Month: July 2007

911 call failed to stop attack that killed man:

Sheriff’s deputies were warned about an increasingly angry confrontation between two groups that led to the death of a 26-year-old Fijian immigrant, but the officers could not find the site, a sheriff’s spokesman said Wednesday.

Wolfgang Chargin of Folsom called 911 on July 1 to report that trouble was brewing between a group of Russian-speaking people and a group of Fijian and East Indian immigrants in a picnic area at Lake Natoma near Folsom.

The call came in to the California Highway Patrol and was transferred to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s dispatcher about three hours before the fatal confrontation. Satender Singh was punched and hit his head when he fell. He died a few days later after being taken off life support.

We’re not talking about a thirty second just out of the nick of time thing here. Three hours after the call the violence occurred.

Now, think about those response times when you’re in an emergency. Who’s going to respond faster, an emergency call switched between different law enforcement agencies, or your twitchy finger?

In this article, an attorney for Trader Joe’s doesn’t want to be insulting as he defends the chain’s obvious trademark infringement on Papa Pallermo’s well-known (to people who listen to Milwaukee Admirals broadcasts or Internetcasts) brand:

As you are aware, Palermo is a prominent city in Sicily, Italy, having a style of pepperoni pizza distinctive to the region.

Erm, yes, of course I knew that. Where’s Wikipedia when I need it?

Of course, this settlement will only last until the EU gets its way and prominent European locations are treated as trademarks when it comes to foodstuffs, but hey, you win the ones you can.

After enough time has passed that the Virginia Tech shooting is fading from collective memory, Marquette University President Robert J. Wild, S.J., pens a column for Marquette magazine just in time to frighten the incoming freshmen (except the psycho ones packing heat, of course). In it, he details Marquette’s ineffective plan to handle a similar situation, broken down (literally) into phases.

When pandemonium erupts, Marquette will respond thusly:

Phase 1: Meetings:

At the highest level of response, a crisis team with representatives from offices throughout campus would immediately assemble and work with local law enforcement and emergency management agencies. At every level our crisis plan calls for utilizing all available means of communication, including e-mail, the university Web site, university voice mail, Access TV message boards, postings in buildings and other tools as needed.

Well, I guess he only enumerates the highest level of response, which is meetings and communication. But don’t worry. Marquette offers other nuggets of safety. I’ll tick off a few for you here:

• Friendly Public Safety staff:
  

  >We also have an outstanding Department of Public Safety. Not only do these men and women patrol around the clock our campus and surrounding neighborhood, they also through their daily interactions work to develop a relationship of trust with our students, faculty and staff.

• Electronic surveillance equipment:
  

  In addition, Public Safety commanders have at their disposal in a crisis situation first-rate technology that includes an electronic system to lockdown instantaneously most academic buildings. Furthermore, this summer we will unveil a new command center equipped with cameras that allow us to monitor the campus area for suspicious activities.

• Good old fashioned Kumbaya:
  

  However, the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis or “care for the individual” provides us with greater freedom to build a campus environment that nurtures students in a holistic manner, intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Nothing about arming up or allowing legal weapons on campus.

So I guess the hide behind the fat guy is just implied, because once you start inserting the phrase “a suicidal man with a gun” into many of the sentences in his letter to the Marquette community, you realize how silly and, ultimately, ineffective the measures will prove if a Virginia Tech sort of incident erupts in Cudahy Hall.

But the survivors will have access to a crack team of grief counselors, no doubt. Try to live through any rampage if only for that.

Israeli security firm reports huge spike in PDF spam:

Israeli security firm Commtouch Software Ltd. is warning of a massive surge in Portable Document Format spam over the past 24 hours.

According to estimates by the company, about 10% to 15% of all spam over the past day or so has been in the form of PDF messages. “Given the fact that these messages are nearly four times bigger than standard spam messages, this increases overall global spam traffic by 30% to 40%,” said Rebecca Herson, senior director of marketing at the Israel-based company.

So far, the outbreak has involved 14 billion to 21 billion PDF unsolicited messages and shows no signs of slowing, Herson said. >

Lucky me, I must have been on the beta test list, since I’ve been getting this crap for over a week.

On the other hand, if I am on the spammers’ friendlies list, maybe there’s time for me to make a killing in Vision Airships before it goes from 1.9 cents a share to 2.8 cents a share.