From the Rantburg "Too off-the-wall to Label Story in an Age of Terrorism" desk, I submit the following bytes:
Campaigners have called for royal pardons for market traders given criminal records for selling goods in imperial rather than metric measures after a government climbdown.
Lawyers representing the so-called "metric martyrs", who were prosecuted for continuing to sell fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces after the metric weights and measures rules came into force in 2000, are drawing up a formal plea to be presented to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary.
It comes after The Daily Telegraph reported last week that the Government had effectively banned councils from prosecuting any more traders for what it regards as "essentially minor offences". Overzealous councils dogpile on people for minor matters. Small minds think alike.
John Denham, the Innovation Secretary, is planning to issue guidelines to local authorities within months, preventing them taking such cases to court as it is no longer considered to be "in the public interest". It's going to take months Mr. Innovation Secretary, to come up with this set of guidelines? Got a budget to go along with this little idea?
Neil Herron, the campaign director of the Metric Martyrs Defence Fund, said the group has instructed lawyers to formally call for the handful of traders who have received criminal records to be pardoned in light of the new policy. And now the Lawyers are getting involved.
That would include a posthumous pardon for Steve Thoburn, the Sunderland greengrocer who became the first "metric martyr" when he was convicted of selling goods only in imperial measures in 2001. He died in 2004. On his tombstone, the Council probably remarked his epitath: "Give them an inch and they take a mile," to "Give them a cm and they take a km."
It would also affect market traders Colin Hunt, from London, who was given a 12-month conditional discharge in 2001 for selling produce only by the pound; John Dove, from Camelford in Cornwall, who met the same fate for failing to advertise the price of his fish in kilograms, and Julian Harman, who broke the law by offering Brussels Sprouts for sale on his stall at 39p per pound. Janet Devers, an east London market trader, had to pay nearly £5,000 in costs and received a criminal record earlier this month after a prosecution brought by Hackney council. Selling Brussels Sprouts by the pound is now high treason in the EU. Didn't know if you knew that.
In Mrs Devers's case, the 64-year-old stallholder's imperial scales were seized and she was charged with 12 separate offences under weights and measures law. After her conviction, she said: "I've been made a scapegoat. To get a criminal record for this is absolutely outrageous. There are 30 other stalls in my market doing what I'm doing, and yet they have chosen to prosecute me." YJCMTSU [*sigh*]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/24/2008 13:28 ||
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We rolled over and gave away our blessed small block 302's and 350's for a bunch of 5 Liter engines and now:
What's next? will they take away the sacred 2 x 4 from all us "Home Improvement" types and make us think metric?????
"A gram or prevention is worth a kilo of cure" just doesn't roll off the tongue,
A young man beheaded an apprentice female lawyer and injured three others in broad daylight at a Segunbagicha house in the capital yesterday.
Locals beat up Mohammad Amin, 32, after the killing before handing him over to the police. He was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) under police custody.
The deceased was identified as Nasrin Akter Tuli, 28, daughter of Rashid Uddin of Dakkhin Kuttapara village under Sarail upazila in Brahmanbaria district. She was living as a sub-let tenant in the same house that Amin lived in for the past three months. She had been practising in the judge court under a senior lawyer.
Amin admitted to the murder saying that he decided to kill his wife, as he was convinced that an evil spirit has taken over her soul. Amin said that he left the house three days ago after a quarrel with his wife and spent this time visiting different shrines in the city.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, he said, "I returned home early in the morning and snatched away a machete from a coconut vendor on the way to kill my wife with it."
He claimed that when he entered the house and couldn't find his wife, he found Tuli having breakfast and thought that his wife had taken 'Tuli's form'. So he hacked her with the machete and dragged her out to the stairway-landing before decapitating her.
The house in question is sub-let to around 20 inhabitants. Eye-witnesses said that Amin tried to hack anyone who fell on his way. He also struck at the furniture in the flat as he looked for his wife. Fatema, a neighbour who lived in the opposite flat and witnessed the brutal killing, told The Daily Star, "I locked my door when I heard the screams. Then through the peeping hole I saw Amin hack Tuli on the stairway-landing in front of my door. He then beheaded her and then ran out to the streets with the head still dangling from his hand."
Another neighbour Nur Jahan, 30, said she ran up to the second floor on hearing the screams around 8:15am and found Amin looking for his wife with the machete in his hand. "He attacked us as his mother and I tried to stop him to calm him down," she said.
A tenant of the house, rickshaw-puller Nur Islam, 40, also tried to stop Amin and was stabbed by him. All three injured were admitted to DMCH with stab wounds.
Amin worked in Saudi Arabia for six years till 2007. He got married a year and a half ago and had been living in the shared flat with his wife, parents, two sisters and a brother.
