Obituaries

This is sad almost beyond belief: Dallas Augustine, daughter of murdered Nevada State Controller Kathy Augustine, has been found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.

Her mother, as the world knows, was murdered in 2006 by her husband, Chaz Higgs, when he injected her with a paralyzing drug. Higgs is currently serving his term at High Desert Correctional Center near Las Vegas. He was sentenced to life with a possibility of parole after 20 years.

Dallas was only 32 years old:

Phil Alfano says his 32-year-old niece, Dallas Augustine, is one of two women found dead in a Phoenix home.

Police in Phoenix haven't released names, but say they responded to a call on North 11th Place Monday night after a concerned family member was unable to reach the victim. Officers say a 32-year-old suspect and a 50-year-old victim were found dead.

Dallas was married in California to another woman, 50-year-old Jessie McCaskill, and apparently there was some kind of domestic dispute.

Miscellaneous News

Scratch those earlier reporters about Ted Kennedy's cancer and return to the Senate on a full-time basis:

U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy’s office says a report that the Massachusetts Democrat’s brain tumor has gone into remission and he is returning to the Senate full time next month is unfounded.

A staffer who did not wish to be named for this story said the senator continues to balance a treatment regimen with work, adding his schedule is determined on a day-to-day basis.

A Washington, D.C., publication, The Hill, reported Tuesday that Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Kennedy’s brain cancer is in remission and he would return to the Senate full time in early June.

_____

1994 Breeders' Cup Mile winner Barathea, 19, was euthanized after suffering from laminitis.

He denied favorite Lure his third consecutive Breeders' Cup Mile win:


_____

Grieving widower Chaz Higgs will remain in prison for the murder of his wife, Nevada Controller Kathy Augustine, back in 2006.
_____

Tonight I bought a four-pack of "Pepsi Natural," which has "natural" incredients instead of high fructose corn syrup. It isn't the same as the Pepsi of long ago, which tasted better than Coca Cola and had a "kick," but it's okay. Apparently it is being marketed in selected stores throughout the country. I haven't seen or tried the "Pepsi Throwback," which is supposed to be like the original.

I haven't tried the so-called "Mexican Coca Cola," which has sugar cane instead of HFCS, but I know it's sold around the Reno area.
_____

Miscellaneous News

Somebody fix the Reno bike path for tree roots as well.

They're downright treacherous.

_____

You don't have to agree with the philosophy of this pro-industry group to realize the United Nations has gone absolutely batshit with the "environmental vegetarianism" as of late.

It's all quackery.

But that doesn't stop the nutjobs from trying to scare people into eating the way they do

Snip:

So unless someone comes up with a plan to drastically remake the human body, we are destined to keep eating meat. We have the teeth to tear it, and the digestive hydrochloric acid to dissolve it. What we don't have is two or three spare stomachs with which herbivores are blessed, in order to process all the vegetables we would need to eat instead.

Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, according to a 2003 paper by Katharine Milton, an anthropologist with the University of California in Berkeley.

About two million years ago our ancestors began to eat red meat on the African savanna, to supplement a vegetarian diet that had become too meagre. Without regular meat meals," she wrote, "it is highly unlikely that evolving humans could have achieved their unusually large and complex brain while simultaneously continuing their evolutionary trajectory as large, active and highly social primates."

Human children, in particular, needed dense nutrients to fuel their rapidly growing, unusually large brains.

University of New Mexico researchers, among others, have drawn the same conclusion, stating that this prehistoric dietary shift to meat led to the unique qualities of human existence, including increased brain capacities, an extended juvenile period in which to furnish the brain, and a much longer lifespan.

And:

In consistently disguising their political proposals behind pseudoscience, and pretending that the data dictates the policy, the environmental lobby not only demonstrates a remarkable lack of belief in scientific innovation - it also exposes its own dearth of political imagination. And when a senior figure at the IPCC starts proposing vegetarianism as ‘the most attractive opportunity’ in the attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an unholy alliance is achieved: the petty authoritarian instincts behind the politics of behaviour meet the miserabilist, anti-modernist instincts of the environmental lobby.

_____

A Reno writer has a new book out on the murder of Nevada controller Kathy Augustine, and of course I will get the book when I get the money.
_____

Miscellaneous II.

Dallas Augustine, daughter of slain Nevada controller Kathy Augustine, is planning to run for state assembly.
_____

Walter Witthoeft's truck engine didn't purr, it growled.

