Wednesday - October 22, 2008

No need for hunting

This happened less than 6 miles from where I live. I went past the scene on the way home from bowling Monday night. I figured it was just another accident.

Car kills bear in Hunterdon County
by George Berkin/The Star-Ledger
Monday October 20, 2008, 9:14 PM

A car collided with a 400-pound bear in Hunterdon County tonight, slightly injuring the driver but killing the bruin, State Police said.

The collision occurred at 8 p.m. on Route 31 North in Glen Gardner, said Sgt. Mark Dellavalle of the State Police barracks at Perryville.

A police dispatcher said it appeared the bear was attempting to cross the highway when it was hit.

The name of the driver was not immediately available. Two adult passengers in her car were not injured. No additional details were released.

A 400 pound black bear is quite a lot of bear. Certainly big enough to kill you with just a swipe or a bite or two. Living here in outer-surburbia in the most densely populated state in the nation. Nonchalantly crossing a very busy local highway after dark. 400 pounds. In rural Wisconsin some consider a bear of that size to be a “super heavyweight”. In parts of Canada, that size bear is one for the record books. Here in suburban NJ it’s just nuisance roadkill. “Aw geez, somebody hit another freakin beah. Now we’re gonna be stuck in freakin traffic freakin foreva!”

400 pounds. Probably very well fed on deer, road kill, trash can refuse, etc. And such bears are not really uncommon around here; several bears over 500 pounds have been shot recently just across the border in PA, not 20 miles away. Forget this greenie nonsense about encroaching habitats. Wildlife has adapted, and is doing much better living around people than it ever would out in the dirty old forest.

It truly is a wonder that these bears haven’t killed anyone at this point. Maybe that’s why we have such a ruckus every time the state brings up the subject of hunting them; it’s all fun and games and Bambi-World until someone loses a child. I guess it will take some fatalities to change people’s minds.

But I think I’ve just decided that I’m only going to take the garbage and the recycling out in the daytime.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/22/2008 at 11:07 AM   
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   Tuesday - October 21, 2008

Stuck Inside These Four Walls

Stuck inside forever?

My condo park is at it again. It wasn’t enough that they had to disrupt everyone’s lives this summer by doing a massive residing project on the outside of all the units. No, now they’ve come up with an additional double whammy. First they decided that we all need brand new garage doors because the paint color on the old doors doesn’t coordinate with the new siding color. And then they decided that the walkways between the units need to be resurfaced. For 30 years those walkways have been plain concrete covered with Astroturf, but now we’re getting colorful patio pavers. Sure, they look nice, and they will stay cleaner and make for easier snow removal, but the paver project is so FUBAR it must be run by the government.

You see, they couldn’t just come along and tear up the Astroturf and then lay down pavers. Oh no. First they had to show up with teams of jackhammers and chip away all the old concrete. Several feet down! Then new concrete gets poured. Once it’s dry they come back with the jackhammers again, and chew a narrow trench along the front edge of it to put in brand new Belgian Block edging. Because the old Belgian Block edging is no good any more I guess? And to protect the brand new siding from flying chips of concrete during this process, the same crew who just installed it a month or two ago had to come back ... and uninstall it!! Well, for about 8 feet up the walls at any rate. In theory, once the new pavers are laid, the siding goes back up. The building across the way from us had their walkways done a month ago, and I’m still looking at sheets of Tyvek house wrap where the siding used to be. I guess that will go back up when the siding project is completely finished.

Today is my lucky day. The jackhammer squad has been outside here since about 7:30 going at it. It sounds like a machine gun firing range here. And just for gits and shiggles, so that they could chip away the old concrete even better, they took apart the stairways. And I’m here on the second floor. I knew I should have brought my extension ladder inside last night! So until they put the stairs back in, or a ladder or something, I’m sort of stuck here. It takes about 3 or 4 days to do the pavers for each walkway. This is going to be a fun filled week!

I don’t know when my building is scheduled to get the new garage doors. I haven’t seen how that task gets done; those doors are going in at the other end of the complex several streets over. It would not surprise me at all if the doors they get are bigger than the old ones, which would require ripping off the old door frames, which would require removing more of that brand new siding that was just put up. And praying that it gets put back when that task is finished.

In the end everything should look super spiffy. But it’s a long road to travel. I’d like to suggest that they get new windows and patio sliders while they’re at it, because the ones we have are pretty old and not in the best condition. And they were cheap crap to begin with. But making that suggestion would be akin to volunteering to spend another few months in Hell.

One of the most fundamental skills of Project Management is task coordination. The paver and garage door projects should have been done as a wave that preceded the siding project. Go from unit to unit, get it all done at once. Nah, that would make sense.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/21/2008 at 10:07 AM   
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To the scaffold with the rubbish Sandwich Stasi who thinks a workman’s lunch is industrial waste.

Oh people believe me.  This fellow must be read by you.  He often concerns himself with internal politics and names that would mean nothing to you, so I generally pick out the parts that would have meaning to us.  Or else as in this case, something so totally insane, so bizarre, so untotally unbelievable, so, so..
dumb?  Oh hell ... see for yourself.  This can’t all be true surely.  Even for here.  I tell ya people, this article has everything.

Below the fold, it even has muslims. Doesn’t everything these days?  Yeah. Apparently, Firemen are to take a compulsory course on, “Getting Along With Islam islam.”

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: To the scaffold with the rubbish Sandwich Stasi who thinks a workman’s lunch is industrial waste

Last updated at 8:30 AM on 21st October 2008

The rubbish arm of the law: Bin rules are becoming a mockery of themselves

The rubbish arm of the law: Bin rules are becoming a mockery of themselves

Today’s edition of Warden Hodges’ Britain comes from Liverpool, where war has been declared on the illegal disposal of industrial waste. Every firm in the city is getting a visit from enforcement officers working for a public-private agency set up by the council.