Tuli's devastated brother Salauddin Khan Pappu said, "Tuli was unwilling to get married until she completed her apprenticeship. She always said that she wanted to work for deprived women and help establish their rights."
Rezaul Karim, officer-in-charge of Shahbagh police, told The Daily Star, "We are investigating the incident to find out if the man is deranged or a mental patient or if there is any other cause behind the brutality."
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Women Lawyers Association in a press release expressed concern over the killing of the apprentice lawyer.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2008 00:00 ||
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A 20-year-old woman who was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield was also maimed by her attacker, police said.
Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard tells Channel 4 Action News that the victim was robbed at knifepoint on Wednesday night outside of a Citizens Bank near Liberty Avenue and Pearl Street just before 9 p.m.
Richard said the robber took $60 from the woman, then became angry when he saw a McCain bumper sticker on the victim's car. The attacker then punched and kicked the victim, before using the knife to scratch the letter "B" into her face, Richard said.
Richard said the woman refused medical treatment after the assault, which happened outside the view of the bank's surveillance cameras.
The robber is described as a dark-skinned black man, 6 feet 4 inches tall, 200 pounds with a medium build, short black hair and brown eyes. The man was wearing dark colored jeans, a black undershirt and black shoes.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2008 00:00 ||
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I'm having a hard time believing this story is true, based on the photos I've seen of the so-called "victim". That "B" looks too perfect and too shallow to have been cut by someone in a angry rage on an unwilling and struggling victim. She didn't even have a single stitch in the picture I've seen.
Nice try--go directly to Jail, do not pass Go...
Posted by: Dar ||
10/24/2008 1:16 Comments ||
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DB--Yes, I saw the picture, and what I saw was somebody bruised up enough to get some sympathy but short of any real scarring for life, i.e. self-inflicted or done by an accomplice who didn't want to take the chance of truly messing her up.
That "B" on her face looks like it was carefully scratched out by a schoolboy looking for a good grade on his penmanship. I think a real perp would have left 5 quick, bloody, deep gashes instead.
Posted by: Dar ||
10/24/2008 9:15 Comments ||
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Police have confirmed the story, although the neatness of the letter does seems suspicious to me. This took place at an ATM so there may be security camera photos available at some point. Brownshirt alert: "rabid partisans" are especially nuts this year: Shots fired, molotov cocktails thrown, and personal attacks.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
10/24/2008 9:58 Comments ||
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I think it happened, but she was probably shook up and confused. Also, in the "hood" you know your limits. A "scratch" doesn't get you in as much trouble if you're caught. Now the girl is saying she was being fondled also, after being knocked to the ground, and that she's not sure if it was her McCain button or her bumper sticker on her car that tweeked the guy. I think it was a robbery, starting to be a rape, saw the button, got pissed, and "taught her a lesson" with the "B". Of course it's upside down because if you want more control, you position yourself above the victim's head to avoid them getting the upper hand.
The media will do everything they can to discredit her, just like Joe.
Also, if she didn't seek medical attention right a way, she was either too shook up and was withdrawing. It is astounding how many rapes and assaults GO UNREPORTED every day. The victims just cloister to themselves and are very confused from the trauma.
OR she's a plant by the Dems, to be discovered as false, in order to deflect criticism from any down-the-road violence that is bound to occur. Just more proof that "whitey" is out to ge the black man.
#12
Pajamas media is debunking the story. It also reports that siome of his readers who, according to them, are police officers told that if she had really been assaulted tehre is no way her bruises would be that lighjyt.
#13
"police officers told that if she had really been assaulted tehre is no way her bruises would be that lighjyt"
This happened when? Bruises can take days to present. I'm skeptical of any police officer who who claims with absolute certainty about something as highly variable as bruising.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
10/24/2008 11:27 Comments ||
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Could be the inverse: She could be an Obama plant. Remember Western Pennsylvania is not looking to good for the anointed one. Easy to put a McCain sticker on your car and wear a button. Then initiate a Twana Brawley situation.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
10/24/2008 12:51 Comments ||
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Bruises develop quite well overnight. Esp under thin skinned areas, like around the eyes.
48 hour rule applies.
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2008 13:04 Comments ||
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Never mind. She just admitted that she made the whole thing up.
I actually feel relieved.
Posted by: Minister of funny walks ||
10/24/2008 14:03 Comments ||
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Ms. Ashley Todd now faces charges, presumably for filing a false police report, and deservedly so. link
#18
Crap like this reminds me of the Susan Smith case a few years ago--"a big black guy carjacked me and took my children!" What a crock...
There's no video or record of an ATM transaction by Ms. Todd. Oops! Forgot about that detail!
