Tuesday - May 22, 2012
E2: Wehnert-Leiss, Sassnitz 1962
First, I posted the solution to Problem #237. I’ve a feeling that Drew won’t like it because it ends with the magic words and wins.
I’ll be going back and forth between Combination Challenge and Your Move!. This is exercise #2 from Your Move! by Yakov Neishtadt. It’s White to move. The only hint I’ll give is that Black resigned on the third move. Your Move! is usually more difficult than Combination Challenge. Your Move doesn’t give nice little themes to look for.
White to move
I’d also like to thank Wes for using Rybka to analyze a couple of games I’ve posted. Also like to thank Peiper for coming to the defense of the game of chess as not being a stupid game.
Posted by Christopher
on 05/22/2012 at 08:21 PM
Filed Under: • CHESS •
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Permalink • sovereignty? are you mad? hahahaha sovereignty? oh stop it, the joke’s too funny
Back after hours of tech support with MSFT in India. What a headache. Literally.
btw ... has anyone else had any problems with today’s (in UK) or yesterdays (USA) MSFT patch Tuesday updates? Kind of nightmarish for awhile.
One of the least funny things I can think of, are those folks with no borders in mind, who think the USA should be part of this world order too.
Now that would be the very last straw.
Some weeks past I brought this subject up. Has to do with the uman rights court in England’s new capital. Strasbourg. Or is it Brussels? Sicko joke but darn near the truth.
Just to jog the memory of some, an axe murderer who is now out and a free man, cos that how the system works, has campaigned for prisoners to have the right to vote. I think at the time I may have said something like it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
The verdict from the court.
Court to Britain. Screw your sovereignty.
European Human Rights judges ride roughshod over our laws (again) to tell Britain it has six months to give prisoners the right to vote
MP’s brand Strasbourg ruling an ‘infringement of Parliament’s rights’
Euro court states ban on prisoners voting violates human rights
Ministers given six month deadline to amend rules or be forced to hand criminals thousands of pounds in compensation
By JACK DOYLETens of thousands of prisoners must be given the right to vote, European human rights judges have ruled.
In a judgment which will provoke fury in Parliament, the Strasbourg court said that the current ban on inmates voting in England and Wales breached human rights laws.
The ruling by the court’s highest body, the Grand Chamber, came despite an overwhelming vote last year by MPs who insisted the ban was right and should remain in place.
It sets the stage for a major showdown between Parliament and the human rights court in coming months.
Tory MP David Davis, who led the campaign against prisoner votes in Parliament, said the ruling was an ‘infringement’ of Parliament’s rights.
Ministers were given a six month deadline to amend the rules and decide which prisoners should have access to the ballot – or else face paying thousands of pounds in compensation to criminals.
It will undoubtedly lead to further calls for Britain to withdraw from the court, which has caused outrage with a string of controversial rulings on deporting foreign criminals and terror suspects.
Today the court upheld its ruling in the case of John Hirst, a convicted axe-killer who first demanded voting rights for inmates more than seven years ago, when it first ruled against the blanket ban.
Since then Labour and then the Coalition resisted implementing the ruling, knowing it would outrage the public, who are overwhelmingly in favour of the ban remaining in force.
But in today’s ruling the court makes clear its insistence that the ban breaches Article 3 of the Convention, the right to free elections, and demands that ministers change the rules.
If they do not, it will start awarding compensation to around 2,500 prisoners who have already lodged claims with the court.
However, any attempt to introduce a law will enrage MPs, who will see the ruling as a further power-grab by the unelected judges of the controversial court.
Tory MP David Davis, who led the campaign against prisoner votes in Parliament, said the ruling was an ‘infringement’ of Parliament’s right to decide on issues which are ‘fundamental to the British way of life’.
He said: ‘In its ruling today in the Scoppola v Italy case, the ECHR has ruled that the UK must give prisoners the right to vote.
‘This regrettable decision is an infringement of the UK Parliaments right to decide on matters which are fundamental to the British way of life, and which are not appropriate to judicial intervention.
‘This will inevitably lead to a clash between the express wishes of the UK Parliament and the assertions of the European Court and will not help the court achieve its important functions in stopping breaches of fundamental rights throughout Europe.’
The public will be demanding that the Prime Minister now stands up for British interests and refuses to give convicted prisoners the right to vote.’
‘As well as continuing to demand that convicted prisoners get the right to vote, Europe’s out of touch judges have blocked the Home Secretary from deporting Abu Qatada and allowed dangerous foreign criminals to remain in the UK.
‘It is about time real changes are made to prevent out of touch European judges meddling in our laws again.’
Posted by peiper
on 05/22/2012 at 01:05 PM
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • EUro-peons • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •
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Permalink • New Jersey Cops Doing What They Do Best
A New Jersey dad got the scare of his life when his 5-year-old son almost ran off a steep embankment, and though the man saved the boy from falling, he couldn’t stop his Jeep from going over the precipice and into a river below.