Last week it was the turn of Frank Hughes, who runs a small scaffolding hire company. The inspector asked him how he disposes of his waste.

Frank said he doesn’t. He explained that scaffolding is a relatively simple business which doesn’t generate waste.

But you must eat lunch, the inspector retaliated. I bring sandwiches, Frank told him. And before you ask, I take the wrapping home with me.

In which case, you’re breaking the law, the jobsworth informed him. Sandwich wrappings are classified as industrial waste within the meaning of the Act. You need a licence to dispose of them.

And since you don’t have one, you are committing a criminal offence. Frank would be hearing from the litigation department in connection with this heinous crime and could expect a minimum fine of £300.

With that, the official ticked all the relevant boxes and goose-stepped his way out, another job well-done.

Frank wrote to me in despair. ‘I am not making this up,’ he assures me. I don’t think you are for a moment, guv.

It wouldn’t have surprised me if the inspector had produced a roll of CSI-style crime scene tape, cordoned off the building, declared the whole business off-limits, called for armed police back-up and ordered Frank to cease trading immediately.

‘Enviro-crime’ is the new ‘hate crime’. All must be punished, all the time.

Many councils have already hired teams of environmental crime enforcers. In Salford, they have started patrolling the streets looking for any emptied dustbins still on the pavement at 11am.

Offenders are issued with fixed-penalty fines.

This is particularly distressing for pensioners and for mothers with young children who return from shopping trips to discover they have been nicked.

How are people out at work expected to bring in their bins before 11am? Has that occurred to the morons at the Town Hall?

I shouldn’t have thought so for a moment. And even if it did, it would be considered a bonus, increasing the potential for punishment and revenue-raising.

These are just two, tiny examples of the perverted manner in which those we pay to perform straightforward duties go out of their way to persecute us. By tonight, my inbox will be full of dozens more.

Prevention of illegal dumping is a noble pursuit. No one wants chemicals poured away in suburban gutters, or asbestos casually chucked over the fence of the local children’s playground.

Too many country hedgerows and city side-streets are besmirched by fly-tipping, an unpleasant but inevitable side-effect of scrapping weekly rubbish collections in the name of saving the polar bears.

But that’s no excuse for the Sandwich Stasi. It takes a pedantry bordering on extreme mental illness to define greaseproof paper used for wrapping a round of cheese and pickle as ‘industrial waste’ - let alone demanding that someone has to possess a licence to dispose of it.

Similarly, having the pavements cluttered with empty dustbins isn’t particularly desirable. But fining people for not bringing them in by mid-morning is outrageous.

What are they supposed to do - take an hour off work or stay at home until the dustmen have been?

Of course, none of this would be necessary if councils hadn’t ended the traditional method of rubbish collection. Some of us can remember when dustmen came round to the back of your house, carried your bin to the cart, emptied it and then returned it to whence it came.

Now you are expected to wheel your own bin to the front gate - and woe betide you if you don’t leave it in exactly the place designated by the council. Even a few inches out and they’ll refuse to empty it. Then the ‘environmental crime’ wardens will come along and issue you with a fine.

Those charged with waste disposal in Britain have taken leave of their senses. They have forgotten that they are public servants. They see themselves as evangelical environmental warriors and the rest of us are their enemy.

They now exist purely to bully, fine and punish us.

It is nothing short of monstrous that hard-working, law-abiding small businessmen like Frank Hughes - the backbone of the nation - can be treated in this fashion.

While he is doing everything he can to battle through a recession not of his making, his taxes are going towards paying the salary and pension of a jumped-up, otherwise-unemployable twerp who proposes to fine him £300 for ‘illegal disposal’ of a sandwich wrapping.

For two decades, this column has made a career out of exposing the unbending lunacy and sheer bloody-mindedness of British bureaucrats, but the monster marches ravenously on.

At a time when we can least afford it, we are being bled white to finance the Sandwich Stasi and hundreds of thousands of index-linked, spiteful, self-righteous parasites.

In another life, these are the very people who would have been loading the cattle trucks to the concentration camps.

To the scaffold with the lot of them.

OH SO, YA THINK THE ABOVE IS A TAD OVER THE TOP?  YOU THINK THEY’VE FINALLY REACHED THE END OF THE DUMB LINE?
HA!  TAKE ANOTHER THUNK AND SEE THIS IN THE EXTENDED TEXT.  YOU MIGHT FALL DOWN SO PLEASE BE SEATED.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/21/2008 at 09:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Insanity • Nanny State • RoPMA • Stoopid-People • UK •  
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Girl, 13, has sex ‘rewarded’ by mother with cigarettes.  (Could this be a new age trend?)

This is NOT what I thought was going to be my first post of the new day. In fact, I have something almost worse lined up from the department of illogic. (DOL)
They love initials here and never pass an excuse to use em.
Anyway ... this really does defy any sort of logical, rational parental behavior.  Even I know that and I have never been a parent.  But, well,,, what do I know?
I guess you will have to read the story.  Maybe we should feel sorry for mom?  Like, she felt she couldn’t control things and so gave up?  How’d the kid get to be this way to begin with? How do any? 

Girl, 13, who smokes drinks and has sex ‘rewarded’ by mother with cigarettes
A 13-year-old girl who has had four sexual partners, smokes dope, drinks beer and has been excluded from school 40 times is considered “sweet” by her mother and given cigarettes as rewards for good behaviour.