Just like Susan Smith claiming she had to stop for a red light at the intersection where her imaginary friend carjacked her--that specific light only changes when triggered by waiting traffic on the sidestreets. She claimed there was no other traffic at that time of night. Oops!
At least this time this B.S. story about a Big Black Bogeyman™ didn't involve killing two innocent children.
Oh, and thanks, Ms. Todd, for only furthering the "racist" slander against the McCain campaign. Go crawl back under your rock, m'kay?
Posted by: Dar ||
10/24/2008 14:49 Comments ||
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She made it up, per KDKA (via Free Republic).
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
10/24/2008 15:32 Comments ||
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Movie footage of London shot in 1904. This clip is an excerpt from a 12-minute long video that was made as a travelogue to lure visitors from Australia. It is a fascinating and all too brief glimpse into the vibrant, teeming London of Sherlock Holmes.
The reel was recently discovered in an archive in Canberra.
"It's a rather clever mixture of what we would expect to see - such as the Embankment, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square - but it also has these wonderful close ups of individuals.
"There's an old lady sleeping rough on a bench, children encouraging a dog to swim in the Thames, children paddling in one of the ponds in St James's Park."
But some things never change.
"There's a wonderful shot of roadworks on the Strand," he said. "The catalogue says, 'Street up as usual'. Road works were obviously a common feature of London in 1904 too."
Other scenes show roads packed with horse-drawn traffic, the city "absolutely teeming with people", fish traders at Billingsgate Market and shoe-shiners in the West End.
The footage, shot of 35mm film, also shows subtle insights into life such as the way people walked, he added.
The academic, professor of film and media history at Birkbeck College in London, said the film, called Living London, was shot by pioneering Anglo-American film-maker Charles Urban.
It was a big hit in Australia with audiences who had either emigrated or had never seen the land of their forefathers.
"It wasn't easy to hop on a plane then," he said.
An advertisement for the film displayed in small-town Australia read: "Sites along a route on the most important thoroughfare in London, not merely showing street scenes but incredible 'Snapshots' of the various human types, their different occupations and pleasures."
Prof Christie said it was a "fascinating panorama of life in London at the beginning of the last century".
The fragment was probably only about a quarter of the whole film, he said.
Black was pronounced dead at the scene. A preliminary medical examiner's report indicates she died of asphyxiation. Police say Black was trying to give the 13-foot tiger python medicine when the incident happened.
Animal control officers found the snake in the bedroom and are holding it at their office. God and/or the processes of natural selection have produced many animals that do not recognize humans as prey animals and generally coexist peacefully with them, despite the occasional hairball on the bed or worse mess behind the couch. Pythons are not one of these.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain ||
10/24/2008 11:45 ||
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Pythons generally do not view humans as prey, especially small ones like this. Yes, 13 feet is small compared to other species of python.
There are some confirmed reports of Burmese pythons and green anacondas (variety of boa) attacking and eating people.
#2
I really don't see the point of keeping reptiles, or spiders, for that matter, as pet. Some few people may have a special fondness for them, sure, but most other people who keep them as pets don't seem to be be bothered by the fact they have brains too rudimentary for forging any kind of actual relationship. The owner can become food if the wrong instincts are triggered, I'd believe.
An 80-year-old, June Coton, has been threatened with prosecution by her local council in Coventry unless she cuts back on feeding the birds in her garden. Ah, the "local council"
June Coton from Coventry has been told to stop feeding birds in her back garden. Mrs Coton, who has been putting food out for the bluetits, starlings and sparrows in her garden for 20 years, was warned that she could face legal action from her local council if she does not desist from feeding the "feral" birds. They's like rats, they is
Officials said that a neighbour had complained that her "overfeeding" had led to large groups of birds congregating on the street creating "environmental" problems and damaging property. "They've blocked out the sun!"
Coventry City Council said it was considering serving an abatement notice - similar to orders given to neighbours who play loud music late at night - to curtail her bird feeding. If she fails to comply she could be prosecuted. Make sure that each and every bird are served notices too, please, to be fair. More
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/24/2008 08:31 ||
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Officials said that a neighbour had complained that her "overfeeding" had led to large groups of birds congregating on the street creating "environmental" problems and damaging property
Transleted from English to American: birds are shitting on adjacent buildings and damaging them. Limestone and acidic bird droppings don't mix well. And food is an essential component from bird droppings. :-)
Posted by: Fred ||
10/24/2008 00:00 ||
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Frank Marshall Davis has volunteered to teach but is having problems getting out of Hell.
Posted by: ed ||
10/24/2008 0:41 Comments ||
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It's part of the state supported indoctrination program on behalf the gay community. It's teaching the kiddies that regardless of what they hear at home or in church, the authority figures of the state and their teachers say its OK. The camel's nose isn't in the tent, the camel is already here.
