30 September 2008

Archive for Friday, October 29, 1999
Mayor’s Daughter Admits Using Speed

By Daniel Yi and Kristiane M. Ridgway
October 29, 1999 in print edition B-3

Note This article includes corrections to the original version.

The daughter of Irvine Mayor Christina L. Shea pleaded guilty Thursday to using methamphetamine and agreed to enter a rehabilitation program.

Since Stephanie Shea’s arrest Aug. 10, her mother has come to her defense, saying the drugs were not for her daughter and voicing concerns about police handling of the case.

On Thursday, however, the 49-year-old mayor acknowledged that her daughter “wronged” but remained critical of the way the police handled the incident.

“Whatever it’s going to take to help her, we’re going to do it,” the mayor said.

Superior Court Judge Susanne S. Shaw sentenced Stephanie Shea, 21, to 180 days in jail. But the sentence will be waived if she successfully completes a 180-day drug-rehabilitation program and a three-year probation.

Late Thursday in an interview from home, Christina Shea leveled new charges against police officials who handled her daughter’s case.

“I believe my daughter’s life was put in danger in the process,” said the mayor, who plans to meet with Chief Charles Brobeck over the issue.

Shea said that after her daughter’s arrest, police “turned her into an informant.” Based on information provided by her daughter, police later arrested a man, Shea said.

The suspect, an acquaintance of Stephanie Shea’s, has been calling her daughter from jail, the mayor said.

“If he had been a big drug trafficker, he could have come after her and killed her,” she added. “And that scared me and that scared my daughter.”

Irvine police spokesman Lt. Sam Allevato said he did not know if Stephanie Shea cooperated with authorities in helping arrest another suspect but said such procedures are not unusual in narcotics investigations.

The mayor “took issue with some of the tactics that were used,” Allevato said. “Those should be matters for the court to consider, not the court of public opinion… . We’ve felt from the beginning that the case involved an adult, Stephanie Shea, and all the comments as to her guilt should have been expressed by Stephanie Shea. She’s an adult.”

Irvine police arrested Stephanie Shea after a traffic stop led to the discovery of 42 milligrams of methamphetamine. She was charged with one count of possessing the drug and one of transporting it. The district attorney’s office dropped the transportation charges in exchange for the guilty plea on the other count.

The incident touched off a political whirlwind in Irvine City Hall, with the mayor accusing a fellow council member, Larry Agran, of leaking the arrest to the press.

Agran denies the allegations and has threatened to sue for slander if the mayor does not publicly apologize.

Later, Councilman Dave Christensen made public a message the mayor left on his answering machine blasting the Police Department.
Christina Shea is running for mayor.

Does Shea think the voters have forgotten how
she attacked the Irvine police chief
when her live-in adult daughter was busted
for methamphetamine?

http://www.redcounty.com/orange-county/2008/01/irvine-councilwoman-christina/index.php

Her bio: http://www.ci.irvine.ca.us/council/bios/christina_shea.asp

Her real estate biz: http://www.christinashea.com/
and this http://www.christinashearealtor.com/
and she seems to have this SheaforMayor.com

Irvine Mayor Takes Power Trip

Irvine Mayor Christina Shea deserves a defense, of sorts.

A City Council colleague has sought a district attorney investigation into whether Shea broke any laws by leaving voicemail messages threatening to get tough with the city’s Police Department over her daughter’s drug-related arrest. I say it’s not even a close call.

Arrogance, misuse of authority, disrespect for the criminal justice system, false accusations, pettiness and an old-fashioned I’ll-show-them-who’s-mayor attitude do not constitute criminal conduct.

But they sure leave the mayor with a lot of explaining to do. She has most of the Police Department mad as blazes at her, with good reason.

Naturally, the mayor has tried to shift the negative spotlight away from her deeds and onto those who made them public. Wasn’t it the Romans who always wanted to kill the messenger?

All this hullabaloo came to a boil Tuesday night at the City Council meeting, where close to 50 angry police officers showed up.