The reward for his ordeal? Two traffic tickets from local police.
Frank Roder, a construction worker from the town of Winfield Park, had taken his son, Aidan, down to the Rahway River to feed ducks Thursday. But when he stopped briefly before settling on a parking space, the impatient boy jumped out and took off—straight toward a ledge 35 feet above the river, Roder recalled.
“He hopped out, and I thought that was OK, I was just going to park,” Roder, 38, said, but “he just took off, made a beeline for the edge.”
The panic-stricken father jumped out of the cab of his 2006 Jeep Commander and raced after the errant boy, catching him just feet from the edge.
That’s when Aidan, eyes as big as saucers, looked behind Roder and said, “Um, Daddy ...”
Roder turned in time to see the Jeep nosedive down the embankment and land in the muddy water.
Roder hugged the boy and waited as Union County police converged on the scene over the next few hours. A crane pulled the Jeep out, and amazingly, it started right up, though Roder is pretty sure his insurance company will count it as totaled.
He was counting his blessings when a young cop approached him and handed him two tickets. One was for failure to produce the insurance card, which was somewhere in the waterlogged cab. The other was for failing to use his emergency brake.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Roder said. “He said, ‘If you would have taken the five seconds to apply the brake, this never would have happened!’
“I say, ‘Really? And if I did and my boy stepped over the edge and fell instead of the Jeep, then were would I be?’ He says, ‘Jail, for child endangerment.’”
Posted by Drew458
on 05/22/2012 at 11:33 AM
Filed Under: • Jack Booted Thugs •
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Permalink • Fire Kissed
Rose Leslie, Scottish actress, formerly played housemaid Gwen on Downton Abbey, now playing Ygritte the Wildling on HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Bit of a debate in my house over this one.
We’re addicted to watching HBO’s Game of Thrones, the gritty and violent medieval sci-fi fantasy series closely based on the massive story written by George Martin. It’s an extremely complex and never ending tale of politics, religion, avarice, and war, with a slight bit of magic here and there, and a cast of hundreds. Thousands. A dozen families or city states vying for power all across their globe. At least 50 main characters, until they get killed. And almost all of them get killed, eventually. I’ve read the books several times, my wife has never turned a page of them. And while HBO pushes the series with the tag line “Winter is coming”, each season is only 10 episodes long and shown in the Spring. Mid-April to June, then wait another 10 months. Arrrggh!! But it works, and the episodes are incredibly well done and insanely detailed; viewership for season two is up 50% over season one.
The series is filmed all over the world. Ms. Leslie’s part of the story is filmed in Iceland. Her character is a Wildling, one of the Free People of the frozen north who live a harsh, semi-barbaric, nearly caveman-like life in the icy wastes. They somewhat co-exist with the remnants of several semi-human species, and are always under threat from the wights (re-animated dead people) and the even more fearful Others. They are cut off from the “civilization” of the Seven Kingdoms by the Wall, an ancient defensive construction of ice 700 feet tall that runs across the entire continent. But when the seasons change and the temperature drops even further, the evil Others become more active, so the Wildlings and all the northern folks must assault the Wall and get beyond it for their own protection. And that means war. Well, another war, since at least two others are currently ravaging the Seven Kingdoms.
Game of Thrones is filmed in a dark way. Not just the realistic levels of mud and gore, which are ever present. The insides of the castles are lit - barely - by torches. Much of the action takes place in dark forests, or at night. Film technology being what it is, the brilliant albedo of all that ice and snow in Iceland forces the cameras to be really stopped down, with the result that the scenes from the frozen lands are often a bit dim. And here comes Ygritte, swaddled head to foot in her skins and deep in her big hooded parka, reminding me a bit of Kenny from South Park, the boy you never see.
And then the camera angle will change, her character pulls back that hood, and this face emerges. Pale and reddened by the cold, with a ton of red hair, and hypnotic ice blue eyes. Och, aye, and wit ain Scottish accent you couldn’t cut through with a chain saw. Striking. Love it. And Ygritte is such a huge flirt, sassy and fresh, even when it seems she’s about to get her head chopped off.
I think she’s adorable. Ok, she isn’t the most drop dead gorgeous actress ever, and may not be in that special class of redheads who cause heart attacks wherever they go, but I think she bears a more than passing resemblance to a young Courtney Thorne-Smith, who certainly got my boat floating in Revenge of the Nerds and Melrose Place back in the day. To me she has a friendly approachable level of attractiveness. Not to my wife. Women are so cruel, and so critical of other women. After giving it two or three nanoseconds of thought, her opinion was “Bleh; yuk”. Oh well, that’s what you get from marrying an Italian. Different standards. She can’t see the appeal of northern girls hardly at all, from the Irish Sea to the North Sea to the Baltic. Reds and blondes light my fires but leave her cold. Actually it may be a guy thing, but I can find beauty in women from all over the world, and something attractive in almost any of them. But I also like many kinds of salad dressing, while she sticks with olive oil and red vinegar. And I like all sorts of different wines, while she sticks to oaky reds with lots of tannins. At least we do agree that the best cars have properly manual transmissions and agile handling, though I do keep a secret yen for the gigantic early 70s land yacht Cadillacs.