By Aislinn Simpson
Last Updated: 7:28AM BST 21 Oct 2008

Tracy Holt, 43, says there are a “lot worse things” her daughter Sam could be doing than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and believes that because she herself hasn’t yet suffered from cancer, “she’ll probably be alright anyway”.

(My kid brother died age 46 from lung cancer. He was six years my junior. I smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes for 38 years before I quit.  I have no lung problem. Or I didn’t then and feel ok now.  But this lady is nuts to believe her daughter might not get smoker’s cancer because mom doesn’t have it now. Why chance it?  And my arteries on one side are not too good. Part diet sure, but part old smokers damage I think.  Nobody told me that. It’s just a feeling I have and might be groundless.  But I sure as heck wouldn’t encourage a kid to start as I did at 13.  Back then, way back then, we didn’t all make the connection. It is NOT an easy way to go either. Oh boy, if she has one, this little girl has a long life ahead of her.  What’s it gonna be like for her? Scary thought.)

She knows her daughter hangs out with friends in the street, drinking cans of lager and smoking pot, but says she is simply glad Sam is not “a proper drunk” and has not graduated to harder drugs.

“I don’t see the point in punishing her. If I ground her, I’m just punishing myself because I have to put up with her in the house,” she said.

“Instead, I reward her good behaviour by giving her cigarettes. If she’s bad, she goes without.

“She’s a little comedian. I let her get away with a lot of cheek. It’s sweet.”

Mrs Holt, a jobless single mother with two other grown-up children who smokes 20 cigarettes a day herself, said giving them out as a reward “works”.

She said: “There are a lot worse things she could be doing. We’ve all got to die sometime. I haven’t got cancer from smoking so she’ll probably be all right anyway.”

Sam agrees that she will do more around the family home, in Gosport, Hampshire, when bribed.

“If Mum tells me to tidy my room, I ignore her but if she offers me a fag, I do it,” she said.

She admits to having had four sexual partners in less than a year, but told Closer magazine: “I only sleep with boyfriends. I worry about getting pregnant because I don’t want kids until I’m married so I always use condoms.”

Sam lost her virginity when she was 12, and told her mother shortly afterwards. Miss Holt said she was shocked at first but hid her feelings well.

“I thought it was a joke, so I laughed,” she said. “I was disappointed. No mother wants to know her 12-year-old is having sex but I’m glad she told me.

“I didn’t show I was angry and just kept it to myself.”

She went on: “It wasn’t a one-night stand. She had been dating the guy for a couple of weeks. I took her to the doctor’s the next day to get her on the Pill. I’ve told her to use condoms.”

Sam’s track record at school leaves a lot to be desired, and she has been excluded for bad behaviour more than 40 times.

“Sam got suspended for the first time after she climbed on to the school roof,” she said.

“I shouted at her and then explained she shouldn’t climb on roofs because she could fall off. I didn’t know what else to do.”

She believes her daughter’s behaviour is down to the teachers at her school who were “too soft” with her.

“Now she is at a special school where there are fewer kids in each class,” she said.

“Hopefully these teachers will be stricter and she will finally get the discipline that’s needed.”

* The full interview with Sam and Tracy Holt appears in Closer magazine.

http://tinyurl.com/64mvuo this link is for the Telegraph.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/21/2008 at 02:47 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Insanity • News-Briefs • Sex • UK •  
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   Saturday - October 18, 2008

Update on the scroungers!

This post is about a previous post which was about Europeons

Peiper might be mad at me for this. He’s probably thinking he has an easy post for later and I’ve beat him to it.

Remember the Cromptons?

The jobless couple with 10 children who rake in £32,000 a year in benefits.. and who STILL aren’t happy

Yeah the scroungers.

They found another poor family with 10 kids not two miles away from the Cromptons.

And boy were they p*ssed when they read about the Cromptons:

Mrs Tate, 43, a stay-at-home mother, could barely believe what she was reading when she saw media coverage of the Cromptons’ situation earlier this week.

‘I am absolutely furious,’ she said. ‘The Government want shooting for allowing people to get away with scrounging like this.

‘We have worked hard all our lives to provide for our kids, and when you see families like this it makes you wonder why you bother.

Exactly. Why bother?

(Why? Oh, yeah. Because you love your children more than the Cromptons do. You demonstrate sacrifice for your children, to your children. The Cromptons demostrate theft from the public trough.)

It is a story which crystalises the dubious values encouraged by the British welfare state.

While hardworking Sean and Anne Tate scrimp to afford a few little luxuries for their ten children on his £15,000 lorry driver’s salary, a family of the same size two miles away take things a little easier.

Harry Crompton, 50, has been out of work for 15 years and his wife Tracey, 40, has never had a job.

So go read about the Tates.

What is really interesting is the pictures of the two families.

The scrounging Cromptons

The hard-working Tates

Which family looks happier?

The idle rich Cromptons? (sit-on-their-@ss welfare income equivalent to £46,500)

Or the scrimping Tates? (actual hard-working income £15,000)

You decide.

Posted by Christopher     on 10/18/2008 at 09:46 PM   
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   Thursday - October 16, 2008

Baby-faced gang of ‘feral youths’ named and shamed after reign of terror.

PLEASE See the link for the faces of these 9 miserable little shits!  They do not deserve to live but of course ... they’re getting ASBOS.
Now what the heck makes the authorities think these bastards can be “shamed.” More then likely they will brag about it in school. Assuming they attend school.  By right, their fingers should be broken one by one.  Next offence an arm.  Or an eye. The thing is, they are all of them old enough to know exactly what they were up to.  But there wasn’t any fear of reprisal or penalties. None!  What incentive do these creeps have to feel fear?  What examples have they seen that would make them think twice?  None.  And so it goes on. And on.