If you haven’t followed this soap opera, a few facts:

The mayor’s 21-year-old daughter, Stephanie Shea, was arrested Aug. 10 after a police officer who pulled her over for a traffic violation found methamphetamines in her vehicle.

When Mayor Shea discovered the next week that the arrest was about to hit the newspapers, she left the first of four voicemail messages with Dave Christensen, a close political ally. She also made at least two calls that week to the Police Department.

But Christensen, an ex-cop, found the messages so disturbing, he took them to the D.A. and let the media hear them and see transcripts.

The Irvine Police Officers Assn. is upset about a lot of things on those recordings.

One is that Shea accused a sergeant of lying about details of her daughter’s arrest. (Police Chief Charles Brobeck, doing his best to stay above this brouhaha, says she’s just flat wrong on that.)

The cops are also outraged that she took a swipe at all of them with a broad brush: “The Police Department and how they deal with people is really pathetic” … “If they lie about this they’ll certainly lie about everybody else over there” … “It doesn’t make me want to defend that department at all” … “The problem is [this case] is going to be a real attack on the Police Department and I’m not going to back down on it at all.”

City Councilman Larry Agran is upset too. Shea accuses him on the voicemail of leaking the news about her daughter’s arrest to the media. (He denies it.) The only “evidence” she provides in the voicemail, though, is her assertion that “this is his mode of operation.” But evidence or not, Shea vows to Christensen’s voicemail that “Larry Agran will meet my wrath.” And ” … he’s going to have to learn a lesson.”

All this strikes me as unfair, but not worthy of hanging the mayor in effigy. What is highly disturbing to me are voicemail comments where she appears to make threats that she could carry out only as an elected official of influence. Such as: ” … it’s just not going to go well for the chief [Brobeck] and Jim Blaylock [a top police commander]” and ” … I’m going to get very tough about this” and ” … we need to take this to task.”

When you see the four voicemail messages as a whole, you get a picture of a public official unafraid to use her clout if things don’t go her way. What she should have done, from the very beginning, was declare a conflict of interest and stay out altogether. Many other public officials with offspring arrested have done just that.

At Tuesday night’s council meeting, Shea explained that those voicemail messages were the words of a distraught mother concerned about her daughter–and besides, her words were never meant for public consumption.

The Irvine cops were upset with Councilman Christensen too, for making all this public. But if I were an Irvine cop, I’d be glad somebody told me what my mayor was saying about me.

Victor Ray of the Police Officers Assn. board demanded an apology from the mayor, insisting that she had defamed the whole department.

Shea’s response was not her finest moment. She told the police that “I do publicly apologize.” But not, it seems, for what she said on the voicemail. She was apologizing that it all became a public mess.

Ray said later that “I have no idea what she was apologizing for. It wasn’t to us.” Mario Casas, spokesman for the police group, said afterward that the mayor “still has a lot of reconciliation left to do.”

I’ve never been big on public apologies; there’s no accurate way to gauge the sincerity behind them. But taking a look at the people the mayor has sideswiped in all this, let’s start with her daughter:

On the voicemail, and in statements to the media this week, Shea has virtually confessed her daughter’s guilt. Shea said her daughter was transferring the methamphetamines for a friend who was ill and that “it was a stupid thing she did.”

What if a defense attorney wanted to argue before a jury that prosecutors had failed to prove Stephanie Shea even knew the drugs were in the vehicle? Momma just blew that one out of the water.

Agran has a legitimate beef too. Her attacks on him came from out of nowhere.

But it’s Brobeck who should be the most upset. No police chief should have to work under such veiled threats of interference.

I’ve saved one of my major concerns for last, because it’s only indirectly related to this ruckus. Because of this controversy, most of us were surprised to discover that Stephanie Shea was employed at Irvine City Hall as a $15.97 an hour part-time aide–to her mother. (She left the job two weeks ago, according to city officials.)

And this is a city with a strict anti-nepotism policy! How in the world does the mayor justify putting her daughter on the public payroll?

I’ve since learned that council aides are an exception to the nepotism policy because they aren’t part of the merit system. None of the other council members are doing it. Let’s hope Shea now follows their example.