"John McCain accused Barack Obama of being bad for families, saying he supports sex education for kindergartners. The legislation that Obama supported in the Illinois Senate would have required information deemed age appropriate, and Obama has said that meant warning young children about sexual predators."
If you read the legislation, it is for "comprehensive" sex education for K, and says nothing about predators.
If young people have more pregnancies, that means more abortions for Planned Parenthood, which means more money for them. Follow the money . . .
All of this is to desensitize and re-educate on matters of psychosocial/psychosexual development in the direction of the left. And it's a bad direction for kids.
Also, the pedophiles are in support of this since they want to lower "the age of consent" to 11.
SOUTH Korea's Defence Ministry, which maintains a force of about 670,000 troops to fend off an invasion from the communist North, also feels threatened by the likes of American linguist Noam Chomsky.
The ministry said today it may punish some officers for harming "the military's mental power" by trying to bring books it considers too leftist onto its bases. The ministry earlier this year banned 23 books from the country's military facilities include two volumes by Chomsky and the best seller Bad Samaritans by a Korean professor at Cambridge University, Chang Ha-joon.
A group of officers said the move was censorship and appealed to the country's highest court to overturn the ban. They argue that since soldiers are free to read the books off base, they should be allowed to bring them into their barracks. The officers said the rule violated constitutional rights.
"A team of investigators will be formed on the conduct by the officers of bringing the constitutional appeal," Defence Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said.
The comments followed Defence Minister Lee Sang-hee's warning yesterday that the officers made a mistake in taking action against the military rule designed to ensure soldiers are equipped with the mental strength as well as combat readiness.
South Korea is technically at war with North Korea which has 1.2 million troops.
POLICE have called for an end to muck-up day pranks, after a school was evacuated following the discovery of homemade bombs on the school grounds.
Police were called to Brighton Secondary College, in Melbourne, yesterday morning, after a cleaner found a device containing wires and powder on Thursday night.
Thinking it a hoax, the cleaner left it overnight for staff to find. But principal Julie Podbury decided to call in emergency services.
More than a dozen police and fire units turned out to Marriage Rd in Brighton East, as 1000 students and 100 teachers were evacuated to the oval.
The effort follows a week of muck-up day controversy, including the suspension of the entire year 12 at Xavier College, after drinking, violence and damage to neighbours' property.
Students going home after the Brighton evacuation yesterday said the discovery followed at least one student letting off a smoke bomb in a corridor on Wednesday.
Others said some year 12 students had been determined to out-do the Xavier College efforts.
Yesterday, the Victoria Police bomb squad combed the campus and found two more devices, apparently incendiary - designed to cause fires or smoke.
Staff said the VCE students were not allowed to have a muck-up day, with class continuing as normal this week.
Det Sen-Sgt Steve White said year 12 students were the suspects.
"Given the time of the year and muck-up day, certainly some of the students can expect a visit from the police," he said.
"We've certainly got the names of six to a dozen that we want to speak to."
Bananas in pyjamas may be OK, but in undies they are not - as a woman discovered at Sydney Airport.
Customs officers stopped the 56-year-old from the Czech Republic when she arrived from Samoa on Wednesday.
Suspecting she was concealing something on her body, a female officer frisked her and found she was concealing three banana plants in her underpants.
Quarantine officers seized the plants, which Customs say are a threat to Australia's banana industry because they can carry black sigatoka disease, fusarium wilt, or moko disease.
The woman was likely to be issued a court attendance notice when investigations were completed, a Customs spokesman said.
Penalties for breaching quarantine laws can result in fines of more than $66,000 or 10 years' jail.
TWO Dutch towns are planning to close their cannabis smoking coffee shops after admitting that an influx of up to 25,000 French and Belgian "drug tourists" each week had become too much.
Local authorities in southwestern Roosendaal and Bergen-op-Doom announced they could no longer cope with the "drug tourists" whose presence they blamed for traffic congestion, crime and unlicenced dealing.
"Soft drug tourism is the motor of criminality linked to (harder) drugs," they said in a joint statement. "It has an overwhelming negative effect on public order."
All eight coffee shops in the two towns will shut, with closures beginning in February 2009.
"The mayor of Roosendaal thinks we could close them all within two years," town hall spokeswoman Marjolein Koppens said.
Until then, all local coffee shops will be forced to limit the sale of cannabis to two grams per customer per day instead of the current five grams.
Liberal drugs laws in the Netherlands allow people to carry five grams of marijuana on their person without being prosecuted.
Another border town, Terneuzen, announced yesterday it would toughen its local by-laws on the sale of cannabis from May next year. Opening hours would be restricted and the amount each customer could buy would also be reduced.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