I can’t even begin to comprehend her views on what makes guys attractive either. But Game of Thrones satisfies her in that regard. Underneath all the grit, grime, and gore - or perhaps because of it, what I call the Eomer Syndrome - there are a whole lot of really hot guys in the cast. Of all ages, young to old. I’d noticed the same thing about the ladies, but I’m smart enough to just watch and keep my mouth closed. But I can’t spot the guys. She just about squeals over Kit Harington ("he’s so adoooorable!!!") who plays Jon Snow, Ygritte’s captor and soon to be lover, and I always hear these “yeah baby"s coming from her end of the couch whenever Iain Glenn has a scene. A Scotsman! But if anyone asked me, which they never do, I’d say the best looking guy in the cast, other than NJ’s own famous dwarf Peter Dinklage, would be the guy who plays Jaime Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. A Dane! Hey, he’s got the beard thing going, he’s in great shape, rugged but not cruel or dessicated, he doesn’t look like a sissy pretty boy, seems to me to have a bit of the David Beckham thing going on, and he even looks hot in armor, giving him at least an 80 on the Eomer Scale
Nope. “Eww, gross” was her take. Then again, maybe she just hasn’t seen him yet in a good light. He’s spent most of the series covered in blood and pig shit, tied up in a cage in the dark. So we’ll see if her opinion changes if he ever gets cleaned up and out into the sunlight. Maybe I’m wrong. You make the call, just like for Rose Leslie.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/22/2012 at 08:42 AM
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Permalink • it all okay cos it’s a killing of honor.
Just another day and another usual episode in the twisted minds of believers in what we are told is a, Religion of Peace.
Oh yeah. Who freekin says so and what dunce believes that?
And if it isn’t the ROP and their savage, uncivilized view of things, it’s some African cult (what else to call em) practicing circumcision on young girls. Right here.
And in large numbers. Why are these life forms, these vile scum, these sub humans allowed to stay here? They don’t like western culture but here they are.
Like the plague.
‘I watched my parents suffocate Shafilea by forcing a bag into her mouth,’ says sister of ‘Westernised honour killing victim’
Younger sister Alesha told police she saw parents force bag into Shafilea’s mouth and suffocate her
Alesha kept secret for seven years
Shafilea decomposed remains were found in February 2004
Parents Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed are accused of killing her in September 2003 but deny murder
Police placed listening device in the family’s home in November 2003 and heard them telling their children ‘not to say anything’ at school
Victim ‘drank bleach after being forced to visit Pakistan for to meet future husband in arranged marriage’By JAMES TOZER and AMY OLIVER
The sister of murdered teenager Shafilea Ahmed told police she saw her parents kill her by forcing a bag into her mouth and suffocating her, a court heard today.
Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed are accused of killing their 17-year-old daughter Shafilea in the family home in Warrington in September, 2003.
The murder was allegedly witnessed by Shafilea’s younger sister Alesha, now 23, who kept the secret for seven years.
Andrew Edis QC told Chester Crown Court: ‘She (Alesha) describes what is an act of suffocation by both her parents acting together. She had a bag forced into her mouth.’
Mr Edis said Alesha will tell the court how she saw her parents in the kitchen of their home with bin bags and tape, wrapping the body up.
‘She looked out of the window and saw her father with a large object wrapped in bin bags,’ Mr Edis said.
‘She assumed that was the body of her sister.’
He said she then heard a car driving off.
Shafilea’s decomposed remains were discovered in Cumbria in February 2004 but it was not until 2010 that her sister Alesha provided the ‘final piece of the puzzle’ about her death, the court has heard.
Ahmed and his wife, aged 52 and 49, both deny murder.
The couple allegedly murdered their ‘Westernised’ teenage daughter because they believed her conduct was bringing shame on the family.
Shafilea had wanted to go to university to study law and have boyfriends like other girls her age, a jury was told.
But her parents are alleged to have resorted to violence in trying to force her to follow a traditional lifestyle, sending her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.
There she swallowed bleach and was flown back to Britain for medical treatment. She vanished from the family home in September 2003 just days after she enrolled at college and started a part-time job.
Her parents failed to report her missing, and the alarm was raised a week later by a teacher. Her decomposed body was found five months later in undergrowth on the banks of a river.
Mr Edis said Shafilea had been ‘a thoroughly Westernised young British girl of Pakistani origin’ who was subjected to violence for refusing to conform to her parents’ expectations.