Maybe the bottom line on all this is: When leaving voicemail, just give your name and a phone number where you can be reached. It can save you a lot of headaches.

28 September 2008

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/register-court-order-2171669-press-paper

Everyone's laughing at Orange County Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez
for imposing a "you can't write about your own trial" unconstitutional restraining
order on a newspaper. The guy seriously needs to step down from the bench and
go to a constitutional law class.

26 September 2008

--- In X, Y wrote:
When that time is up, chances are very good that cheap
> passage to space would be available and thus the "toss it into the sun"

There's a rule that if an expert says something is impossible
in 20 years, its likely to be common in less than
in 20; but if some expert
says possible in 10, they are likely wrong.

Personally I think my 9 year old will wage wars over
can openers and landfills. Obviously pessimist, me.

I don't think Space will happen, too expensive. Without
contraception, most will live in hovels. I think we need
solutions for earth. Not crazo macho repubublo looney
moon colonization, jus' sayin'. Just MHO.

Cultures go through a sigmoid curve, then they die or
improve. Your choice. Beer, cheese, humans.
Yeast or humans. Sigmoid (integral
of Bell curve) rules.

Big bada boom.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/gambling_domain_seizure/

J. Michael Brown is some inbred kentucky loser bureaucrat who has hijacked
some TLD names from firms not even located in his state. Using secret court
orders. This kind of overreaching wannabe fascist needs hanging. He needs
to stay in his little kentucky cesspool and stay out of the big leagues.

Why did he do this? Because internet gambling takes money away from
his local state-monopoly gambling.

I think it would be very cool if some offshore firms took over or DoS'ed the unAmerican
state govt of Kentucky's infrastructure.

http://justice.ky.gov/about/Brown.htm
Look, he's a state negro. Probably got his job as part of affirmative action.
A pro whiner. A "leech" as he calls net gambling.

Naturally he wants to control and tax a mutually consensual activity. He thinks
he is more than just smelly roadkill on the info superhighway.

24 September 2008

I has ur yahoo
I been readin ur mailz

LOLcat caption for Palin... insert random cat & computer pix.

22 September 2008

Ok, lets get kids to hold long pointy metal sticks. In the dark. Lets tip them
with flaming sticky globs, napalm-like, but edible. And lets heat up the metal
rods to near-incandescence over an open firepit.

Yes, this is camping with marshmellows.

18 September 2008

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003850908

Shocking Iraq Incident: 2 U.S. Soldiers Killed by Another

By Greg Mitchell and The Associated Press

Published: September 17, 2008 5:50 PM ET updated 8:30 PM ET
NEW YORK The Pentagon has announced, but the media not yet covered (beyond the basic facts, and usually not that) a shocking incident in Iraq. Two U.S. soldiers -- a staff sergeant and a sergeant -- were killed Sunday morning in a "non-hostile incident."

What was it? The military explains, "A U.S. Soldier is in custody in connection with the shooting deaths. He is being held in custody pending review by a military magistrate." All that was known for some time was that the unnamed soldier "opened fire" on his "superiors."

Naaah, Iraq ain't Viet Nam. Hajj don't do pho.

17 September 2008

Look, its the Palin wedding invitation
http://www.legion.org/documents/legion/posters/949.jpg

15 September 2008


Saw this LA Times front page this AM. Check out the Freudian slip on the
SanFran story.

12 September 2008

Very impressed at the cranes that can be extended from fire trucks.
Very impressed at helicopters.
Very impressed at portable metal-bending tools.
Very very impressed with their human controllers.
See prev posts
Read my previous posts about the Chatsworth Metrolink train crash.

Evac Helis are angels.

Its getting dark. They're getting lights. I knew they'd need this a few hours ago.

Fortunately the firemen angels and trauma center angels also train for this.

Need big counseling.
Why don't trains carry eg IR beacons that other trains can see?
Its frickin' trivial to do, even considering the security (cryptography)
requirements.
One interviewee said the freight train went about a third of the way into the front
passenger car.

If you look into how shaped charges work, you learn that the collapsed metal
liner (ie, jet) does its work on a Newtonian (momentum) basis. Heavier freight (strawberries
have the density of flesh) would have killed many more people.