The dog is okay.
_____

The Olympic torch has made it to Mount Everest (no link yet).

As the World Turns.

An illegal campfire is blamed for the Angora Fire, which burned over 3,000 acres and destroyed over 200 homes near South Lake Tahoe.

Yesterday it was 80 percent contained.
_____

The jury simply wasn't convinced Chaz Higgs was innocent of killing wife Kathy Augustine.
_____

The Penalty

phase has already begun in the Chaz Higgs case.

More:

A Washoe District Court jury has found Chaz Higgs guilty of killing his wife, Nevada Controller Kathy Augustine.
The eight-woman, four-man jury deliberated for about seven hours before convicting Higgs on the single murder count.
Higgs, a critical-care nurse, was charged last December with injecting Augustine with a lethal dose of succinylcholine, a drug used to paralyze the body when a breathing tube is inserted. She died July 11 after being on life support for three days.

Higgs got life with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

This is Just In.

Chaz Higgs has been found guilty of murder in the death of his wife, State Controller Kathy Augustine.

I'll post details when I get them.

As the World Turns.

Already the Higgs case is being deliberated by the jury.

This is interesting:

Higgs had said that the night before Augustine stopped breathing, she didn't want to talk with Higgs about him leaving because she wasn't feeling well. He said she went to bed early, at about 8:45 p.m., and received no phone calls.

But Michelle Ene, Augustine's former executive assistant, testified Augustine had called her house three or four times that night, and that she and Augustine finally connected by phone at about 10:15 p.m.

"They had been talking that night," Ene said of Augustine and Higgs, "She was upset. He had opened a bank account and he was going to leave."

When Higgs told Ene days later that he and Augustine has "worked it out" and reached an agreement, she said she was suspicious.

"I didn't believe that for a minute," Ene said. "She would not have let it go."

Long-time Augustine friend Nancy Vinnik testified she opposed the marriage with Higgs from the start, and was shocked and shaken the day before Augustine's funeral, when Higgs was at their Las Vegas house drunk and calling his wife names.

"He was on the phone talking to Kathy's mother and he said 'your daughter is nothing but a (expletive) whore and a (expletive),'" Vinnik said. "It was awful to hear that. I couldn't believe he could call her mother and say something so disgusting and despicable."

Chaz was sure a loving husband.
_____

The end seems to be near for the Angora Fire.
_____

As the World Turns II.

Chaz Higgs professed his innocence so much, he slashed his wrist this morning in a suicide attempt.

The trial is set to resume Thursday, and Higgs' attorney predicts a mistrial.

The attorney appears not to be too smart by allowing Higgs to testify in his defense, considering the fact he would face cross-examination by the prosecution.

And what does Kathy Augustine's family think of this latest stunt?

Houston said he was told by the Higgs family that he wanted to testify yesterday to tell his story, and then was ready to join his wife.
“We don’t know why this happened,” Houston said. “But yesterday he was reliving the events and I’m told that he waited a year to clear his name so he could join his wife. It was his goal to do that for his family.”
But Augustine’s brother, Phil Alfano, said the suicide attempt was a hoax.
“It’s just another act,” Alfano said after the hearing. “He’s a cold, calculating SOB, that’s all this is.”
Augustine’s daughter, Dallas, agreed.
“He does this whenever he gets backed into a corner,” she said, referring to the suicide attempt he made in the days following Augustine’s death. Dallas found him and called 911.

Where is Nancy Grace on this one?
_____

I can't ignore the big story of today.
_____

Speaking of Grace, now I know why she was coy about marriage and kids when somebody asked her about that when she gave her lecture in Reno in April.

Apparently she's known this guy for decades.

More here.
_____

As the World Turns.

The Angora fire is about 40 percent contained, and some residents will be allowed to return home today, provided they have homes to go to.

Meyers isn't ritzy like Incline Village, and it isn't right on the shore of the lake. However, these residents aren't dirt poor either, unlike many people who lived in New Orleans at the time of Katrina.
_____

Chaz Higgs insists he didn't kill his wife, but it was all her fault the marriage was shot to shit.