Posted by peiper
on 05/22/2012 at 07:09 AM
Filed Under: • muslims •
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Permalink • Monday - May 21, 2012
Teacher loses it, school loses teacher
Ain’t No Minipsinatin Here!*
Teacher to student: You’ll get arrested for disrespectin President Obama, just like all them people that Bush arrested!
School Board to Teacher after story hits the news: Suspended!
NC teacher captured on video suggesting student could be arrested for Obama criticism
A North Carolina high school teacher was captured on video shouting at a student who questioned President Obama and suggesting he could be arrested for criticizing a sitting president.
The Salisbury Post, which first reported on the YouTube video, did not identify the teacher in question, who is reportedly on staff at North Rowan High School. The video does not show faces, but the heated argument in the classroom can clearly be heard.
“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” the teacher said toward the end of the argument, telling the student, “you are not supposed to slander the president.”
The student told the teacher that one can’t be arrested “unless you threaten the president.”
The argument started when the classroom began discussing news reports that Mitt Romney bullied a fellow student when he was in high school.
It’s not a big story, but tough to just quote a few little parts. Follow the link and listen to the video. The teacher lost her mind when she felt the student was being critical of Teh Won. Student gets a national A+ in my opinion for the best line of the day:
The nearly 10-minute video, shot by a student and uploaded to YouTube on Monday, had been viewed more than 1,000 times by Friday afternoon.
It begins with a classroom conversation about a recent news story detailing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney allegedly bullying a classmate in prep school. It turns into a heated, sometimes confrontational debate.
One student asks, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?”
The teacher responds: “Not to my knowledge.”
In response to the Romney story, conservatives have recently been pointing to a passage in Obama’s book, “Dreams from My Father,” in which the president writes that while in grade school he shoved a little girl, the only other black student in his grade, after other students called him her boyfriend.
When the student tells the teacher that Obama admitted to bullying a girl in school, the teacher goes on the defensive.
“Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” she says. Romney, she says, is “running for president. Obama is the president.”
When the student says they’re both “just men,” the teacher continues to argue that Romney, as a candidate for president, is not to be afforded the same respect as the president.
The teacher tells the class Obama is “due the respect that every other president is due.”
“Listen, let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom,” she says.
The student replies that he’ll say what he wants.
“Not about him you won’t,” the teacher says.
Later in the conversation, the teacher tells the class it’s criminal to slander a president.
“Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush?” she says of former President Bush. “Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”
The student responds by saying being arrested for talking badly about the president would violate the right to free speech.
Now that this story is hitting the news, and the teacher’s lack of control and unusual views of the laws et al are in full public view ... um, hearing ... the school board had a bit of egg on their face and is looking for a washcloth ...
SALISBURY — Rowan-Salisbury Schools officials suspended a North Rowan High School teacher Monday while investigating an incident caught on camera where the teacher told a student he could be arrested for speaking ill of President Barack Obama.
In a nearly 10-minute YouTube video shot by a student in the classroom, Tanya Dixon-Neely, a social studies teacher, told students criticism of the president could lead to jail time.
...
Dixon-Neely has been suspended with pay, according to Rowan-Salisbury School System Spokeswoman Rita Foil.
And she’s a social studies teacher ... I think that passes for history these days? So, who were these people who were arrested or reprimanded for criticizing Bush? It certainly wasn’t anyone in Hollywood or the news media. Or those Code Pink people. Or Cindy Sheehan. And who taught this teacher her very broad definition of slander?
Yikes. Home schooling. Looks better every day.
Oh, and suspended with pay. So this is what, just a bit of smoke and mirrors until the press goes away?
Posted by Drew458
on 05/21/2012 at 01:38 PM
Filed Under: • Education • Obama, The One •
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Permalink • the shrine of the Blessed Barack ….
I’ve been reading this lady for awhile, and find she’s right most of the time. Of course, by her lights I’m sure she always correct on the things she writes about.
Sometimes I suspect she’s more conservative then I am, without being so extreme which in anger I tend to be at times.
A couple of years ago, she appeared on American TV for a Fox News program. I forgot which one. I listen to her on BBC Radio, she has a great speaking voice and flawless delivery.
Well, today I think she outdid herself. I think this is the best column I’ve read by her, and I have read a lot.
I won’t post the whole column but hope you will see the rest at the link provided. Just click on Melanie Phillips. It’s worth reading it all and I really think #10 and friends should be reading her too. Of course they won’t. And what she says about Labour possibly getting back in while scary, has a lot of truth in it if things play out as she says they could. Question is, will Conservatives but especially Mr Cameron who is referred to as conservative lite, wake up in time.
This is no time for chillaxing, Dave. Even Labour looks more Tory than you
By MELANIE PHILLIPSMaybe if the Prime Minister raised his eyes for a moment from playing Fruit Ninja on his iPad, and also paused from adoring at the shrine of the Blessed Barack, he should look behind him and worry.
