Job Application

To Whom It May Concern,

I understand you have a recent opening for a photographer on your staff at Reuters. I am taking this opportunity to submit a sample of the work I am capable of. This absolutely authentic and unretouched in any way photo shows a filthy Zionist pig an Israeli F-16 launching more missiles than it could possibly lift bombs at terrorist monsters that hide behind civilians helpless Lebanese civilians. I realize you have many things to think about right now, but really wanted to let you know that I and my rudimentary Photoshop skills great photographic skills are available for immediate employment.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

(Please see The Jawa Report for the genesis of this particular post.)

Puppets

In developments in Mexico, the leftist loser of the Mexican election is calling for his supporters to increase their agitation for a full recount. His supporters, meanwhile are calling for what amounts to armed insurrection by demanding a seizure of the Mexico City airport or the Mexican Congress, whichever they think they can get away with.

Lopez Obrador told tens of thousands of followers in Mexico City's main Zocalo plaza that they should indefinitely man the sprawling, week-old protest camps that have brought much of the capital's normally thriving center to a halt. The blockades have snarled traffic, costing the city an estimated $23 million a day.

The former Mexico City mayor said that he would continue to demand a full recount in the presidential race, despite the Federal Electoral Tribunal's decision Saturday in favor of a partial recount. Electoral officials across the nation will begin sifting through ballots from 9 percent of the nation's 130,000 polling places on Wednesday, wrapping up their work by the weekend.

Lopez Obrador asked his supporters to gather in front of the tribunal Monday evening, likely halting traffic on yet another main Mexico City street. He said he would demand the court "correct" its decision.

Before Lopez Obrador's speech, protesters chanted in favor of seizing Mexico City's airport. Some suggested taking over Congress, a move that would almost certainly trigger confrontations. Security has been increased at both facilities.

While Lopez Obrador did not say whether he would eventually approve such actions, he did promise "new actions, new measure of civil resistance." He asked his followers "to prepare ourselves for a struggle that may last longer."

"Even if I wind up alone, if I have the conviction that I am fighting for a just cause, I would continue, stubbornly," Lopez Obrador said.

The Mexico City government, controlled by Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party, has protected the protest camps that have blocked the elegant Reforma Avenue and the Zocalo. But on Sunday, police chief Joel Ortega indicated his patience was wearing thin.

"Everything has a limit," he told a news conference.

Lopez Obrador's supporters were enraged by the tribunal's ruling against their demands for a ballot-by-ballot recount, which they argue will show the leftist was the true winner of the election.

"We don't want anybody except him as president," said protester Maria Acosta, 52, a Mexico City housewife. "The people are tired. We are not going to allow this fraud. The people are not going to allow it. We will take this as far as is necessary."

However, this may not exactly be what it appears to be, according to Mark In Mexico. The crowd Andrés Manuel López Obrador was speaking to may be only a fraction of what the MSM is reporting.

Today in the Zócalo in Mexico City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador told a relatively small crowd that "I am not obsessed with power." He vowed to carry on the encampment in the city's center to defend "principles". He accused the PAN of trying to impose a "right-wing" government on the people.

The crowd was estimated by Mexico City officials to be only about 23,000 people. The city officials, all from the PRD, have been notorious for vastly overestimating the crowd sizes for all of AMLO various protests, marches, tent cities and the like. So I would suppose that the actual crowd size was about half of what they claimed it to be. To be fair, God has not been looking too favorably on AMLO and his followers of late. They have been getting a daily soaking from torrential downpours and hail storms. Yesterday, parts of Mexico City were under 2 feet of water.

AMLO is using his supporters as puppets to bolster his blind ambition to be president. Or is AMLO a puppet for Hugo Chavez and his blind ambition to be the next Castro.

Or are they both puppets to the ambitions of the new Persian Empire?

Reanimation

The Cuban government appears to be ready to reanimate Fidel Castro. Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and even Elian Gonzalez, the victim of Janet Reno's version of justice have all weighed in wishing the dictator speedy recovery and saying he's doing just super.

Cuban officials have provided no details and released no pictures of Castro since his surgery was announced last Monday — fueling speculation around the world about his condition. Raul Castro, the defense minister, also has not been seen in public since the announcement.

