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20 year old Chief Marisol Valles Garcia stands outside her new office in Praxeids, Mexico. Alcazar/Getty

Welcome to the new face of law enforcement in Praxeids, Mexico, a border town that is part of the epicenter of the drug wars that have been going on now since 2006. New name is Marisol Valles Garcia, and she is a 20 year old (yes you read that right) criminology student at a university in Cuidad Jarez.

Apparently, the town mayor – Jose Luis Guerrero – asked for suggestions to improve the safety of his city. He liked her proposals so much, that he offered her a position, according to Al Jazeera. She will be unarmed, but will have body guards.

Valles Garcia inherits a decimated police force. Most of the force had quit for concerns of their own safety two years ago. She has brought on additional 10, bring the total to 13 officers. Their task? To go door to door, currently looking for the criminal element, according to NY Daily Times.

Honestly, I hope she’s not in over her head. She has signed herself up for possibly one of the most dangerous jobs, with enemies that have absolutely no regard for human life. I am worried they will go after her harder, being a female, and a single mother. This isn’t to put her down, I’m inclined to believe in her strength. Hopefully her community and newly minted police force will too. If not, it’s going to be a short tenure.,

A gas chromatograph. Samples from C. Anthony's trunk were analyzed using a similar device

For the first time ever, air analysis may be used as evidence in a trial. Not just a trial. Her trial.

No, this isn’t out of Fringe or CSI. This is a newer methodology, something that has never before been used in the courtrooms. Scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory took samples of carpeting from the trunk of Ms. Anthony’s Sunfire, and they ran a series of analysis on it. They also included samples from two other Sunfires, a pizza box, and a blanket that had been wrapped around a dead child who had decomposed in it for months.

First off they found chloroform. But after concentrating the sample, they were able to detect 51 chemicals, 7 of which are linked to human body decay.

This isn’t junk science. The methodologies behind this had been proposed earlier to discovered unmarked grave sites. Unfortunately, it isn’t mainstream yet, so it may or may not be allowed in the courtroom. It also isn’t a proof positive, since in the report from the analysis, they admit that the data is not 100% conclusive. However, it does lend credence to the state’s argument. Or maybe I should say the more likely side of the truth.

The idea itself is pretty cool. To those who say it is baseless science, remember that dogs do the same thing, without expensive laboratory equipment. They follow their noses, which are far more equipped than ours for picking up scents. However, it is a new science, and one thing given in science is that measurement comes with uncertainty. In my engineering program, we’re required to take courses on measurement, and courses on engineering statistics. As scientists, you have to be able to qualify your data, and provide confidence levels. “Oh, it’s pretty close,” doesn’t cut it. ’99.5% chance that this is exact,” that’s what we’re talking about.

Should the judge allow it as evidence? Personally, yea. It is evidence that is workable from both sides. Also, they still allow fingerprinting and ballastics work as evidence. You would be amazed to learn that these two types of evidence, central to so many cases, are not yet fully backed by science. More work has to be done to determine odds of a match. It’s more police work than science, which is dangerous. “Yes, it is a perfect match, this is the only person/gun it could match to,” is an opinion, sad to say. Not a fact. So if they are going to accept that, then “air science,” might as well to.

All Caylee wanted was love. All Casey wanted was to sex and party.

Either way, we’ll see what happens. This is turning more and more into an all-star event, from high-dollar attorneys to cutting edge, national laboratory science. Unfortunately it still circles around poor Caylee. Hopefully her soul will soon be at rest, with justice served to her murderer.

Only need a thousand more of these!

According to CSO Online, yet another Facebook spammer has been nail to the wall with outlandish fines for spamming. This time, Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, was order to pay $1 billion CDN to Facebook for his spamming campaign.

Mr. Guerbuez set up a phishing site, stealing login information, then using a botnet to send out over 4 million spam messages. Man would I like to get my hands on that punk.

Obviously, he’s not on Forbes billion list, so don’t expect him to pony up. In fact, he’s refusing to pay a penny, and has declared bankruptcy. He’s trying to get a book deal out of the whole thing. Hah! If he did, he’d never see a penny of it. Oh well.

As I said, he isn’t the first that has been nailed. Last year another company prevailed against spammer Sanford Wallace, awarding more than $700 million US. Holy smokes.

Will all of this help us, the average joe, bombarded by spam daily? Maybe. According to Facebook’s CSO, Joe Sullivan, he has “seen discussions in underground forums where spammers say things like, ‘I don’t want a $100 million judgment hanging over me.’”

Honestly, I don’t know about you, but I would rather see these scum bags go to jail. I don’t see the humor in being one of the (insert cruel words here) who ensure that our daily inboxes are clutter with useless junk every day. It’s like the internet version of the shady street guy selling watches out of his jacket. Look at the fake or stolen inventory, and never realize you’ve already been pick-pocketed.

Maybe one day we will find a way to rid the word of spam. Until then, hopefully these billion dollar awards will help to keep some of these guys in check.

Shirley Sherrod, former USDA employee, and victim of the Tea Party Movement

The USDA (and the White House) are learning that the hard way. Shirley Sherrod, who had been canned by the US Department of Agriculture because of “racist’ comments, has continued to be vindicated for the harsh way she was booted out because of fear of political reprisals, instead of investigating the truth.

Articles on CNN and MSN highlight the embarassment that was felt because of instead of properly investigating a serious accusation, they moved straight to forcing her to resign.

In case you don’t remember the case, Ms. Sherrod was the USDA’s rural development director in Georgia. A ultra-conservative blogger named Andrew Breitbart, attacked her taking a 1986 speech to the NAACP out of context, portraying her a bigoted black woman, who refused to help a farmer to the full extent because he was white. The reality of the matter, that was a small section of a speech which covered racial tensions that ended up becoming dissolved, and really helped to bring everyone to a better place.

Now that the NAACP has provided the full video of the speech, a lot of people are eating crow. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who forced her out several months back, offered her a position. She declined, however she may be interested as working as a consultant in civil rights work with the agency.

The crow was not limited to Mr. Vilsack however. NAACP to the White House and Obama have had to unceremoniously remove their feet out of their respective mouths. And as for our whiley tea party blogger who underscores how selfishly disturbed that movement is? Sherrod is suing him, as she should. I’m not sure of his intentions, but it underscores how the tea party movement has sought to pervert our ideals, under the guise of returning us to the “christian’ nation that we once (never) were.