issues, and it is definite that I will be needing surgery some time in the next month or so. 
I was served an eviction notice yesterday and am facing that situation also.
I have zero income, no phone, no car, and soon no house. I am at a check mate position 
and just want to give up. I cant take this anymore."

Liver transplantation / Kidney transplantation

Lost, alone and steps away from homeless, it is not enough of a deterrent.  (the fastest-growing group of homeless people in the United States is composed of single women with two or three children)  The characters change, the locations change, the substances change, yet it is the same stories told time and again.  "After Helen persuades him that "Don the writer" and "Don the drunk" are the same person, Don finally commits to writing his novel The Bottle, dedicated to Helen, which will recount the events of the weekend. He drops a cigarette into a glass of whiskey rather than drink it. He recalls that while packing for his lost weekend his mind was on a bottle suspended just outside his window, he ponders, over a reversal of the opening shot, how many other people in New York City are in the same position as he." 1945 The Lost Weekend

It seems simple when it was just The Bottle.  Now there is an excess from street drugs to pharmaceuticals.  With no end in sight of tortured addicted souls.  Growing are the professionals who make it all too easy:   Emergency room doctors at a Santa Barbara hospital saw a disturbing trend for more than a decade – patient after patient hooked on prescription drugs shared the same physician.   Dr. Julio Gabriel Diaz  "In addition, two women taken to a hospital emergency room indicated they were among numerous people who used sex to pay Diaz for narcotics, according to an affidavit filed in the case."
"Yes every medic and ER doc knows him. His nickname is Dr. Candy. Yes, every time I ran a call and found his name on the bottles, I documented it. As did Cottage hospital. We and they can only do so much and document so much. However, there is nothing more we could do but document and file complaints. For whatever reason, someone decided to take us seriously and take the next step. It is a shame it took so long."

Drug addiction should be treated as a potentially fatal illness and not a crime, 

comedian Russell Brand has told a parliamentary select committee.

RUSSELL BRAND BEFORE COMMONS SELECT COMMITTEE

THE FOLLOWING VIDEO IS WORTH A LISTEN.

  There is a bit of a culture clash here which makes his words and reactions to the committee members comments all the more valuable.  Parliament UK


Brand told MPs that more money should be devoted to treating and educating drug users, instead of punishing them, and suggested that ministers should consider decriminalisation.
What Happened When Portugal Decriminalized Drugs?
Santa Barbara girl Katy Perry & Russell Brand Are Now Official DIVORCED!!

Teenage Russell Brand  Ay ay ay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This story blows away all those “Faces of Meth” ads

Jael Strauss was on Cycle 8 of America’s Next Top Model  five years ago looking gorgeous, and now her face is ravaged by a six-year meth, cocaine, and painkiller addiction (that’s right, she was using while on the show.) She is unrecognizable now, and her family staged an intervention on Dr. Phil.

FALLING APART WITH DR.PHIL

Consider this your 

“Don’t do drugs” 

PSA for the day.

(Jael’s mother initially believes her daughter is addicted to Vicodin, Oxycontin, 

and possibly meth.  Jael agrees to rehab)

A former “America’s Next Top Model” contestant who we haven’t seen in a long time
is headed back to our television sets, but this time the reason is not so pleasant. Jael Strauss, who participated in the 8th cycle of Tyra Banks’ model competition,
is set to appear on an intervention-style episode of “Dr. Phil” tomorrow when her family confronts her about her addiction to methamphetamine.

Where are the models of ANTM now?

America’s Next Top Model Winner CariDee English 

Describes How Sucky It Is To Win ANTM

FACES OF METH

Stay off the pipe!
Officials said containment of the blaze, which quickly lapped up a hillside during the height of Friday's rush-hour commute and prompted temporary closure of the Getty Center, remained at 40%, a figure reached by Friday night.

Assassinated

Griselda Blanco, Original Cocaine Kingpin With SoCal Ties, 

Assassinated in Colombia

You're probably asking, What took so long?  Blanco was one of the most murderous drug kingpin's in recorded history, having turned Miami into a city of blood in the late '70s and early '80s before coming to Orange County.

February 15, 1943 ~ September 3, 2012

1.  Gerald Posner (interview) Back in the Limelight In 

Biography Channel's Griselda Blanco Doc.

2.  Cocaine Cowboys  is a 2006 documentary (Official Thread). 

3.  Cocaine Cowboy2

4.  El Colombiano reporting that Griselda Blanco has been murdered in Medellin.

5.  Cocaine 'Godmother' Who Was Proud of Murdering 2-Year-Old Was No Hero.

DRUGS AND THE DRUG WAR ARE BAD FOR WOMEN

Whether a pill popping wife of a Senator or scraping the bottom of a barrel there

is no glamour and lasting win.  Money does help but that is not the reality for most women.

Santa Barbara police arrest the Cook Avenue residents after month-long investigation.

In the most lovely of cities you can hear story after story of women desperate

enough to  prostitute or forced into some form of slave labor.  Their faces meld into a  stereotypical archetype you can recognize as if you knew them.  Age is not their friend. For many of these women their drug addled brains convince them it is love with their captors.  For years Santa Barbara's  family and geriatric physician, Dr. Julio Diaz, 

better known as the "candy man" was in business.  Eleven known fatalities later and  the DEA stepped in.  Dr. Diaz was also known to trade pills for sex in the typical way female addicts become manipulated by anyone they
may meet or in a business association.  It is part of the lifestyle.
Tragically, the drugs take away any sense of self and well being.
There are thousands of these stories.  The few that the "candy man" brings up is a small evident part of these monstrous crimes.