"How are you, Fidel?" Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said during his weekly TV and radio program, suggesting he believed the Cuban leader was watching. "We have reliable information of your quick and notable recuperation."

"Fidel Castro, a hug for you, friend and comrade, and I know you are getting better," Chavez said.

Talking by phone with Bolivian President Evo Morales later during the program, Chavez said that Castro was bouncing back quickly.

"This morning I learned that he's very well, that he is already getting out of bed, he's talking more than he should — because he talks a lot, you know. He has sent us greetings," Chavez said.

Morales said he was glad to learn of Castro's recovery, and "what's left is for him to be incorporated into the battle of his country" again. Saying Castro was like an "older brother," Morales added, "We hope to see our friend Fidel soon."

Before Castro fell ill, Morales had promised to travel to Havana for Castro's 80th birthday on Aug. 13 and bring him a cake made from the flour of coca leaves.

Former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega arrived in Havana from Nicaragua late Saturday and said: "I am sure that we will soon have Fidel resuming his functions and leading his people."

Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a dramatic international custody battle six years ago between his relatives in Miami, Fla. and his father in Cuba, joined the list of people wishing Castro a swift recovery.

"We send you this letter to let you know that we are worried about your health," Elian Gonzalez, now 12, wrote to Castro along with his half-siblings and cousins. The letter was published Sunday in the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde.

Morales, a leftist elected in December as Bolivia's first Indian president, said his government would send a high-level mission to Havana in the coming days, according to his spokesman Alex Contreras.

A major publicity blitz on behalf of an evil, evil man. One hopes they are blowing smoke, but it is looking likely that the monster may not yet be dead. About the only one we haven't heard from in this leftist onslaught is Chavez sycophant Cindy Sheehan. It's still early, though.

The Telegraph has what it purports to be the inside scoop on the surgery Castro underwent. It may or may not be true, or may be more misinformation leaked by Cuba.

The 79-year-old president is understood to have undergone surgery on Saturday at Cimeq before being wheeled back from the operating theatre to the floor reserved for him and his 75-year-old brother, Raúl. The facility is in the district of Siboney, home to Cuba's most prestigious scientific research complex and near Gen Castro's official residence in a tightly guarded military zone.

The Cuban leader received treatment on a par with the best in the world. But most Cubans, reliant on the supposedly universal health system, have to pay for even basic drugs such as aspirin and the equivalent of £30 for "extras" such as X-rays.

Gen Castro's handover of power to Raúl, albeit temporary, was disclosed to a stunned nation two nights later as they gathered around flickering television sets. In Washington and Miami, Gen Castro's long-time foes urged the Cuban people to push for democratic change. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said in a broadcast beamed to the island: "Much is changing there… We will stand with you to secure your rights."

Where There’s Smoke

There's Reuters' reputation. Writing in The American Thinker, Thomas Lifson makes a very strong case for Reuters to appoint an independent outside panel to look into the veracity of photographs it has been providing to the world's media. It may very well be the only way to salvage their reputation. Even thought they have now kicked Adnan Hajj to the curb, they are still vouching for his earlier work, a rather ridiculous position given their exposure on this matter.

Which begs the question of what kind of quality standards would allow a crudely Photoshopped picture to run? How is the review of the Qana pictures by Hajj any different from the scrutiny applied to the Beirut pictures by Hajj?

Since Reuters now acknowledges that it has been hoaxed, and in turn has hoaxed the world’s media, doesn’t it owe us a detailed explanation of its standards? Shouldn’t the review of the Qana pictures be put into the hands of an independent panel of experts.

Shouldn’t Charles Johnson  of Little Green Footballs be part of that independent review panel? After all, Reuters owes him a debt of gratitude for uncovering a mistake their own quality assurance standards were inadequate to detect.

IF (and it must now be regarded as a serious question) Reuters is committed to supplying the world with truth rather than phony propaganda, Reuters must acknowledge the inadequacy of its standards. It must therefore immediately and thoroughly apply higher standards to all of the work it has published by Hajj, including the Qana pictures.