Why don't passenger trains pull a sacrificial car, much like modern steering wheels have collapsable
segments?
The shell shocked woman was "Cory Stewart".

She ran with supplies to help.

What can I say?
Newsdroid sez: "Are you as emotionally ready as you are trained for this"

Obviously not. These are not Zen firefighters, they're firefighters.
They're not psychopath firefighters. They're firefighters. They can
control some fears, under extreme pressure,
but that does not imply complete self control, when they're falling off
to sleep.

Yeah, they can extricate, triage, splint, extinguish, exhibit super human
care, decisions, endurance, and strength, but they cannot be emotionally ready.

Tequila and tears. Hugs for them. Talk about it.

Life will go on. Love the ones you're with.








I want to know how this happened. Like that bridge collapse in the midwest last year, I thought we had solved this stuff.
A passenger train just collided with a Metrolink freight train, in the San Fernando valley,
supposedly carrying strawberries.
At least four are dead. Fox11 interviewed a traumatized young woman who had
held a man, dying, brains leaking, she said.

I'm an engineer. Why is there not a sacrificial (foam) car between engine and passengers?
Being light, it would cost little to carry. Is the risk of collision *that* low? It should
be, I thought we solved the multiple-trains on a track problem some time ago.

The neighbors are heroic, as are the firemen, and others.

That woman had the look and walk of the thousand yard stare.
She will need therapy, perhaps MDMA therapy, like many.
(Including returning soldiers.) But that won't happen.
My kid was advised to install Filezilla. To get into 4th grade, he needed
a 64MB USB Memory stick. This being 2008, that's not to hard.
David Park, IPD officer, fondled a stripper on duty.
http://www.ocweekly.com/2007-02-08/news/illegally-park-ed/

Sean Crawford assaulted a female security guard at a concert, while drunk:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/crawford-irvine-department-2154683-sheriff-police

A UCI cop Scott Cornelius sent pictures of young boys to gay websites. He was not punished.
http://www.ocvarsity.com/ocvarsity/hshighlights/article_1964783.php

CHP personnel sent out pictures of the Porshe Girl Nikki Catsouras
but was not punished. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/catsouras-nikki-family-2137164-chp-lawsuit
Joe Lieberman continues to demonstrate that he is a foreign agent.
He "asked" YouTube to censor videos.
He needs hanging, after his trial of course.

07 September 2008

Check out
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/vpastandards.pdf

What a waste of time.

I suppose entertaining us is something the lowbrows can do. But damn, they think they're important. Someone needs to slap them.

05 September 2008

Why Johnny can't vet.

Who knows, maybe dementia. But that losing Vietnam vet sure doesn't
know how to vet folks like Palin. One hopes if he has a pet he vets their
vet better than he vetted his VP.
Countdown LED Throwies

Use a 7-segment display with a little counter/driver chip. They countdown until
the battery dies. The magnet holds them to the airport countertop :-) or the vital
infrastructure's ferrous bits.

Great fun in Boston.

Bonus points if you put them on police cars. Double bonus points if you
get one to stick on a cop without him knowing.

04 September 2008

Now the republifascists have Bryan Clay, apparently some kind of athlete.
He reads like a robot. Which he is. And every fifth word is "god". Good
nigger, obedient.
My kid's first fourth-grade assignment: Which would you rather have, a
hybrid, an SUV, or a Ferrari?

My kid answered hybrid, because it is "eco-friendly" and "doesn't use
gas as much". He adds, "I will help stop pollution"

The real problem is overpopulation. But you can't teach that, can you?
Don't kill, but boycott Americans

Accelerate the dark ages. They're only dark for the suckling historians.
Part of the McCain fascistpalooza: Fallin of OK still milking the
federal revenge. Get over it, and stop using kids as Fed shields.

TMcV: a true american hero.
Bill Clinton was nearly impeached for something benign to everyone but Hillary;
here we have a VP who has burdened us with a Down's child she knew about,
and yet another teenage pregnancy, conceived as a bastard. By a redneck :-)

Simply amazing. I couldn't make this stuff up.