Ed Miliband has been an object of scorn and derision for Conservatives from the moment he was elected leader of the Labour Party.
Recently, he appointed Jon Cruddas, described by Tories as a Left-wing union stooge, to take charge of the party’s policy review and thus be responsible for setting Labour’s course for the next general election.
t the same time, we read that Tony Blair hopes to make a come-back into British political life. Some may be tempted to greet this particular news as the political equivalent of the Return Of The Mummy.
Coupled with Cruddas’s appointment, it may lead them to conclude that the Labour Party is now lurching ever deeper into la-la-land and political irrelevance.
They could not be more wrong.
The appointment of Cruddas is an inspired move. Writing him off as a Left-winger is to miss the point by a mile.
For Cruddas possesses one very important insight which has so far quite eluded David Cameron and his band of muddled modernisers.
Cruddas realises that if socialism is to have any appeal, it must adopt a platform of social conservatism.Some may be confused by this. How can socialism be conservative?
Very simply: by connecting to people’s experience of how the world actually is, rather than trying to reshape that world into some pre-ordained idea of how it should be.
Unlike so many on the Left, Mr Cruddas does not shudder at the purportedly knuckle-dragging views of ordinary people.
On the contrary, he respects their attachment to nation, family, community, tradition — all the things, in fact, that the Left has been busily tearing to shreds.
While others demonise the white working class as racists if they complain that immigrants are taking their jobs, Mr Cruddas sympathises with their situation and their anguish at the break-up of traditional communities.
Criticising his own party’s indifference to these matters, he has called for tougher immigration controls.
In similar vein, he strongly sympathises with public anger over the denial of a democratic voice on ever-deeper European union. As a result, he champions a referendum on whether or not Britain should stay in the EU at all.
With public fury over the EU growing exponentially by the day, if Labour calls for such an in/out referendum this will badly wrongfoot the Prime Minister.
As it happens, not that long ago opposition to EU membership was a core position of the British left, not the right.
And when at the beginning of the 20th century the Labour Party famously ‘owed more to Methodism than Marx’, its hallmark was social conservatism — something that Cruddas, who teaches Labour history at Oxford, understands better than most.
The idealism of the Left was based then on the belief that strong families and deep attachments to community and nation were essential for a decent society, and to improve the life-chances of ordinary people.
You don’t have to endorse Cruddas’s union links to realise the importance of a society with deep roots, in which people believe in something beyond their own wants and needs.
And that’s where the return of Blair is potentially so very significant. For just like Cruddas, Blair’s great insight was that to win power he had to promote such socially conservative values.
The soundbite that gave him the party leadership, ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ conveyed the fact that he understood — just like Cruddas — that many were living in a state of siege from crime and disorder, and that he identified with the desperate desire for order and security.
Similarly, once he became leader he pronounced that he would stop the plunge in education standards and also end ‘something for nothing’ welfare dependency.
Of course, once in office things didn’t work out like that. Education and welfare reforms ran into the sand. And far from conserving and protecting what people cherished about their society, Blair set about reshaping it in order to create a utopia of the brotherhood of man.
Hence his insistence that all family lifestyles — married, one-parent, gay — were equally desirable. Hence also his promotion of the oppressive PC agenda of self-proclaimed ‘victim’ groups and hate crime laws, in the apparent belief that prejudice could be eradicated from the human heart.
The genius of Tony Blair — and it was political genius — was to understand that elections can only be won on the true centre ground, which means respecting the innate social conservatism of the public.
And so now Cameron faces the prospect of a Labour opposition that is more Right-wing than he is — and which may come to power as a result.
‘I am the heir to Blair,’ Cameron famously said. In his dreams. He never even understood what that meant.
This has to be my only post for today. Apologies to all.
Posted by peiper
on 05/21/2012 at 11:54 AM
Filed Under: • Politics • UK •
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Permalink • Saturday - May 19, 2012
A MISS ENGLAND CONTENDER ….. GETS MY VOTE
I wasn’t even thinking Eye Candy when I came across this young and pretty lady.
She is hopeful of becoming Miss England and she’d sure get my vote.
Side story here ... she didn’t speak until age 7.
Below the fold is strictly for you art lovers and I know there’s one or two. I’m off now to read my copy Gibbon’s Rise and Fall, and the latest articles of intellectual interest in Playboy.
Posted by peiper
on 05/19/2012 at 07:05 AM
Filed Under: • Eye-Candy •
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Permalink • justice brit style … more law and disorder
Never mind what you may have read or been told. Brit judges take law and order and justice very seriously and work above and beyond the call of logic and common sense and here’s proof how serious they are about crime and punishment.
Don’t mess with these hard asses.