It would be a very smart business decision for Reuters to do this as soon as practicable. They have already played host to an employee who made death threats against Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and this incident further damages their credibility. Frankly, I would hesitate to trust anything I read or saw that bears the Reuters imprint at this point.

UPDATE: Here's the utterly absurd explanation from Hajj as reported with a presumably straight face by Reuters:

Reuters has strict standards of accuracy that bar the manipulation of images in ways that mislead the viewer.

"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him," Whittle said in a statement issued in London.

Due to the bad lighting conditions I am working under, my calling Reuters really bad liars is a completely understandable error on my part.

A Soldier’s Sister Writes

You're The Ones

You're the ones we shed our tears for.

You're the ones whom children look up to.

You're the ones that show us faith and commitment.

You're the ones we watched leave.

You're the ones that instill peace in our hearts.

You're the ones that we see as real life heroes.

You're the ones we're most proud of.

America thanks each and every one of you men and woman for what you've done for your country. we have faith in all of you, and support you 100%. 

Thank you for a job well done.

       -America
         
 
(Written By the sister of an American Soldier serving in Iraq).

The 200 Mile High Club

In a rather obvious self-promotional move to help sell a book, Laura Woodmansee raises several actually important questions. What are the implications of sex in space? There are legitimate concerns about the possibility of conception in space. Let's be serious, too. You know, with absolute certainty, that some space tourists will be going into space for only one reason. Sex.

Many have wondered what it might be like to make love in space. The passionate couples who book flights to the very first space hotel will be more than excited to try zero-g sex. From what I've learned while working on my soon-to-be-released book, Sex in Space, I've come to the conclusion that honeymoons in space and out-of-this-world sex will be a reality within a decade.

Some people believe that space sex will be a frustrating experience and that lovers will give up. No way! Weightless couples will find a way to get together. I've written an entire chapter in my Sex in Space book where I suggest ways to, shall we say, accomplish things, but it's too much to cover here. I'm not advocating that people go into space and have casual sex. I'm advocating that people take romantic vacations in space with their significant other, preferably their soul mate. The bottom line is that sex in space will probably take some practice and hard work at first. Since people are very creative, I have no doubt that it will make for a wonderful otherworldly experience.

On a cautionary note, men and women in their childbearing years will need to be careful not to conceive a child while in space since it may be dangerous to the mother and baby. Based on animal experiments, we know that fetal development is affected in space. Bones, muscles (including the heart), and neurology, will simply not develop properly without Earth gravity. We also know that human hormones and even sperm motility are affected by the lack of gravity. Radiation is a serous problem too, even in Earth orbit where our magnetic field protects us somewhat.

As far as the practical difficulties, I have no doubt people, being the ingenious creatures they are, will figure out how to accomplish the deed. As Woodmansee points out, there may be serious, potentially dangerous, complications, however.

We simply need to know more. We need more research into conception and fetal development in animals, especially primates, before we can feel comfortable enough to conceive human space babies. NASA is drastically cutting back its biology programs to make more money available for Moon missions, so the money just isn't available. I'm afraid that the first experiment will be done unintentionally by space honeymooners, and with tragic results.

As far as the practical difficulties, I have no doubt people, being the ingenious creatures they are, will figure out how to accomplish the deed. As Woodmansee points out, there may be serious, potentially dangerous, complications, however.

As far as the practical difficulties, I have no doubt people, being the ingenious creatures they are, will figure out how to accomplish the deed. As Woodmansee points out, there may be serious, potentially dangerous, complications, however.

We simply need to know more. We need more research into conception and fetal development in animals, especially primates, before we can feel comfortable enough to conceive human space babies. NASA is drastically cutting back its biology programs to make more money available for Moon missions, so the money just isn't available. I'm afraid that the first experiment will be done unintentionally by space honeymooners, and with tragic results.

I don't think it's up to NASA to fund the experiments, but it might be a really good thing for, say, Virgin to do it. I imagine there will be plenty of volunteers.

One does wonder who the first couple in the 200 mile high club will be. Or already is.

A Farewell

Susan Butcher, 1954-2006.