Earlier, the prosecution wound up its case by presenting some proof of Higgs' devotion to his wife, State Controller Kathy Augustine:

Prosecutors finished presenting their case Monday morning with testimony from a woman to whom Higgs proclaimed his love while he was married and his disdain for his wife.
“I made a pact to myself that I would live every day making her life a living hell,” Higgs said of Augustine in a December 2005 e-mail to Linda Ramirez, a co-worker at the Renown South Meadows medical center.
“It is my quest in life to drive this bitch crazy and it is working; she is losing her mind,” Higgs said in the e-mail, read by Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hicks. “I have things in motion. I am already gone. “I will be free and I will be with you.”

Sure he didn't kill her. Sure.
_____

As the World Turns.

A nurse describes the wedded bliss of the Higgs-Augustine relationship:

And Tina Carbone, a nurse at the Renown South Meadows medical center when Higgs was hired, said she filed a complaint with the Nevada state Ethics Committee against Augustine because she “felt in jeopardy” by Augustine’s actions.
“She was writing letters to the administration, waiting in the parking lot, making phone calls,” during a time that she and her husband had offered Higgs a room to rent in their house because of his marital problems, Carbone said.
“I wanted her to stop,” Carbone said.
But when asked by Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hicks whether she encouraged Higgs to end the marriage if it was that bad, she said, “yes.”

_____

As the World Turns.

A student risks breaking his neck exploring the Oregon Caves in search of fossils.
_____

A Chihuahua named Ducky has made the record books.
_____

The prosecution in the Higgs case is expected to wind up today.
_____

Former Republican representative Guy VanderJagt, 75, has died from pancreatic cancer.
_____

Lies about Jack Kevorkian's victims continue to be promoted by the media.
_____

As the World Turns.

A nurse testified that Chaz Higgs was a hateful so-and-so:

"How did he refer to his wife?" Deputy District Attorney Christopher Hicks asked Kim Ramey, a traveling nurse who met Higgs July 7, 2006, the day before paramedics took Augustine to a hospital.

"He said, 'She's a (expletive) stalker, she's a bitch, she's psycho,'" Ramey testified. He said he planned to get a divorce and "said he was getting an apartment because she was a stalker," she added.

When their conversation drifted to a high-profile Reno divorce case involving Darren Mack, charged with killing his wife and shooting their divorce judge, Ramey said Higgs made a comment that gave her "goose bumps."

"He said that guy did it wrong," Ramey testified. "If you want to get rid of someone you just hit them with a little succs because you can't trace it post-mortem."

_____

As the World Turns.

Could corn syrup be the key to the bee die-off?

It sounds as if this kid has been reading too many issues of Prevention magazine, not the most reliable of publications.
_____

Opening arguments are expected today in the trial of accused killer Chaz Higgs, charged in the death of wife and Republican politician Kathy Augustine.
_____

As the World Turns.

Hare today, gone tomorrow.
_____

So is there an "epidemic" of autism? The answer, according to this writer, is no. There is an increase in those being diagnosed with autism spectrum.
_____

Chaz Higgs' attorney is confident he can get him off on murder charges.

The trial starts tomorrow, but I won't be in town to see it.
_____

The

Kathy Augustine murder case continues to be a mystery, unless you have paid attention.

As the World Turns.

It looks like Chaz Higgs is off the hook in the death of Charles Augustine.
_____

As the World Turns.

People who teach autistic children need to have some training, but most don't have the specialized training.

However, if you are throwing Asperger's and other high-functioning autistics in with the low-functioning ones, teachers don't need much in the way of specialized instruction.
_____

I figured the "empowerment schools" movement was nothing but a right-wing scam promoted by business interests in order to wreck public education.

Of course, Nevada's elected Democrats aren't smart enough to realize it's a scam.

More here. The testing component gives the whole scam away.

And here is another article.
_____

Representative Nick Lampson of Texas, the person who took Tom DeLay's seat after the scoundrel was forced to resign, was hospitalized for heart surgery.
_____

Chaz Higgs, accused killer of his wife, the late state controller Kathy Augustine, is free on bail.
_____

As the World Turns.

Kathy Augustine's family is furious her loving widower got out on bail.

Higgs' trial is set for June 18, and I will not be town to follow it.
_____

I don't know if this is true, but what the hell. I'll link it anyway.
_____

As the World Turns.

Too bad workers in this country are apathetic about their jobs.
_____

Some assholes stole some dogs at gunpoint.
_____

Accused killer Chaz Higgs made bail.
_____