Career criminal with 100 theft offences walks free AGAIN after judge fails to enact suspended prison sentence
Drug addict Sundee Spaulding promised was given ‘one last chance’ when she last appeared before the court for theft
25-year-old had been serving 12 month suspended jail term for previous thefts when she went on shoplifting spree
Judge Carol Hagen told Spaulding has had ‘just about every sentence the court could possible give her’
Judge Hagen decided it was not ‘in the interests of justice’ to jail the repeat offender
Mother-of-one given yet another 12-month supervision order as well as a curfew and a six month drugs rehabilitation orderBy TOM GARDNER
A career criminal with more than 100 offences has again walked free from court, despite getting a ‘last chance’ from the same judge two years ago.
Judge Carol Hagen decided it was ‘not in the interests of justice’ to enact the suspended sentence drug addict Sundee Spaulding had been serving during her shoplifting spree.
The mother-of-one, 25, already has 33 convictions for more than 100 theft-related and dishonesty crimes.
But Judge Hagen gave her one ‘final chance’ and let her walk free – even though she had broken her supposed ‘last chance’ given after her last conviction.She told Spaulding: ‘You present me with a real problem Sundee Spaulding. You commit offence after offence and always there is some excuse on your part.
‘The question for me is do I send you to prison or not. I am persuaded that it is in the interests of justice that I do not activate that suspended sentence.‘It seems to me to offer the best chance at this point in time to dissuade you from committing further criminal offences.
‘I’m giving you a final chance. If any of these conditions I impose are breached you are going to prison for 12 months. ‘This is a real opportunity.’Bristol Crown Court was told Spaulding had stolen two meat joints from a Co-op, in Avonmouth, Somerset, on April 12.
After handing herself in to police, Spaulding, from Shirehampton, Bristol, then tried to steal £241 worth of shopping from a nearby Asda in nearby Patchway.
It was only when she tried to exit the store through a closed door and security guards approached her to tell her which door to leave by, that the theft was spotted.
Nadeem Aullybocus, prosecuting, said: ‘Miss Spaulding has 33 convictions for an impressive 100 offences.‘The defendant has had every single sentence the court could possibly give her. Alongside the thefts she has also breached her suspended sentence.
‘This is not the first time she has done this.’
Spaulding was given eight months suspended prison sentence by Judge Hagen in 2010 for handling stolen goods and shoplifting.
On that occasion Neil Treharne, defending Spaulding, said: ‘She’s well aware that this is her last chance.’
Mr Treharne, again representing Spaulding today, asked the judge to give his client a spell at outreach centre Eden House Project instead of jail.
Defending, Neil Treharne, said: ‘The Eden House Project is a very worthwhile project.
‘I have seen great success in the past and on this occasion I really think that Sundee is motivated and she would succeed.
I had to post this story as yet another example of a system that is just totally broken and defies any logic. And some wonder at the public skepticism of justice in our countries. What the heck brought courts to thinking like this?
Should you care to read the rest, it’s HERE
Posted by peiper
on 05/19/2012 at 04:50 AM
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • Daily Life •
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Permalink • FORSOOTH! CHESS A SILLY GAME? NONONONONONONONNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Drew happens to be one of the very best friends I have never met. He has done favors and given me tech help, some of which I don’t understand to this day.
He’s never offered bad advice and from time to time has saved me from myself. He’s gone out of his way to snail mail me stuff because I asked. So yeah, I consider him a very good friend.
However ......
Gee Drew ... after all this time ... is this our first spat? LOL
It all started with Christopher’s chess game and a comment Drew made as follows.
I think you take this silly game way too seriously.
Now Dear Friend Drew, this deserves a post all its own, not under comments.
Drew. Chess a silly game? OMG! Crivens! Et tu Brute? Or whatever’s close. No. Never that.
Wish I were a good player but my brain does not engage to a high chess standard. And you have be serious about this activity (game seems so, ??? ordinary?)
Haven’t played in years. Wife and I used to spend hours at it. Alas, she is a better player and once played on several boards. In a tournament, England’s Southern Champ fought off all comers on lots of boards till my wife sat down and fought him to a stalemate. She always felt she might have won but lost concentration due to many ppl crowding around them and especially her, being the only female. This was in the days when ladies weren’t supposed to be doing such things. The games were hosted by the IBM chess club. Of which my wife was a member. She belonged to team two and waited for an opening on the first team. Which came open and they picked a man for the spot on team one, who Jennifer had beaten more then once.
So then …. Just how serious can some folks take this …. game?
She quit IBM
Christopher… Love the animation on that game but it moved so fast I had a hard time. Put it down to age etc.
It was especially interesting because each and every move seemed to be synced with a loud ticking clock we have in this room.
I haven’t been much up to date and forgot how to ID the moves as I was used to the old way.