The Glittering Eye has a nice tribute to one of the very few Iditarod racers I know by name. Before her first win in 1986, I don't recall hearing much about the race. After her first win, I remember my local newspaper in upstate New York running daily updates on the race. For those who may not know what the Iditarod is, this is the website for the most famous dog sled race on the world. 1,150+ solo miles by dog sled, the ultimate test of endurance.

Rest in peace.

More Publicity For Conspiracy Theorists

The Associated Press jumps merrily aboard the lunatic special with an article on the 9/11 denialists. Despite the fact that almost every one of the so-called Scholars for 9/11 Truth are not educated, in any way whatsoever, in the fields that they decide to pass judgment on, AP gives them a free ride and free publicity.

Would they do the same thing for Holocaust deniers? They sure don't for creationists.

Five years after the terrorist attacks, a community that believes widely discredited ideas about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, persists and even thrives. Members trade their ideas on the Internet and in self-published papers and in books. About 500 of them attended a recent conference in Chicago.

The movement claims to be drawing fresh energy and credibility from a recently formed group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

The organization says publicity over Barrett's case has helped boost membership to about 75 academics. They are a tiny minority of the 1 million part- and full-time faculty nationwide, and some have no university affiliation. Most aren't experts in relevant fields. But some are well educated, with degrees from elite universities such as Princeton and Stanford and jobs at schools including Rice, Indiana and the University of Texas.

"Things are happening," said co-founder James Fetzer, a retired philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, who maintains, among other claims, that some of the hijackers are still alive. "We're going to continue to do this. Our role is to establish what really happened on 9/11."

What really happened, the national Sept. 11 Commission concluded after 1,200 interviews, was that hijackers crashed planes into the twin towers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency, filed 10,000 pages of reports that found fires caused by the crashing planes were more than sufficient to collapse the buildings.

The scholars' group rejects those conclusions. Their Web site contends the government has been dishonest. It adds: the "World Trade Center was almost certainly brought down by controlled demolitions" and "the government not only permitted 9/11 to occur but may even have orchestrated these events to facilitate its political agenda."

The standards and technology institute, and many mainstream scientists, won't debate conspiracy theorists, saying they don't want to lend them unwarranted credibility.

But some worry the academic background of the group could do that anyway.

Members of the conspiracy community "practically worship the ground (Jones) walks on because he's seen as a scientist who is preaching to their side," said FR Greening, a Canadian chemist who has written several papers rebutting the science used by Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists. "It's science, but it's politically motivated. It's science with an ax to grind, and therefore it's not really science."

This is really quite simple. At this point, according to the article they have exactly one physicist and one former associate professor of mechanical engineering on board their happy little train. The rest are liberally educated in liberal arts. This quote tells all you need to know: "

David Gabbard, an East Carolina education professor, acknowledges this isn't his field, but says "I'm smart enough to know … that fire from airplanes can't melt steel."

Well, this isn't my field, but since I slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night, I'm qualified to do brain surgery.

People like this are not smart enough to know what they are ignorant of. That would be physics and engineering. Having two on your side means you're only outnumbered by several million who do know what they are talking about.

Notice Anything?

Read this article then ask yourself if you notice anything.

I noticed that the article stressed, three times, that the 12 people killed in the Hezbollah rocket attack on Kfar Giladi were reserve soldiers. Three times.

Quick, we have to reframe this, say the editors at AP. Distract from the point that Hezbollah was not targeting the reserve soldiers. It was targeting the village. The soldiers just happened to be in the way. Because Hezbollah is blind-launching unguided artillery rockets at civilian villages.

But if they stress it three times, maybe nobody will notice.

What Getting Caught Lying Brings

Getting caught publishing a fake photograph has some repercussions. For example, people are starting to go back and take hard looks at other photographs from Reuters in general and from Adnan Hajj in particular.

And questions are starting to come up, very quickly.

That's not to say the pictures are faked - just that people are starting to wonder. (Vanderleun does not see them as necessarily faked. To my eye, and I worked as a photographer for quite some time, though not in the news field, they look staged, not candid). The problem here is that once Reuters got caught - openly - faking shots, their credibility is in serious trouble. That lack of faith in Reuters' trustworthiness will translate directly into decreased sales of their product. That being their only reason for existence, that is not at all a good thing.