The Wild Runts: Baby-faced gang of ‘feral youths’ named and shamed after reign of terror
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 2:35 PM on 16th October 2008

Nine schoolchildren were named and shamed today as a hoodie gang nicknamed
‘The Wild Runts’ were given ASBOS and threatened with jail.

The two girls and seven boys aged between 12 and 16 ‘roamed the community like a pack of dogs’, as racial taunts, violence and vandalism left neighbours gripped by fear.

The youths hurled bricks into people’s homes, scratched cars, started a string of fires, opened guttering, and yelled abuse at the people on the Wigan estate.

Last June, police joined forces with the council and housing groups to nail the youngsters after complaints over a four-month period.

Locals were given anonymity in return for testifying against the gang and some were rehoused in another area.

Today, Amanda Browitt, aged 14, her brother Connor, 15, Callum Doran, 15, Connah Doran, 12, Katy Sharrock ,16, Michael Lee, 14, Lewis Tracey, 12 , Joshua Tracey, 15, and Liam Brogan, 14, were given ASBOs threatening them with jail if they break the law or gather in large groups.

More…
Father almost beaten to death has his home burgled as doctors battle to save his life
Man, 21, collapses and dies in street after chasing yobs who threw lit firework at his bedroom window.
Just another week in an island paradise folks.

The two-year orders also threatened them with up to five years in jail if they are caught using threatening, abusive, or insulting words in public.

They are also forbidden from causing harassment, alarm or distress to any person not of the same household and avoid contact with other associates of their gang.

Terrorised: The Beech Hill Estate near Wigan where the gang started fires and threw bricks into residents’ windows

In two separate sittings, Wigan magistrates court heard how the gang terrorised the neighbourhood on the outskirts of the town with investigators saying racial abuse, wanton vandalism, harassment, threats and intimidation were hallmarks of the gang’s activities.

People and property were the targets and a catalogue of evidence was presented to the court.

As part of the court orders, the gang must not congregate in any group of more than three individuals within certain parts of Beech Hill whilst behaving in a manner causing, or likely to cause, any other person to fear for their safety or property, or the property of another.

One local too frightened to be named said: ‘These youths were an absolute menace. They may look like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths but the reality is they have brought us nothing but misery.

‘Some of these kids are so small some might think it unbelievable for us to be terrified of them.

‘But they were very menacing indeed. They would wander around the estate like a pack of wild dogs - they always seemed to be be together in a pack. To us they were the wild runts.

‘They are just feral youths. They are wild. In general they just trouble makers. When they are in there gangs they can be up to anything.’

Another local Ian Shaw, 43, said: ‘This used to be a place with real family values, now its hell. These guys pick on the elderly and throw stones and start fires. Even when the Fire Brigade came out and put the blazes out they would start abusing them too.

‘They’ve got such a reputation, kids from other estates are coming over to fight with them. Its like gang warfare. They walk down the street with a key or whatever and scratch every car what is parked on the street.

‘There use to a be playing field behind us with an obstacle courses and basketball courts. Now they are gone. They set fire to the whole lot and the council had to take all the remains away.’

Joan Johnson, 66, retired said: “I was at home, sitting watching television and I saw a brick being thrown towards me. There are always cracks on my window.

‘They have broke my side window and it has me over £80 to get it fixed. I’m retired I shouldn’t have to go through this.”

“They have also thrown eggs at my house. I would move but we are too old and have nowhere to go.’

Inspector Glenn Jones of Greater Manchester Police said: ‘This is a landmark case and sends out the message that all of us - community safety agencies and decent people in local communities - can work together to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.’

http://tinyurl.com/473l6c

Posted by Drew458     on 10/16/2008 at 11:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • UK •  
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   Wednesday - October 15, 2008

still sick, might be getting better

I’ve spent the last week in Mucus Hell. Awful coughing, nose running like a faucet, bit of a fever, and enough sinus pressure to make my teeth hurt. So much nose blowing that I ought to be dehydrated by now. Doctor said bronchitis and a sinus infection. Two bottles of really large and expensive pills.

This happens to me just about every year when the seasons change. Beats me why. If we have a short fall, going straight from late summer into snow then I’m fine. But if we have an extended fall, where the temps go up and down and in and out for a month or two, then I’m screwed. This year we’ve had frost in September and 80 degree days in mid October. But we haven’t had the cold wet miserable duck hunting season weather of November yet, thank goodness.

So if you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been posting that much, now you know. But I think I might be coming out of it at this point. I’m back to the cough-so-hard-when-you-get-up-that-you-almost-puke-and-then-feel-Ok-for-a-few-hours stage that I came in on, so I’m hoping that’s an improvement. And I think I can find some energy to do some basic stuff around here like laundry and taking out the garbage and putting fresh sheets on the bed. All that basic stuff that just grinds to a halt when you’re sick.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/15/2008 at 07:30 AM   
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   Monday - October 13, 2008

‘Next time, walk away’: What a magistrate told a husband who stood up to yob threatening his wife .

So where’s the guy supposed to walk away to?  He was at his home unless I misunderstood the article.

I know you ppl will have your own comments to make and they will surely mirror anything I might say.

The surprise is that the guy didn’t simply break the little bastard’s face.  Yeah, then he’d have been jailed. And the thug here damn sure knows his rights as you’ll see.  This kind of crap is maddening. RCOB!

Personally, I fear that if it were me and I let myself go and hit the little shit once, I just wouldn’t be able to stop.
I guess that doesn’t say much for my self control, but given this particular scenario, could ya blame me?