GORE, GUTS AND GONADS they didn't come more treacherous than the

Stay off the pipe!

... and do something about sucking on those nicotine sticks!

* It is being called the worst fire season of the decade *

This is when it gets disheartening to see workers with cigarettes hanging from their mouth.  Why can't they wait to take a break?  Hiring cheap labor isn't always the best answer, but that is how some of the old Santa Barbara privileged like to roll. Old families like tradition and they've made hiring under the table to escape labor costs a way of life.  They do it year after year and it works for them.  They don't seem to mind if they depend on henchmen to keep the crews in line, some sick stories are told in the hills of beautiful Santa Barbara.  Everyone else is not as happy with that arrangement, most of all during fire season.   Sure methheads need work too, but can't you find a foreman that can stay off the pipe?

It hasn't been that long since evacuating a large part of town was reality.  Yes, it could be worse if a fire sweeps down into our little tinder box of a town, no one is that safe.  And here we sit at the mercy of faulty equipment, wealthy cheapskates full of pride with how they play their slave labor games.

Red flag fire warning issued; 

lightning, gusty winds possible

Southern California fire danger to rise Wednesday

Memories are short.

    2009 Cody Duncan:  Here’s a few more pics of the Jesusita fire

 SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) -- Firefighters struggled Friday to get ahead of a raging wildfire that has moved dangerously close to heavily populated areas around this idyllic coastal city and forced the evacuation of an roughly 30,000 people.


Larry Williamson saved his Mountain Drive home from the Tea Fire. He was unable to save his Electric Truck.

Tagged ‘Santa Barbara fire’

millionaire meth
Life while using Meth is time spent waiting for death
Rich man, poor man, methamphetamine

The Bad Girls of New Castle

Child mugshots of the 1800s were like a depressing episode of The Little Rascals

During the Victorian era, kids as young as eleven received adult sentences for minor crimes. Here's an assortment of children's mugshots taken in Newcastle, England during the early 1870s.

 from the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums'
Life in Newcastle in the 1800's

Ann Burns 18 convicted of stealing a waistcoat sentenced to 1 month

Jane Farrell, 12, convicted of stealing 2 boots, sentenced to do 10 hard days labour












Mary Catherine Docherty 14 convicted of stealing iron sentenced to 7 days hard labour

Isabella Smith 60 convicted of stealing poultry sentenced to 6 weeks

"Pep, The Cat-Murdering Dog" was a black Labrador Retriever admitted to Eastern State Penitentiary on August 12, 1924. Prison folklore tells us that Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot used his executive powers to sentence Pep to Life Without Parole for killing his wife's cherished cat. Prison records support this story: Pep's inmate number (C-2559) is skipped in prison intake logs and inmate records.





1871-1873

Victorian morality and Women in the Victorian era

Beginning in the late 1840s, major news organizations, clergymen and single women became increasingly concerned about prostitution, which came to be known as "The Great Social Evil." Although estimates of the number of prostitutes in London by the 1850s vary widely (in his landmark study, Prostitution, William Acton reported that the police estimated there were 8,600 in London alone in 1857), it is enough to say that the number of women working the streets became increasingly difficult to ignore. When the United Kingdom Census 1851socio-economic one. The 1851 census showed that the population of Great Britain was roughly 18 million; this meant that roughly 750,000 women would remain unmarried simply because there were not enough men. These women came to be referred to as "superfluous women" or "redundant women," and many essays were published discussing what, precisely, ought to be done with them.


2012: Not all of the bad, bad lawless fiends of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties have received their appropriate scold or just deserves.  Stay alert and a vigilant citizen.  Meth Heads and chronic frauds are still out there. 

There are more "axles to grind."  A well concealed thriving criminal element with connections to the DMV can produce or alter paperwork that is very convincing.  
August 14, 2012  Auto Theft case  By Roger the scanner guy

Been fighting extradition from Mexico since 2007

'Queen of the Pacific' 

Mexican officials extradited the suspected drug trafficker known as the 'Queen of the Pacific' to the United States on Thursday.

Sandra Avila Beltran was handed over at the Toluca airport outside Mexico City to U.S. Marshals who took her to Miami to face federal cocaine-trafficking charges, the attorney general's office said.

She told the cops she was just an innocent housewife

 who dabbled a little in the rental market.

  

* * * * * *
Imagine this: You're out drinking when the bartender lets you know it's last call. But you're not quite ready to go home yet – in fact, you'd actually like a few more drinks. 
Illegal little houses: The dangerous underground club scene of South LA

33 arrested in Anaheim gang crackdown ~ More than 250 law enforcement officers target the Eastside Anaheim gang at 54 locations in Orange County and elsewhere.
A year-long investigation into one of Anaheim's most entrenched street gangs has resulted in 33 arrests and the seizure of dozens of guns, a crackdown that comes on
 the heels of weeks of street protests triggered by the fatal police shootings of two men. LATimes August 11, 2012

Southland body armor business is going ballistic
With strong international sales bolstering steady U.S. law enforcement demand, Cerritos body armor makers Stephen and Jana Armellino 
strive to maintain innovations in design and materials.

 Nationwide Drug Bust Includes SJC, LN

A Continuously Updated Global Display Of Major Drug Interdictions