SYRIA Rejects UN Ceasefire

Well, when a country that is ostensibly not part of the war in Lebanon steps in and declares that the ceasefire proposal is unacceptable, will that finally make some people realize who is pulling the strings? Nah, who am I kidding, we're talking about the clue-proof here.

Anyway, Syria's Foreign Minister has rejected the proposed UN ceasefire.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria's foreign minister declared Sunday that a U.S.-French cease-fire plan was "a recipe for the continuation of the war," between Israeli and Hezbollah, which he said the Jewish state cannot win.

As he spoke, Israeli warplanes struck a few miles away in the Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Walid Moallem, on his first visit to Lebanon since Damascus ended a 29-year military presence in its smaller neighbor last year, said only a complete Israeli pullout would entice Hezbollah guerrillas to stop fighting.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa landed in Beirut and told reporters at the airport that he came to consult with the Lebanese government on "ways to stop the Israeli aggression on Lebanon."

Moussa, who met earlier in the day in Syria with its president, Bashar Assad, will take part in an Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Beirut Monday.

Moallem, the former Syrian envoy to Washington, said his nation's armed forces were under orders to respond immediately to an Israeli assault.

"If Israel attacks Syria by any mean, on the ground, by air, our leadership ordered the armed forces to reply immediately," he said after emerging from a meeting with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.

Frankly, Syria and Iran are already at war with Israel, they're just letting Hezbollah and Lebanon do the bleeding. This statement admits that.

A Trip To The Watershed

Dan Balz in the Washington Post notes that the Lieberman-Lamont face-off may have consequences for the Democrats. Maybe he should have been reading this blog, since we've been saying that for months now.

Should Lieberman lose, the full ramifications are far from certain. One may be to signal immediate problems for Bush and the Republicans in November, but another could be to push Democrats into a more partisan, antiwar posture, a prospect that is already adding powerful new fuel to a four-year-long intraparty debate over Iraq.

Strategists say the Connecticut race has rattled the Democratic establishment, which is virtually united behind the three-term incumbent's candidacy, and will force an uneasy accommodation with the newest, volatile power center within the party.

"This sends a message to all Democratic officeholders," said Robert L. Borosage of the liberal Campaign for America's Future. "You're going to have a much tougher Democratic Party."

That could be felt most acutely by Clinton, who polls show is the early front-runner for the 2008 nomination and who has drawn criticism from what are known as net-roots activists for opposing a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Clinton appears to have gotten the message, as she demonstrated with sharp questioning of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at a Senate hearing on Thursday.

The Connecticut race may be seen as an intensification of the partisan, polarized politics of the Bush era. Lieberman is paying a price for being an advocate of bipartisanship.

As a result, a loss on Tuesday could generate more demand for a strongly anti-Bush, antiwar candidate in the Democratic primaries. Several are ready to run, including Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), former senator John Edwards (N.C.) and Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.), the only one of the three to vote against the war in 2002.

None, however, may be as attractive to the grass-roots activists as Gore. He has said he cannot conceive of circumstances that would put him in the race. But he may be coaxed to reconsider if the sentiment for him grows after the November midterm elections.

But the problem is, as it always has been since the 1970's, that the farther left the Democrats go, the less electable they are. The farther left, the less credible on defense they become. The absolute killer passage in this article, though:

But leaders of the net-roots activists, and some party strategists, argue that as antiwar sentiment spreads Democrats stand to gain politically by aggressively challenging Bush's war policies. Parallels to Vietnam are inaccurate, they say, because of the nature of an Iraq war that has become a low-level sectarian civil war.

The bar is actually moving visibly here. All along the left has been desperate to paint Iraq as Vietnam. They want it to be Vietnam. But when they stand to get that hung on them, they try as hard as they can to paddle away from it, knowing darn well that Vietnam also ruined the viability of the Democrats for many years.

The Problem With Double Standards

Captain Ed has a post up that talks about double standards in the press and in diplomacy. The absurdities are very evident when pulled together as Ed has done.