By Daniel Bates
Last updated at 7:56 AM on 13th October 2008

A husband who stood up to a yob who shouted vile abuse at his wife has been convicted of assault and told by a magistrate: ‘Next time, walk away.’

Stephan Toth acted after the 13-year-old threatened his wife Selina, who has cancer.

Mr Toth put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and guided him to his mother’s house, where he explained to her what her son had done. He then went home, only for the police to call at his flat and arrest him.

Stunned: Stephan Toth was charged with assaulting a teenage boy who verbally abused his wife

The 34-year-old father of one was kept in a dirty cell for eight hours and interviewed for two hours before being charged with common assault.

After a three-month wait he was convicted and given an absolute discharge, leaving him with a criminal record.

And he was stunned when chairman of the bench Tony Pomeroy told him to ‘just walk away’ next time.

Mr Toth said: ‘Am I supposed to just walk away when some yob screams such awful things at my wife? No way.

‘I did what any reasonable person would do yet the law is behind him, not me. I’m the victim here but somehow I’ve ended up becoming the criminal. Meanwhile that boy feels like he’s above the law.’

As he waited for the trial, Mr Toth, from Margate in Kent, lost his job as a carer and has been unable to find work since. He was hauled before Margate magistrates over the incident in front of his flat on June 1.

His 46-year-old wife, who is suffering from cervical cancer, was becoming upset by the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, screaming abuse through her open window.

Mr Toth said: ‘I went up to him and said, “Enough is enough”. He said, “You can’t touch me, I’ll get you sacked”. I thought his mum should hear this so with open palms I coaxed him towards her house, which is a few doors down.

‘My job is providing support and care at a school for children with learning and physical disabilities, so I’ve been trained on how to handle youths properly and barely even touched his shoulders.

‘I got him most of the way then he ran off, so I went and spoke to his mum. She refused to accept he had said anything and shouted at me so I called the police to let them deal with it.’

Officers arrived at Mr Toth’s flat half an hour later. The boy’s family claimed Mr Toth grabbed him in a bear hug and tried to pick him up, causing six scratches to his chest.

Mr Pomeroy said: ‘There is insufficient evidence that there was a bear hug causing injuries but the defendant has admitted that he took hold of him by his shoulders and that constitutes an assault in our opinion.

‘We think however that there was some degree of provocation in this.’ He added: ‘It would be an idea next time just to walk away.’

Mr Toth, who also had to pay £85 costs, is planning to appeal. He added: ‘I’ve been treated appallingly. My career is looking like it’s going to be crushed, we have bills to pay and my wife’s already fragile health is worse because of this.’

Kent Crown Prosecution Service defended its decision to take Mr Toth to court. A spokesman said: ‘The CPS only brings a prosecution if there is enough evidence to provide a reasonable chance of conviction and if the prosecution is in the public interest.’

http://tinyurl.com/476fhk

Posted by Drew458     on 10/13/2008 at 02:53 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • Outrageous • UK •  
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   Thursday - October 09, 2008

Nebraska parents abandon teens in backfire of newborn drop-off policy .  WhooHoo. news from the USA

I guess most have seen this right?
If not .... what a hoot.  Woody Allen used to joke about his parents hiring kidnappers to remove him.  But that was a gag. I think.
Anyway ... seems these folks are really serious about getting rid of troubling teens.

A scheme in Nebraska intended to allow desperate young mothers to abandon their newborn child without facing prosecution has backfired after a string of parents delivered their troublesome teenagers to the authorities.


By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 8:53PM BST 08 Oct 2008

Seventeen children - many of them in their teens - have been abandoned since a new law in July allowed parents and guardians to leave their children at drop-off points at hospitals.

The rash of older children deposited has left state authorities struggling to cope. In the latest case this week - and the first involving a child from outside the state - a 14-year-old girl from Iowa was dropped off at a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, on Tuesday.

State officials said the person who abandoned her could be prosecuted in the girl’s home state but authorities have so far been unable to do anything about the other cases because of the loose wording of its safe haven law.

Nebraska was the last state to introduce such legislation but it went much further than others. Instead of restricting those who could be abandoned to infants, as is the case elsewhere in the US, Nebraska effectively allowed it to apply to anyone up to the age of 18.

In the most serious case to date, a single father handed over nine of his 10 children - aged between 20 months and 17 - saying that he could no longer cope.

Other parents and guardians have brought in children, citing issues such as violence and disobedience as reasons for their abandonment.

The law stipulates that the child must be left in a state-approved hospital. A mother who tried to offload her 14-year-old son in September was foiled after she mistakenly tried to drop him off at a police station instead.

Dave Heineman, the state’s governor, has now pledged to tighten up the law so that it only applies to infants.

He appealed to fellow Nebraskans to take less drastic measures than abandonment if they were having trouble with children.

While conceding that raising a child can be “challenging at times”, he said: “Abandonment of an older child is potentially very devastating ... Nebraskans believe strongly in parental responsibility. The essential element defining any family is the knowledge that parents provide unconditional love for their children.”

http://tinyurl.com/4y9zjz

Posted by Drew458     on 10/09/2008 at 11:58 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Miscellaneous •  
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   Wednesday - October 08, 2008

And around we go again

Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote.

A Nevada secretary of state’s office spokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

No one was at the ACORN office when state agents arrived with a search warrant and began carting records and documents away.

Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh says ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names.

The raid comes two months after state and federal authorities formed a task force to pursue election-fraud allegations in Nevada.

ACORN investigation spreads to 10 states!