But I did notice something with pawns. At one point is looked like a white pawn had a clear and safe capture of an undefended black pawn, but did not take and so on a following move the black advanced and protected the other black. But the animation was moving too fast for me to figure out why the white never took black pawn. Anyway, even tho I don’t contribute to it I really enjoy looking in on games.
Posted by peiper
on 05/19/2012 at 03:53 AM
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Permalink • ORGANIC JERKS?
Sometime during the past week I happen to see but didn’t read, an article in the health section of our paper claiming that health food may not really be all that healthy. But I wasn’t really interested and so ignored it but for the headline.
I try when possible not to over do the yummy stuff that has added to my girth. But that is I’m sorry to say, about as far as it goes. All the stuff that is supposed to keep me healthy and fit does not taste nearly as good as the stuff that health nazis say is gonna do me in. He writes as he enjoys a hot cup of PG-Tips xtra strong tea (with Jersey milk which has more cream in it then reg. milk. YUM!) and a strawberry crumpet loaded with real whipped cream.
Anyway, due to things that keep me much preoccupied here, I don’t check my email everyday. But I did this morning and was greeted by the following sent to us by Doc Jeff, and so thanks doc.
H/T Doc Jeff
Does organic food turn people into jerks?
By Diane Mapes
Renate Raymond has encountered her fair share of but a recent trip to a Seattle market left her feeling like she’d stumbled onto the set of Portlandia.
“I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn’t find one so I asked the produce guy,” says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. “And he was like, ‘If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We’re organic.’ I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like ‘You didn’t bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn’t bring your own bag.’ It was like a ‘Portlandia skit.’ They were so snotty and arrogant.”
As it turns out, new research has determined that a judgmental attitude may just go hand in hand with exposure to organic foods. In fact, a new study published this week in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, has found that organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks.
“There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” says author Kendall Eskine, assistant professor of the department of psychological sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans. “I’ve noticed a lot of organic foods are marketed with moral terminology, like Honest Tea, and wondered if you exposed people to organic food, if it would make them pat themselves on the back for their moral and environmental choices. I wondered if they would be more altruistic or not.”
To find out, Eskine and his team divided 60 people into three groups. One group was shown pictures of clearly labeled organic food, like apples and spinach. Another group was shown comfort foods such as brownies and cookies. And a third group—the controls—were shown non-organic, non-comfort foods like rice, mustard and oatmeal. After viewing the pictures, each person was then asked to read a series of vignettes describing moral transgressions.
Some of you may have seen this on CNBC and so this is for those who didn’t as well as our foreign audience.
And btw ....... how’s this for silly and if anyone understands it, speak up.
I saw some bottled water with a label that read, drawn from organic land. WTH?
Posted by peiper
on 05/19/2012 at 02:27 AM
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Permalink • Friday - May 18, 2012
Past The Tipping Point And Down The Slippery Slope
Declining population in Japan and the younger generation prefers playing video games and reading perv comic books over sex. Marriage? Children? Arigatōmasen! (no thanks)
Lack of babies could mean the extinction of the Japanese people
Japan has a problem, a lack of children, and it seems likely there will be even fewer in the future.
Japanese researchers have now warned of a doomsday scenario if it carries on this way with the last child to be born there in 3011 and the Japanese people potentially disappearing a few generations later.
Academics from the city of Sendai, which was hit hard by last year’s tsunami, calculate there are now 16.6 million children under the age of 14 now in Japan.
And they say that number is shrinking at a disturbing rate of one every 100 seconds.
So if you do the mathematics, as they did, then the country will have no children within a millennium.
Another study recently showed Japan’s population is expected to fall a third from its current 127.7 million over the next century.
Government projections show the birth rate will hit just 1.35 children per woman within 50 years, well below the replacement rate.
Hmm, I wonder if this always happens when the standard of living gets too high? Or perhaps it always happens when the State gets too powerful, beneficent or not. When life is too easy, do people just stop trying? Or perhaps when the definition of “the good life” is set too high, they sacrifice their future to attain it? One thing I can say about the Japanese is that they don’t suffer a moment of “yellow guilt”. They believe in their own racial superiority but good. But we’re talking Japan now, so it will be for some really strange reason the rest of the world can’t even fathom.
The question everybody asks is why is there a lack of children?
The answer seems to lie in several reasons.
One reason is the cost. Japan is an extremely expensive country and getting a child through college can wipe out a family’s finances.
But research shows it goes much deeper than that as the Japanese state does throw a lot of money at people with children.
Another argument is that there are more effeminate men now called “Herbivores” there who are either not interested in sex or women don’t find masculine enough.
Then some suggest many young Japanese people prefer “virtual” friends with a robot or on the internet, while others suggest their fascination with comics rather than relationships is the cause for a lack of babies.
A study was released earlier this year in which it showed Japan’s young people are shunning the idea of marriage and having children.
The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research study also showed one in four unmarried men and women in their 30s had never had sex, and most young women preferred being single.
