The government was trying to save the cost of having Marshals escort this guy so they gave him a bus ticket and waved bye-bye.

From the CW31:

LAS VEGAS (AP) ― Dwayne Keith Fitzen — “Shadow” to fellow inmates at the federal prison in Waseca, Minn. — was halfway through his 24-year sentence when prison officials decided to move him to a facility in California.

To make the transfer, the Bureau of Prisons did something fairly routine for the government agency: It bought Shadow a one-way bus ticket and sent him, traveling unsupervised and unmarked, on the two-day trip.

Fitzen was 55 at the time, a motorcycle gang member convicted of dealing cocaine. He got off the bus in Las Vegas, about 400 miles short of his scheduled destination, and became a fugitive. Five years later he’s still at large.

Fitzen got off the bus in Las Vegas, then went to a bank and withdrew $12,000 in cash, according to U.S. marshals, who are still looking for him. He has reportedly been spotted a few times since his escape, but has otherwise lived up to his nickname.

Bus companies have no idea when inmates are being transferred. Greyhound in particular has asked the federal prison system several times to stop transferring convicts on its fleet.

“We feel this is an inherent safety risk to our customers and our employees as well,” Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh said.

Greyhound executives learned of the transfer program in 2005 and complained. Prison officials tried to appease them, writing a letter noting that of the 77 inmates who escaped during unescorted transfers from October 2003 to September 2005, all but 19 were recaptured or returned to custody.

Uncle has no idea how many prisoners have been transferred this way since the program started in the nineties. But they estimate that no more than 1 in 500 prisoners have absconded and they think, but aren’t certain, that no more than 180 prisoners have taken advantage of this get-out-of-jail-free-card since 2006.

Typical bunch of useless government pencil pushers. –”We don’t know how many guys we’ve sent on this free bus ride, but it was a bunch of ‘em, and we don’t think very many of them ran away.”

In Boulder Colorado a man wearing red and white face makeup, a red and purple wig, a fake nose and a denim dress robbed a liquor store.

DenverChannel – The clerk said the man walked up to an employee in the store and asked for help in a feminine voice, saying, “Will you help me? My husband is out of work.”

After being rebuked by the employee, the man walked to the checkout stand and showed the clerk a pistol.

The man did not take any beer or liquor and left with an undisclosed amount of money, Huntley said. The robber fled on foot just as two other customers were walking into the store, Huntley said.

Nobody thought the get-up was weird because they were having Pridefest in Denver over the weekend. –Cross dressing clowns don’t raise any eyebrows??

I guess it’s no weirder than the guys in San Fransisco who call themselves the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” and dress as nuns.

Surveillance video is expected to be released Tuesday.

In Gwinnett County, Ga. they have some new infrared license plate scanners capable of scanning up to 15 plates per second.

It seems that not everyone got the news.

Mike Morris – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Thursday, June 25, 2009

When William Harold Brown drove past Deputy James Redfern on Indian Trail Road, the license plate recognition system installed in Redfern’s patrol car alerted him that the tag on Brown’s 1998 Hyundai Accent was stolen, said Gwinnett sheriff’s spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais.

The deputy followed Brown, 34, until he stopped at a nearby laundromat, Bourbonnais said.

“The deputy approached Mr. Brown, spoke with him and informed him he was under arrest for having a stolen license plate on his vehicle,” she said.

Our desperado is now in cuffs. End of story right? — Of course not.

Brown then told the deputy “that there were a lot of weapons in his vehicle and that he had just returned from shooting,” Bourbonnais said.

“Deputy Redfern located in the vehicle two shotguns, one rifle, six handguns and a large case that contained 1,249 rounds of ammunition for the different guns,” she said.

Deputies later discovered that Brown had a prior burglary conviction in South Carolina.

“Because he is a convicted felon, he is not allowed to own firearms,” Bourbonnais said. “He was charged with nine counts of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, theft by receiving and driving with a suspended/revoked driver’s license.”

He’s a convicted felon driving a 98 Hyundai with stolen tags. –Probably because he didn’t have any money to buy and register a car since he seems to have spent all his hard earned/stolen cash on guns and ammunition– and he decided to do it in one of the few places in the country with the latest technology installed in their cop cars.

Now that’s a bad day.

AP – PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The country’s smallest state has the longest official name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

A push to drop “Providence Plantations” from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the “State of Rhode Island.” It’s an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it’s an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island’s tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.

In 1663 King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements of Rhode Island into a single colony called “The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” –Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.

Some people argue that the word “plantations” conjures up images of slavery and therefore should be dropped from the state name.

Others argue that the word applies to all farms, not just those run by slave holders, and represents a major part of the state’s history and should remain unchanged.

The reality is that the majority of the state’s residents will undoubtedly vote to change the name. Not because of moral or historical issues, but because it’s just too damn long.

BBC Online:
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.

“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told the hearing.

“Then they crash,” she added. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.

–Stoned wallabies are easy to spot. Right after eating the poppies the lot of them head for the nearest 7-11 for bean dip and Fritos.

In Australia the problem of drug addicted wallabies is so pervasive that as far back as 1957 a man named Rolf Harris tried to warn people about the dangers of dealing with stoned wallabies in the song “Tie me kangaroo down sport.”

♪Watch me wallaby’s feed mate.
Watch me wallaby’s feed.
They’re a dangerous breed mate.
So watch me wallaby’s feed. ♫