Why does this group even still exist? They should have been shut down ages ago. And every single one of their registration forms thrown out. And they shouldn’t get a dime of public money. And anyone involved with the group, especially those who worked as Community Organizers and Staff Trainers, should be branded a criminal. Because I don’t buy that they aren’t aware of the dirty deeds of their underlings. Hell no. I believe they are fully aware of them, and instructed these people specifically to break the law and falsify voter registrations.

I remember how hard it was for me to register to vote. My goodness, what a task it was. Nobody sent me a form in the mail. Nobody showed up at my house with a van to give me a ride down to registration headquarters. Nobody even told me where the place was. It was awful. Really, it was. I had to dig around in the kitchen to find the phone book. Then I had to look up the number for the local Republican Party. Then I had to make a phone call and ask where I should go to register, and what hours the place was open. Since the location was on the other side of town, I had to decide whether to drive there, walk there, or take my bicycle. Pretty sure I had to take my birth certificate and my SocSec card. When I got there I actually had to speak to one or two people, and I think I even had to fill out some form and sign my name. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I don’t think one cent of public money should be spent on voter registration. I don’t buy into this “historically disenfranchised” nonsense either. Not one bit. If you want to take part in voting, if you want to exercise your civil rights, then you have to make the effort. And every time you move from one home to another you should remember to move your registration as well. It’s the tiniest of social responsibilities. The tiniest. Ok, sure, there might be some folks lying in hospitals, or those fully disabled at home, who have finally decided to become voters. For those folks, there is a form you can fill out and mail in. All it costs you is the price of an envelope and a stamp. Less than a dollar.

These voter registration drives are a crock. All of them. Rife with fraud. All of them. There ought to be a registration cut off date 6 months before Election Day. Get your paperwork in the pipeline by then, or too bad ... no vote for you! ... this time. No exceptions. Six months should allow even the most inept government employees plenty of time to validate your data and issue you a voter ID with your picture on it. Sure, fine, State’s Rights. Ok. Let the states and the counties and the towns do whatever the hell they want for voter registration. But for Federal elections put a rigorous universal law into place, with coordinated cross checking between Social Security, the IRS, your employer, EquiFax, and all the state databases of who was born, who died, and who is a felon.

Would a Federal Voter ID be akin to a National ID card? Yes. That’s exactly what it is. But that’s creeping socialism!! No, sorry, it’s not. We are already way, way past that point. Do you really think that, if you aren’t in hiding somewhere off the grid, a la Ted Kaczynski, that the government can’t find you in under 24 hours? If you have a job they know where you live. If you get welfare they know where you live. The telephone companies cooperate with the government, so if you own a cell phone that has a calling plan they can locate you to within a meter or two in a matter of seconds. The government knows your name, your age, your sex, your race. They know where you live, where you work, what kind of a car you drive. I guarantee you they can access your credit card data, so they know what all your spending habits are. They even now how much money you put in what bank, and how often you hit the cash machine. Use one of those Shopper’s Club cards at your local grocer and the government can easily find out what you eat. They know who provides you with internet service, and it wouldn’t be too much effort for the government to find out all the sites you surf too. All they have to do is look at the logs on the server end of your ISP. The information is already there, and it never goes away. Same goes for your telephone usage. Every call, every number. Stored forever. You barely even have the illusion of privacy anymore. Let’s not kid ourselves. Ten years ago the ACLU did their pizza sketch to scare folks, but the capability was already in place then. It was only a matter of policy that the proper switches weren’t already thrown. No, let me rephrase that. It was only a matter of public policy that the government was willing to admit that the proper switches weren’t already thrown. And more public policy that they would act on the data once that had it.  What was true then is only more true now, especially since we’ve had that Patriot Act thing. So let’s admit reality, not bemoan a level of freedom that hasn’t existed for at least 25 years already anyway, and use the existing system for good for once.

The technology exists so that you, the voter, should be able to walk into any polling place in America on or before Election Day, show your ID, and vote. It doesn’t matter if you are in Pasadena California, the ballot for Oshkosh Wisconsin should come up. You cast your vote, and not only does Oshkosh immediately know it, no other polling place in America will let you vote for that election. Conceptually this is hardly any different from using your Visa card. Just two or three lines of code get added so that you can only use it once per election. That’s it.

Oh, but the system can be hacked! Perhaps it can. And hacking the election system can be made a capital offense too. And we could use some of that whiz-bang encryption that already exists to protect your online credit card shopping. Oh, I lost my card!! Tough shit. Not losing your card is part of being a responsible citizen. However, if you tell us that you lost it, say 30 days before the election, then you can get a new one issued. You’d have to supply all the ID and stuff again though. Come to think of it, you really don’t even need the card do you? Just tell the election worker your SSN. Up comes your picture and they verify that it’s you. Sure, a retinal scan or a thumbprint would be absolute proof, but let’s try to keep that info out of the government’s hands a little longer if we can. But some kind of ID would almost eliminate voter fraud, and would utterly eliminate the “raisin da-tree” for ACORN to exist. And that’s a big step forward.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/08/2008 at 10:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Politics •  
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   Saturday - October 04, 2008

POINTS OF VIEW ……. A discussion, not an argument.

THIS POSTING IS A DISCUSSION ON THE SUBJECT WITH REGARD TO THE RIGHT OF A PHARMACIST TO WITHHOLD MEDICATIONS BASED ON PERSONAL RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 
My position being that the rights of a patient come first where meds are the question. The right to expect to have an Rx filled without hassle based on someone else’s religion.  Apparently, things are not that simple.