At the same time: the US invaded Pakistan. Little news of that. The US is down
the tubes. Rome before the dark ages. Welcome to the dark ages.

Got enriched uranium?
Republicans (and Democrats, there's little difference) think they can
control your body --what you eat, drink, smoke, who you do it with,
what operations you have, what medicines you use, what you do with
your time (eg jury fnord "duty", conscription, and other forms of slavery). If they think
that I'm fair game, guess what, their meatspace presence is also up for grabs.

Also, "bastard" is not an obscenity, nor is it slander, when its true. Neither are
adjectives like promiscuous and stupid.

At least one of her spawn is in the military, maybe he'll get offed. Evolution sometimes
works. But there's more to prune and they're growing --four months to another Palin parasite.
At least with Cheney, if he shoots you while hunting, you might live.
Forget it for Palin and her Moosegun.

PS: you have a right to arms that can be used on tyrants. You don't have
a right to hunt or to own guns only useful for hunting.

Fortunately, all guns are useful on tyrants. Thus protected.
Got the spelling right this time. Its Sarah Palin who has the bastard
firstborn and who is going to have a bastard grandchild. By an underage
daughter. And its this Palin who did not terminate a damaged child she
knew she was having (at her age, too).

Oh, and the DUIs. It just keeps getting better. And to think that a man
from a broken home (like McCain's current or Obama when growing up)
could be president was unthinkable a while ago.

At least the Ron Paul convention was uplifting.
Turns out Sarah Palin's firstborn was a bastard too. She got knocked up, then
married. Can't have an abortion of course. Not even 4 kids later, when its
a monster she's birthing.

Bristol Palin's kid's name will be "Shotgun" as in Wedding.

03 September 2008

Christina Shea, once mayor of Irvine, harassed police for busting her live-in adult daughter
for methamphetamine possession and transport.

Larry C Ford, mormon gynecologist, blew his head off with a shotgun when police
asked about his involvement in his biz partner's botched offing. He had high
explosives, machine guns, buried in his Irvine back yard, and biological weapons in his garage fridge.

The 2008 Republican VP candidate has a bastard grandson by her underage unwed daughter. Her husband has a DUI. The republicans are cheering.

Larry Agran once ran for President. His qualifications: he was an Irvine mayor and is a university snicker professor.

What is in the water?
They had Rudy on, and as usual he terrorized the citizenry with talk
of scary people. He is pure 1984.
Its a frickin' circus. Ugly old republicans cheering the underage unmarried daughter
of the future president, one seizure (and fortunately entire election) away. Its
grotesque and reminds me of Planet of the Apes.

But hey, her husband races snowmobiles (apparently "snow machines") when he's
not getting DUIs.

But I read that Ann Coulter likes meth and sex. That's gotta be redeeming.
Another fine source of bastards is Donald Bren of the Irvine Company. He
is a serial bastard machine, setting up franchises with high maintenance women,
popping a kid out, moving on to the next. If you can afford it, why not.
(I wonder if there are any orphanages in Irvine. Doubt it)

The point is, he's a private man, and the law should say nothing, but its
interesting to observe.

OTOH Did Palen tolerate statutory rape of her daughter? If she's 17 now and due in a few...

But the worst is birthing a Down's... if you know about it should be criminal.

And, she kills wild healthy animals for fun.

Yep, fine Presidential material.
So Palin got picked by McCain, obviously pandering. Surprised
he didn't pick Condosleeza Rice, and kill two birds with one evil hag.

Not only is Palin's underage daughter birthing a bastard, but Palin herself recently birthed a Down's monster she knew about and could have prevented. WTF kind of responsibility is it when a forty-something burdens society with this, knowing better?

But I figured it out: with McCain, you can't be terminated until you're 18 and holding a rifle
wearing a uniform.

Maybe by the time he's 18, Palin's mentally damaged son will be eligible for the US military, which would have reduced its standards by then to admit him. Maybe that's
the secret plan. Abortion cuts down cannon fodder, and the Empire needs cannon fodder
if McCain is in.