Huntsville, Alabama man decapitates Copperhead snake, which then bites itself

Just remember…

The thing is already dead.

However, the question is: How did it do that if it was dead?

Answer: Nerves – the same way a chicken runs around after it’s head is chopped off.

Chemicals are how muscles move. It’s how our heart pumps. Chemicals move into and out of cells. In the heart, those chemicals are primarily sodium & potassium, with calcium playing a supporting role.

Energy (in the form of electrical potential) is created, released, and stored by the movement of elemental sodium, potassium & calcium into and out of cells.

Recall from grade school biology class that

How much does Huntsville Hospital charge for procedures? You’d be surprised!

Thanks to a newly introduced aspect of ObamaCare, hospitals are now mandated to publicly show how much they charge for procedures.

Aren’t you glad?

I mean really… who goes to a grocery store or gas station and doesn’t know how much they’ll pay?

Part of market-based competition includes

Crappy Writing in Huntsville’s nearly defunct newspaper

Critique with explanation follows the story.
—

Huntsville police searching for man who entered family’s hotel room, took laptop and fled

By Kelly Kazek | kkazek@al.com
November 10, 2012 at 8:59 AM, updated November 10, 2012 at 10:39 AM

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – A family was asleep in a hotel in the 3000 block of University Drive when

Amy Bishop gets off scot-free in brother’s murder

—

Ex-Alabama prof won’t be tried in brother’s death

By JAY LINDSAY Associated Press  / September 28, 2012

FILE – This Feb. 13, 2010, file booking photo provided by the Huntsville, Ala., Police Department shows college professor Amy Bishop, charged with capital murder in the Feb. 12, 2010 shooting deaths of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Bishop pleaded guilty to capital murder charges in an agreement that will send to her prison for the rest of her life and make her ineligible for the death penalty. A judge scheduled jury selection for Monday, Sept. 24, 2012, as a trial is still required under Alabama law because Bishop admitted to a capital charge of murder. (AP Photo/Huntsville Police Department, File)

BOSTON (AP) — A former Alabama professor convicted of fatally shooting three colleagues won’t face a Massachusetts murder trial in the 1986 death of her brother after prosecutors withdrew their indictment.

The announcement Friday by the Norfolk district attorney follows Amy Bishop’s sentencing this week to life in prison without parole for the killings at the University of Alabama-Huntsville in February 2010.

In a statement, Michael Morrissey said the life sentence his office would have pursued in the killing of 18-year-old Seth Bishop was identical to the punishment she received after her guilty plea in Alabama, so there was no need to move forward.

‘‘We will not move to have her returned to Massachusetts,’’ Morrissey said. ‘‘The penalty we would seek for a first degree murder conviction is already in place.’’

The office withdrew the indictment ‘‘without prejudice,’’ meaning Morrissey could reinstate it if something went wrong in the Alabama sentence, though he said he considered that unlikely.

Amy Bishop, convicted of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, appears on the cover of the January 2009 cover of the Huntsville R&D Report.

Bishop said

Disgraced Alabama Jurist Roy Moore disgraces himself… again. This time, during UAH Professor Murderess Amy Bishop’s guilty plea.

Perhaps it was the Almighty calling him, eh?

I can hear the dialogue now:

“Roy… don’t run again, son. You’ve already embarrassed Me enough, and shown what an idiot you are. So do me a favor, go back home, and go fishing in the lake, instead.”

—

Chief Justice candidate Roy Moore apologizes after cell phone rings during Amy Bishop hearing

Published: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 5:49 PM / Updated: Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 5:49 PM

By Paul Gattis, The Huntsville Times

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — As a packed courtroom hung on every word uttered as Amy Bishop pleaded guilty today to capital murder, one sound briefly drowned out all others.

Roy Moore’s cell phone.

UAH Professor Killer Amy Bishop Pleads Guilty

The reader should understand: The cost of trying capital cases – cases in which the penalty is, or may be death – are EXCEEDINGLY more expensive than any other case, simply because of the numerous levels of mandatory appeals. Thus, by pleading guilty, and spending the rest her natural life behind bars – without the possibility of parole, and being given humane healthcare – the District Attorney, Amy Bishop and her defense attorneys have saved Madison County, Huntsville, and the State of Alabama many MILLIONS of tax dollars.

That is true, even given that she may live perhaps another 40 years – though that is highly unlikely, simply because incarceration exacts a physical toll upon a person’s life, shortening it by many years. Estimating a cost of $20,000/year (which includes the total cost of employees to guard & manage the system, cost of operations, etc.), and supposing she lives another 40 years (which is less likely, than not) the total flat-line cost would be $800,000.