I normally wouldn’t do this as a posting but .... Jarand does make a point here that I thought I should post, along with my reply under comments.
It’s interesting beyond where I originally thought the subject should go.  Not that I have changed my mind. But rather I see that it might not be so opened and shut a case as I believe it to be.  Not that it makes any difference because authorities agree with the pharmacist in question and with Jarand as well.

Although most of what I read on this site is pretty good stuff and in my opinion, right on the money, I have to disagree with you here. The pc left and libtards are exactly the people who want to force people to act against their own religious convictions. The fact that this guy is Muslim instead of Christian doesn’t change the fact that there is and always should be a conscious clause. Nobody should be forced to dispense a product that they find morally objectionable. She can say he’s imposing his religion on her but the fact is that, in this case she is trying to impose her lack thereof on him. He told her where the pill would be available. Let her just go there and get it.

Posted by jarand550 United States 10/04/2008 at 06:27 AM

Well, the way I see it is.  I can see your point and understand what you’re saying. But.

If you take a job dealing with the public and especially in this field working in a very major store, think Wal-Mart or Cosco in size, then you are going to be seeing ppl of many different values and backgrounds.
You’re a customer who walks into a store with the honest expectation of being able to get an Rx filled at a pharmacy. Chances are also (but I wouldn’t know in this case) that you’ve done or are about to also do your grocery shopping at the same time.
But hold on a minute ....
The pharmacist, based on his personal religious beliefs, can say to an atheist, a Jew or a Christian, “Sorry but based on my religious beliefs I can’t fill this Rx for you.  There’s another store a mile away that might.” ??? huh?

Can a very conservative Catholic pharmacist refuse to sell “The Pill” to a woman because he or she believe in the rhythm system? Or whatever it’s called.

There are some compromises that one makes in taking employment. Or should make.
If you can’t bring yourself to fit in with the predominant culture in which you live, maybe it’s time to return to where you will fit right in with others who hold the same beliefs.
Or get a different job.

One of the problems here in the UK has been and remains, the constant pandering to various minority groups, to a point where their beliefs should be put ahead of the views of the majority of the population.

peiper

Posted by Drew458     on 10/04/2008 at 08:23 AM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Daily Life • Health-Medicine •  
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   Wednesday - September 17, 2008

Another Zero Tolerance Attack Of The Stupids

Oh brother. The Ninny Police are at it again.

A 10-year-old Hilton Head Island boy has been suspended from school for having something most students carry in their supply boxes: a pencil sharpener. The problem was his sharpener had broken, but he decided to use it anyway. A teacher at Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School noticed the boy had what appeared to be a small razor blade during class on Tuesday, according to a Beaufort County sheriff’s report. It was obvious that the blade was the metal insert commonly found in a child’s small, plastic pencil sharpener, the deputy noted.

The boy—a fourth-grader described as a well-behaved and good student—cried during the meeting with his mom, the deputy and the school’s assistant principal. He had no criminal intent in having the blade at school, the sheriff’s report stated, but was suspended for at least two days and could face further disciplinary action.

District spokesman Randy Wall said school administrators are stuck in the precarious position between the district’s zero tolerance policy against having weapons at school and common sense.
“We’re always going to do something to make sure the child understands the seriousness of having something that could potentially harm another student, but we’re going to be reasonable,” he said.

Hey Randy? You’re a fuckin twerp.

But hey, Hilton Head is just rife with troubles these days. Shootings galore, leftists rallying for illegal alien rights and calling it a “Peace Meeting”, even doubts about the stability of the oyster supply. Trouble in Paradise. Obviously the solution is to bust little kids for carrying broken school supplies. Another Columbine averted, for sure!

Posted by Drew458     on 09/17/2008 at 10:13 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Education •  
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   Tuesday - September 16, 2008

A Land Fit for Criminals, A trumpet blast against current dogma.

This is a worthwhile book review and clearly states the current condition of law and disorder in this country.

It is not a very pretty picture but then the ppl here don’t need a book to verify what they know already.

Been here all day or almost all of it.  Just noticed the clock. Not the one on the wall. The internal one that says time to quit for the night.
So, that’s all for today, Tuesday, 16 Sept.

Cheers All ...

A trumpet blast against current dogma

Leo McKinstry reviews A Land Fit for Criminals by David Fraser.

For decades, policy on crime has been dominated by an anti-punishment ethos, which holds that offenders are really victims of deprivation and therefore need support instead of incarceration.

This is now the ideology that prevails in social work, the probation service and much of the judiciary, with the result that less than one per cent of all crimes in Britain result in a custodial sentence. Indeed, the bureaucracy of the state often seems more interested in protecting the criminal classes than the public.

David Fraser’s excellent book is a trumpet blast against this cowardly, defeatist approach. As a former probation officer himself, with 34 years of experience in dealing with offenders, he is able to provide an insider’s account of the current state of our criminal justice system, where thugs, burglars, muggers, even rapists are taught that they have little to fear from the courts. In a series of passionately argued chapters, full of compelling statistics and striking examples, he reveals how far the civic institutions of Britain have surrendered to criminality.

Fraser’s central theme is that, contrary to all the liberal propaganda, prison is the only effective method of dealing with criminals. With refreshing straightforwardness, so different from the complex jargon favoured by left-wing criminologists, he asserts that ‘Prisons can never fail because whilst an offender is locked up he cannot commit any more offences.’ In contrast, every kind of scheme to keep offenders out of jail, such as community sentences or action-plan orders, has only succeeded in encouraging more crime.

