Class, here’s your compare and contrast assignment for tonight:<\/p>\n
Police in the Middle West:<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Three men from the West Coast were hauling more than horses Tuesday afternoon in their trailer, authorities said – they also had $835,500 in cash stashed in a hidden compartment.<\/p>\n An Illinois State Police trooper and U.S. Customs agents found the money after the trooper pulled the 1999 Dodge pickup over for speeding about 3:50 p.m. Tuesday on Interstate 55, north of Litchfield, said Trooper Doug Francis, a spokesman for the agency’s District 18.<\/p>\n The discovery wasn’t mere happenstance. U.S. Customs had tipped off police that the trailer might contain cash, Francis said.<\/p>\n When the three men allowed police to search the truck and trailer, a drug-sniffing dog alerted on the vehicle, Francis said. Officers did not find drugs,<\/b> Francis said, but “something was there at one time or another.”<\/p>\n The Illinois State Police seized the cash pending further investigation.<\/p>\n Lt. Brian Hollo, the district’s interim commander, said that state and federal statutes give police the power to seize money if they believe it is drug-related<\/b>.<\/p>\n Hollo said it was the largest cash seizure ever for the district, which covers Calhoun, Greene, Jersey, Macoupin and Montgomery counties.<\/p>\n But police had no legal reason to hold the men or their three horses, so they were free to continue their trip<\/b>, Francis said.<\/p>\n As for the money – Francis said, “If they can come up with proof that the money is theirs, we’ll give it back to them.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Police in the Middle East:<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n At night, the police presence is most evident. On the city’s central streets, they make high-speed patrols, at times in groups that make the task appear more like a joyride. There are no other cars to be seen and there’s virtually no one on the streets, save the employees of Baghdad’s single 24-hour shop and the handful of restaurants that stay open late, mostly to serve the cops.<\/p>\n The police, however, do not receive credit for the apparent drop in crime. “It’s because no one stays out,” said Hassan Mahdi, the owner of the 24-hour shop. “The police are no good.”<\/p>\n But just because the streets are filled with police does not necessarily mean they’re safe. A journalist walking back to his hotel at around 3am on a recent morning made the mistaken assumption that it would be fine because only police were out. He was stopped and asked for his identity card three times during the 10-minute stroll. The third group of police also took US$100 from his wallet, after he showed an American passport<\/b>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Extra credit if you can work in this joke (reprinted here from another essay<\/a>:<\/p>\n I’m reminded of the joke about the man who offered a woman $1 million to sleep with him – her resonse was a hasty “Sure!” When he countered with an offer of only $50, her response changed to “Absolutely Not! What kind of woman do you think I am?” His response … “Lady, we’ve already settled that question – now we’re just haggling over price!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Link to Iraqi story seen on The Art of Peace<\/a>, where I browsed at the behest of Winds of Change<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Class, here’s your compare and contrast assignment for tonight: Police in the Middle West: Three men from the West Coast were hauling more than horses Tuesday afternoon in their trailer, authorities said – they also had $835,500 in cash stashed in a hidden compartment. An Illinois State Police trooper and U.S. Customs agents found the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22572,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions\/22572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}