A 2004 report entitled “State Prison Expenditures, 2001” by James B. Stephan, Statistician for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, of the Department of Justice, found that the cost of food and medical expenses, food service & utilities cost per prisoner in Alabama was $1776. Alabama’s Average Annual Operating Cost per prisoner was $8128 – THE lowest of 50 states. Other components of cost – employee cost, salaries, wages, benefits, supplies, maintenance, contractual services, and other aspects of facility operation, etc. – account for nearly 96% of all operating costs. According to the report, of all states, Alabama has the HIGHEST per-prisoner cost of utilities as a percentage of operating expenditure, at 5.7%. Perhaps it’s time to rethink solar, wind and other sources of renewable energy?

—

Sep 11, 3:15 PM EDT

Ex-prof pleads guilty to killing Ala. colleagues

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An ex-professor pleaded guilty Tuesday to fatally shooting three colleagues and wounding three others at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, court officials said.

Amy Bishop, 47, pleaded guilty to one count of capital murder involving two or more people and three counts of attempted murder. She had earlier pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Amy Bishop pleads guilty to murder and attempted murder in Madison County.

Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty against the Harvard-educated Bishop and it was not immediately clear if they would drop the penalty as part of the plea deal. Sentencing will be after arguments are heard at a hearing on Sept. 24.

Prosecutors say

Huntsville Judge Donna Pate Sentences Daniel Ray Proctor to TWO Life Sentences on Theft

Alabama‘s prison system will again be pushed to the taxpayers’ breaking point by stupidity such as this sentence. It is extreme – even with the increased severity of punishment required for habitual offenders.

This is the so-called “Three Strikes and you’re out” law in action.

Realistically, “Three Strikes and you’re out” only applies in baseball games. But someone thought it sounded cool, and morphed it into a law in California. Subsequently, California’s prison population has exploded because that state adopted that law. They’ve now seriously modified it. It may be time to rethink sentencing guidelines in Alabama. But the likelihood of that happening is practically negligible.

Thanks to our legislature, this man will now burden every honest Alabama taxpayer.

That’s not to say he and others like him should not be punished, but rather acknowledges the failure of a pop-culture-driven bumper sticker slogan to effectively remedy, ameliorate or mitigate criminality. In essence, there is little or nothing done to correct, and much done to punish. Oddly, every state has a “Department of Corrections,” rather than a ‘Department of Punishments.’ There’s a reason for that, and it’s because there is a two-fold purpose (to punish and correct), with the higher one being correction.

Yet standing in stark contrast is the as-yet-untried, and officially indefinitely delayed case of Amy Bishop, the Harvard PhD-educated biology professor who went on a shooting rampage and killed three, and wounded three other colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Even though she has a track record of mental instability,

Corruption in Alabama politics: Oh yeah… they’re Republican.

This is the same 57-year-old Jane Smith, Circuit Court Clerk for Madison County, Alabama who plead guilty to three federal misdemeanors in federal court recently for sharing her high-level password to the state’s judicial system computer records in 2009, avoided jail time, was fined $5000, and placed on one year probation.

She was first elected in 2000, and to her credit, is widely credited with modernizing the clerk’s office and making it among the most efficient in the state.

Jane Smith, Circuit Court Clerk, Madison County, Alabama

Madison County Circuit Clerk plans to stop processing passport applications, cites confusion over fees

Published: Friday, March 30, 2012, 7:08 AM

By Brian Lawson, The Huntsville Times

Madison County Circuit Clerk Jane Smith (Submitted photo)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Madison County Circuit Clerk Jane Smith said Thursday she will soon stop collecting passport applications, which include a $25 processing fee she is personally allowed to keep.

Federal law sets the fee, and under Alabama law circuit clerks are allowed to keep passport handling fees. Smith said the law was in place before she was elected in 2001. The office began collecting the fees in 1977.

But Smith, who won a third term as clerk in the Republican primary March 13, said ongoing cuts to state court budgets and “continuing confusion over using these fees for official expenses” led her to decide to stop collecting the applications as of May 1.

The funds are not public, though they are collected as part of a public official‘s duties. Smith has said she deposits the collected fees into her bank account and

Alabama State Budget Hardships is Justice Delayed for Amy Bishop. Could she go free?

The GOP dominated state government has no clue about how to run the state.

The results are horrific.

Here’s one example.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – The high-profile murder case against accused UAH shooter Amy Bishop has been delayed.

Circuit Judge Alan Mann approved a defense request Friday to push back the start date for Bishop’s trial.

The case had been set to begin March 19 and no new date was immediately set.

Prosecutors are

Alabama’s inept governor & legislature are clueless on how to remedy problems. And in other news…

Face it folks, Alabama MUST change its tax policy and law – something about which Alabamians have been warned for quite some time. It’s not as if we’ve never heard the idea or notion, for indeed, Alabama’s income tax assesses a heavier levy upon the poor than the wealthy, and many large corporate timberland-owners (Georgia Pacific, Weyerhauser, International Paper, Gulf States Paper, et al) pay little or nothing on their vast holdings by comparison to others.