USA Today actually avoids a common double standard used by the press in this war. They refer to the dead as "people" on both sides, whereas the media usually calls Lebanese dead "civilians". However, USA Today does not make note that the attacks by Hezbollah came from rockets deliberately aimed at civilian population centers conducting no offensive operations in this conflict. Do you suppose that Hezbollah is investigating the deaths of Israeli citizens, as the Israelis did after Qana, or celebrating them? And why doesn't the media report that difference?

Read the whole thing. I've been saying all along that these double standards are literally letting Hezbollah get away with murder. The few people on the left who decry Hezbollah's methods do so only half-heartedly, leaving their strongest condemnations for Israel. Again, there's that disproportionality.

Disproportionally Deranged

Mark Steyn on the latest hot buzzword: 'disproportionate'.

But let's say you're a northwestern American municipality — Seattle, for example — and you haven't lobbed missiles at anybody, but a Muslim male shows up anyway and shoots six Jewish women, one of whom tries to flee up the stairs, but he spots her, leans over the railing, fires again and kills her. He describes himself as "an American Muslim angry at Israel" and tells 911 dispatchers: ''These are Jews. I want these Jews to get out. I'm tired of getting pushed around, and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.''

Well, that's apparently entirely "proportionate," so "proportionate" that the event is barely reported in the American media, or (if it is) it's portrayed as some kind of random convenience-store drive-by shooting. Pamela Waechter's killer informed his victims that "I'm only doing this for a statement," but the world couldn't be less interested in his statement, not compared to his lawyer's statement that he's suffering from "bipolar disorder.'' And the local FBI guy, like the Mounties in Toronto a month or so back, took the usual no-jihad-to-see-here line. ''There's nothing to indicate it's terrorism related,'' said Special Assistant Agent-In-Charge David Gomez. In America, terrorism is like dentistry and hairdressing: It doesn't count unless you're officially credentialed.

On the other hand, when a drunk movie star gets pulled over and starts unburdening himself of various theories about "f—ing Jews," hold the front page! That is so totally "disproportionate" it's the biggest story of the moment. The head of America's most prominent Jewish organization will talk about nothing else for days on end, he and the media too tied up dealing with Mel Gibson's ruminations on "f—ing Jews" to bother with footling peripheral stories about actual f—ing Jews murdered for no other reason than because they're f—ing Jews.

If you are a legitimate nation-state fighting for your very life against a terrorist organization that has absolutely no real reason whatsoever to go to war against you, you will be held to a higher standard. Keep in mind that Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia organization. Israel pulled out of Lebanon. Hezbollah has no legitimate rationale for attacking Israel. That's what seems to get lost in all the talk about the war. They had no legitimate reason to attack. But Israel will get pilloried at every turn while the murderous, reasonless terrorists get a complete pass in world opinion.

There's disproportionality alright. But it's not Israel that's doing it. Read the whole thing. Steyn is spot on.

Department Of Redundancy Department

Many people consider the term 'criminal attorney' to be redundant. A case in Lewiston, Pennsylvania adds a whole new level to that redundancy! How about a criminal criminal attorney? A Pennsylvania man has been arrested for stealing the identity of a lawyer who is currently out of the country, and practicing law using that identity. In spite of the fact that the criminal has no apparent education in the law. Or talent at faking it, either.

Jeffrey P. Riddell, 40, of Hershey, has never held a law license in Pennsylvania, but claimed to be another attorney with the same first and last names, authorities said. At the time, the real attorney was living in Russia.

Riddell was jailed Tuesday and faces a charge of unauthorized practice of law. Prosecutor Stephen S. Snook said he also hopes to file identity theft charges.

Snook's suspicions started when he got a letter from Riddell on behalf of a defendant in a drug case in March. Written on the lawyer's stationary, the letter was threatening and "goofy," he said. "The letter was just not what you would expect an attorney to write," Snook said.

He ended up getting more letters from Riddell and almost daily phone calls. Then, when he saw Riddell at a hearing, Snook said he started getting very suspicious.

Snook and police believe Riddell assumed the identity of attorney Jeffrey A. Riddell after he had left the country and deactivated his law license with the state.

Perhaps Mr. Riddell will put his jail time to good use and actually study a bit of law. One has no doubt he will get some jail time. He's representing himself, whoever he is.