Fraser is particularly scathing about one fashionable new theory from the sociological madhouse: so-called ‘restorative justice’, where the victim of crime is encouraged to seek an apology from the perpetrator in a face-to-face meeting. Fraser rightly argues that it is outrageous to pressurise a victim into taking on some of the responsibility for an offender’s rehabilitation. Nor is there any evidence that this approach has had the slightest effect on rates of re-offending.

This book is a wonderful antidote to the poisonous myths so assiduously promoted by the anti-prison lobby. Fraser demonstrates, for instance, the emptiness of the claim that Britain sends more people to jail than any other European country. In fact, in proportion to our crime rate, we have a far more lenient sentencing policy than most other continental nations, including France, Italy and Spain. In response to wails about over-crowding, he has a refreshingly simple solution: build more prisons. Compared with the overall cost of crime, estimated by the Home Office to be at least £60 billion, the annual price tag of each prison place, at around £37,000, is good value.

Through insights based on his own career, Fraser also exposes the bogus statistics, marketing initiatives and Orwellian newspeak used by the apologists for criminality to assuage the public’s fears about their failing approach. He demonstrates, for instance, that the much-vaunted ‘intensive supervision’ of repeat offenders in the community can in practice amount to little more than one hour per week.

A sense of anger and despair runs throughout the text, mainly on behalf of the public, which has been betrayed by the self-styled experts and policy-makers. Fraser believes that sentencing has been reduced to ‘a farcical game’ and that social theories about deviance have destroyed the ability of society to defend itself.

‘We do not need psychologists to tell us the simple truth that if you reward bad behaviour you will get more of it,’ he writes with typical clarity. Before the Home Secretary Charles Clarke embarks on yet another of his Government’s fatuous exercises in promoting community sentences, he should sit down and read this book. It will teach him more about penal policy than all the research of his own supine, dogma-driven experts.

http://tinyurl.com/59mdp7

Posted by Drew458     on 09/16/2008 at 11:54 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Daily Life • Judges-Courts-Lawyers • UK •  
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   Wednesday - September 10, 2008

Health and safety bosses refuse to cut grass verge - because it’s on a slope.

Dear America, Let me know when you’re as tired of “elf n safety” (Health and Safety) stories, as the Brits are living under them. It just keeps getting funnier worse. Doesn’t it?

I guess you could sub title this, The Brit Taxpayer Dollar at work. Or not.  Jeesh.  They pay for this in council taxes which let me tell you are not too cheap.
As well, for all the jokes about California, the voters some time ago took some control of local taxes on property.  We have referendums on things like this in the USA, something Brits just do not have. And mores the shame.  They can’t even vote (so far) on that eu thing, something many want to be able to do.

The council in this case is so far off the wall it’s silly.  I have seen senior citizens with property here in the village cutting verges on their land all by themselves.
So far, I doubt Winchester will enact this but who knows.  As my Brit wife keeps reminding me, “Is this England we’re in?”

This is
LONDON

Health and safety bosses refuse to cut grass verge - because it’s on a slope

Daily Mail Feed

A stunned mother asked council workmen to cut a patch of overgrown communal grass after her son injured himself on buried broken glass - only to be told it was too dangerous to mow.

Vanessa Crowhurst had rang a local authority hotline after her 11-year old son Jamie slipped and sliced his right shin on hidden shards in the verge.

But officials declined to send out a lawnmower fearing the grass road siding was too much of a hazard to mow due health and safety regulations.

They said workmen might slip and fall too because it was on an embankment - leading to possible legal action.

Today Mrs Crowhurst, 40, who works as a carer, said: ‘I am absolutely outraged at the attitude of the council.

‘Surely the health and safety of the kids is more important.

‘At least the workmen can wear protective clothing. Some other lad could hurt himself.

‘These health and safety laws are political correctness gone mad. The grass used to be cut frequently in the past and if the law has been changed to say ridiculous things like this then it needs to be changed back.’

The incident occurred when Jamie was playing football with friends outside the family home and kicked a ball onto the grass on an embankment. He went to retrieve the ball but slipped and fell cutting his leg on a broken bottle.

‘My son had to have seven stitches in his leg - the cut was directly down his shin so it was very graphic,’ said Mrs Crowhurst, a mother of two from Altrincham, Manchester.

‘It looked like when you cut open your Sunday joint you could nearly see to the bone. He has only had one week of his summer where he could go out and play properly.

‘The grass is so long you can’t see what is in it and there is nothing more attractive to kids when they”re playing than long grass, I know when I was younger I was worse.’

Verge of dispute: The long grass that Trafford Borough Council won’t mow.

Mrs Crowhurst called Trafford Borough Council to complaint about the long grass and its hidden danger.

She was told on the phone that an official would get back to her.

‘Obviously no one ever did so I rang again a week later and was told that a note had been put on my complaint saying “No further action,” she explained.

‘I was then told by the person who wrote the note that it was against health and safety to cut the grass because the incline on the grass was too steep and there was nothing the council could do.

‘I said the grass was full of rubbish and glass and that rats will be the next thing. She told me that if there was glass in the grass then the council’s workers might cut themselves.

‘You can imagine how that sounded after my eleven year old has just had seven stitches and has a scar which will never go.

‘There is absolutely nothing I can do now because the council is not legally required to cut the grass - but I would argue that it should be done morally.

‘And if they can’t maintain the grass then they should pave or tarmac it.’ A spokesman for Conservative-run Trafford Council said: ‘The grass on the embankment is not cut on a regular basis because of the dangers of working on a steep gradient.

‘We are concerned to hear about this incident and are looking at whether the area can be planted out with low growing shrubs to further discourage children from playing in the area.’

http://tinyurl.com/6repdc

Posted by Drew458     on 09/10/2008 at 05:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • UK •  
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