As the issue of a potential shut-down of state services (the forensics lab in Huntsville) relates to criminal prosecution, I could imagine that a sharp attorney could move for dismissal of charges based upon delay of prosecution – which is a federal Constitutional issue – because the Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused the right to a speedy trial, among other aspects of prosecution.

And that issue – a violation of the Sixth Amendment – is one reason why I can imagine former UAH professor Amy Bishop – accused of murdering her colleagues – may have a federal case on her side, because the state of Alabama has virtually shut down all funding of public defense and defenders.

Just to remind the readers, the Sixth Amendment reads: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

And for those readers whom, for one reason or another, are not up to speed on the wranglings of Alabama politics, India Lynch vs. State of Alabama – the federal case in which Alabama’s tax policies were on trial – ended in October 2011, with a 854-page ruling in the state’s favor by His Honor, Judge Lynwood Smith in which existing tax structures & organization were found not to be unconstitutional. That story may be found here.

Alabama State Capitol Building, Montgomery, AL

The background: Alabama’s state income tax kicks in for families that earn as little a $4,600. Mississippi starts at over $19,000. Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 pay 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, while those who make over $229,000 pay just 4.1 percent. Alabama relies heavily on state sales tax, which runs as high as 11 percent and applies even to groceries and infant formula.

A primary reason Alabama’s poor pay so much is that large timber companies and megafarms pay so little. The state allows big landowners to value their land using ”current use” rules, which significantly underestimate its value. Then individuals are allowed to fully deduct the federal income taxes they pay from their state taxes, something few states allow, which is a boon for those in the top income brackets.

So yeah.

We’re very fouled up here in the heart of Dixie.

And while the GOP controls the Governor’s Office, State House & Senate and most all high-level state offices, there are no signs of progress toward equity or justice.

But read on to learn why…

Potential cuts for state forensics: ‘It’s going to impact everybody’s lives’

Published: Saturday, March 10, 2012, 10:55 AM

By Paul Gattis, The Huntsville Times

Marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines.

The evidence spans 18,000 different cases. And maybe by 2013, Lonnie Ginsberg hopes, the state will process most everything on those 12 shelves.

Maybe.

This is the uncertain world Ginsberg oversees in cash-strapped Alabama. The director of the Huntsville lab on Arcadia Circle, Ginsberg manages a complex he describes as overworked and understaffed – which is why some drugs confiscated by law enforcement may sit on a shelf for a year before being analyzed.

Given that scenario, Ginsberg is

NCAA Football Corruption Not Exclusively Limited to Penn State

A Memoir: Wayne Flynt - Keeping the Faith; Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives

Ever the unwavering voice of sanity, consummate historian and Auburn history professor emeritus Dr. Wayne Flynt addressed Rotarians in Huntsville, Alabama, Tuesday, 15 November 2011.

Having won over 20 awards as a university history professor of 40 years, and being a Sunday Schoolteacher will do things for a man, including give him a voice to which many attune.

His commentary included recitation from his most recently published work, entitled “Keeping the Faith,” in which he shared observations from two familiar and intimate perspectives – as an Auburn University history professor, and Sunday School teacher.

He described conversation with Terry Bowden, former Auburn University Head Coach – whom also

Big Spring Jam is Dead… again. Long Live Big Spring Jam!

In an entry entitled It’s official: No more Big Spring Jam in Huntsville and posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010, I predicted the demise of Big Spring Jam.

I sure hated to write that entry, just as much as I hate to write this entry.

Big Spring Jam is OFFICIALLY DEAD.

This year’s event Sept. 23-24 was only a last, gasping, wheezing, leg-twitching sign that the life had already left BSJ.

Why?

According to Don Jennings, the event’s organizer,

Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride

Chances are, that more likely than not, you’ve come here because you’ve searched for the term “Trail of Tears Motorcycle Ride,” or similar terms.

What you’re about to read may either confuse, infuriate, or frustrate you. I sincerely doubt it will make you happy, or give you cause for rejoicing.

For many years, I have witnessed the ToT ride, and its humble origins which include Florence, Alabama. This year, as it has been since it’s establishment – it is held every 3d weekend of September – and will ride via

Huntsville Utilities: Corrupt, or merely incompetent?

Over the past several weeks – perhaps indeed, months – Huntsville Utilities has come under increasing criticism; most recently for significant changes to their operations and policies.

The Huntsville Times‘ headlines for Friday, July 1, 2011 recently plastered the public utility with the headline “Charity targets utility’s high fees“.

At issue are the utility’s exorbitant rates for establishing initial service and reconnection – which in many cases can be as high as $1000, or more.

The Huntsville chapter of the Society of

A Special Thanks to Friends

A special thanks to my friends Lee Marshall, Al Whitaker and other Huntsville local media magnates who have run with my idea of the “Rosado Law,” which was that “The State of Alabama should enact a law requiring all restaurant employees to know the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, and have an AED on premises.”

The only thing is,

After the Tornadoes: Toward Understanding

Simply type the words “Alabama tornado” into any search engine and there’ll be hundreds, if not thousands of entries returned. Add to those words “April 27, 2011” and not only will your search be further refined, but you may gain a whole new perspective on the destructive forces of nature.

Unless you’ve been hiding in a cave in Tora Bora for the last several years, or were recently buried at sea, you’ve probably read or heard about the hundreds of tornadoes that struck throughout North and Central Alabama, bringing  with them resultant death, and widespread destruction.

Sure, we’ve all heard jokes about Alabama,

AL GOP Rep Mo Brooks, 5th, confesses incompetence

You’d never have imagined hearing the radical Madison county Republican cozying up to his favorite pork projects in North Alabama. But hey, any job is a good job in this economy, eh, Mo? And you sure as Hell don’t want to put folks out of work… now DO you, Mo? Seems like you’re caught between the proverbial “rock and a hard place,” old man.

Those “pork barrels” sure do look different when they belong to you, don’t they? (I think they’re called “JOBS” and they belong to those class of people you call your “constituents.”)

Let’s buy more waterproof coffee pots, HSNDDs, and HSBLDs – hard steel nail driving devices, and highly specialized bullet launching devices.

Instead, why don’t we spend some money to  improve (translation: INVEST in improving) our national infrastructure – roads, electrical power grid, waterways, schools and parks? Surely you remember GOP President, former 5 Star General Dwight David Eisenhower‘s warning about the “military industrial complex,” don’t you?

 

Congress will cut defense, Congressman Mo Brooks says, possibly programs in Huntsville

Published: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 5:30 AM     Updated: Thursday, February 03, 2011, 6:12 AM

HUNTSVILLE, AL – U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, said here Wednesday that Congress will “probably” cut defense spending next year, possibly including R&D programs based in Huntsville, but, if he gets his way, it will boost

Another one bites the dust: Ex-Nazi dead in Huntsville, AL

I have nothing good to say about Nazis, ex-Nazis, or dead Nazis.

Remember Operation Paperclip – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip –

It was because of the mercy of God, and good American people that he lived, while millions of others died in ovens, or in dark, cold, wet subterranean chambers making the V2 – Vergeltungswaffe 2, e.g. “Vengeance” weapon.

The V2 rocket was Hitler’s Nazi terror weapon of mass destruction.

—

Rocket pioneer, von Braun team member Walter Haeussermann dead at 96

Published: Saturday, December 11, 2010, 6:00 AM

HUNTSVILLE, AL – Dr. Walter Haeussermann, a key member of Dr. Wernher von Braun‘s German rocket team and pioneer of the American space program, died Wednesday in Huntsville.

Haeussermann, 96, died at Huntsville Hospital of complications from a fall. He is survived by his wife, Ruth.

Haeussermann’s death leaves five surviving members in Huntsville of the team that took man to the moon and put Huntsville on the international map. A sixth survives on the West Coast.

Haeussermann was with von Braun at Peenemunde, Germany in World War II and helped develop the V-2 rockets that were launched against London and later formed the basis of the American rocket program.

PETA to protest Feeding the Hungry, Housing the Homeless, and Healing the Sick in Huntsville, AL

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was once a respectable group, not only for what they promoted, but for how they promoted, as well. Now, they’ve become a “fringe element” group, which at times has operated similarly to a terrorist organization. It’s no wonder that people have lost confidence in them and their ideals.

Tomorrow – Saturday, November 13, 2010 – PETA will demonstrate in Huntsville, Alabama at a church which has an outstanding name in the community for their many good works, not the least of which is their always-immensely successful, long-standing “LobsterFest.” This year’s Lobsterfest XVII at St. Thomas Episcopal promises to be no different – that is, it will be a sold-out success.

What is particularly disconcerting is that PETA, in their fringe element mentality, offers only

“Why do you want to work for Huntsville Hospital?” A Lesson in (dis)honesty.

Honesty… is it ALWAYS the best policy?

Recently, I’ve found that some search engine terms which have led to this blog include this question “Why do you want to work at Huntsville Hospital“?

In Huntsville, Alabama – where I resided for many years – there are ONLY TWO hospitals in town.

One, Huntsville Hospital, is a public not-for-profit, and the other, a much smaller Crestwood Medical Center, is a private, for-profit hospital.

Many of the professors and instructors at the Nursing School from which I graduated have privately expressed their frustrations to their students, and to me, about Huntsville Hospital’s virtual monopoly on the hospital-based healthcare delivery in Huntsville, AL.

Part of that problem stems in large part from