It also showed over 60 percent of unmarried young men didn’t have a girlfriend, and nearly 50 percent of women of the same age weren’t dating.
If that wasn’t bad enough, young Japanese people are also, it seems, increasingly not interested in sex.
A survey by the Japan Family Planning Association found that 36 percent of males between 16 and 19 had “no interest” in sex.
Herbivores? Ouch. And half the youth don’t even want to get busy. How in hell can you be a teenage boy and have no interest in sex?? Good grief, IIRC that’s pretty much all teenagers think about. It’s in the genes to get her out of her jeans.
Another point that Steyn makes, one that’s pretty obvious when you think about it, is that the aging population is not helping. Too much health care? I can’t say, but with everyone living forever, there is no room opening up for the next generations, so they aren’t bothering to even have next generations. This is how a really large part of Europe is, and now it looks like Japan is in the same boat. Is it as if human beings subconsciously feel a population density pressure point, and don’t breed past that level? That would explain the Red State population growth here, at the expense of the Blue State coastal growth where populations are dozens of times denser. On the other hand, if such innate pressure sensitivity exists, it might be racially connected. China and India have insanely large populations, with more people per square mile than anywhere on earth, yet they continue to churn out the young. Ah, but the quality of life there isn’t all that great, nor is health care, nor is longevity. So those “switches” might override the density switch and keep them in “panic mode” breeding? I don’t know. Is there a sociologist/anthropologist in the house?
Japan’s population isn’t falling faster because people there are living longer.
Japan has a life expectancy of about 86 years for women and 79 for men at present, and the ages are expected to rise in the coming decades.
More than 20 percent of Japan’s people are aged 65 or over, one of the highest proportions of elderly in the world.
Japan’s graying population is a real problem for the country’s leaders as they need to ensure the dwindling numbers of workers can pay for all the care needed for the growing army of pensioners.
And the elderly have increasingly more economic clout with Japanese companies targeting them increasingly.
Like I said. And like Steyn said, maybe the real reason for the breeders not breeding is that they don’t want to raise children who are only going to be slaves to the geezer-state.
Posted by Drew458
on 05/18/2012 at 09:59 AM
Filed Under: • CULTURE IN DECLINE • International •
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Permalink • THE TIPPING POINT …. CONTINUED
Yesterday, under the heading THE TIPPING POINT, Drew posted an article on demographics relating to the USA and our future. (I’m using ‘future’ lightly) Some many years ago, Time or possibly Newsweek, forget which, ran a story titled ‘The Browning of America’. Must have been some 25 yrs ago.
Well, last week there was a small blurb in our papers relating to the muslim population of the USA. It said that the muslim population in the USA has doubled. It did not mention in what time frame, nor did it give their numbers. Hey, one is two too many.
H/T Right Side News
And that brings me to this. The link below has all of the article.
MUSLIM VOTERS CHANGE EUROPE
Muslims cast the deciding voted that thrust Hollande into the Elysée Palace. He also pledged to change French electoral laws so that Muslim residents without French citizenship would be allowed to vote in municipal elections as of 2014, enabling the Socialist Party to tighten its grip on political power.
An analysis of the voting patterns that barrelled François Hollande to victory on May 6 as the first Socialist president of France since 1995 shows that this overthrow was due in large measure to Muslims, who voted for him in overwhelming numbers.
The French vote marks the first time that Muslims have determined the outcome of a presidential election in a major western European country; it is a preview of things to come.
As the politically active Muslim population in France continues to swell, and as most Muslims vote for Socialist and leftwing parties, conservative parties will find it increasingly difficult to win future elections in France.
According to a survey of 10,000 French voters conducted by the polling firm OpinionWay for the Paris-based newspaper Le Figaro, an extaordinary 93% of French Muslims voted for Hollande on May 6. By contrast, the poll shows that only 7% of French Muslims voted for the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy.
An estimated 2 million Muslims participated in the 2012 election, meaning that roughly 1.7 million Muslim votes went to Hollande rather than to Sarkozy. In the election as a whole, however, Hollande won over Sarkozy by only 1.1 million votes. This figure implies that Muslims cast the deciding votes that thrust Hollande into the Élysée Palace.
France, home to between five and six million Muslims, already has the largest Muslim population in the European Union, and those numbers are expected to increase exponentially in coming years. According to conservative estimates, the Muslim population is projected to exceed 10% of the overall French population within the next decade-and-a-half.
During the campaign, Hollande offered an amnesty to all of the estimated 400,000 illegal Muslim immigrants currently in France. He also pledged to change French electoral laws so that Muslim residents without French citizenship would be allowed to vote in municipal elections as of 2014. These measures, if implemented, would enable the Socialist Party tighten its grip on political power, both at the regional and national levels.
Muslims in France—and across Europe as a whole—tend to support the Socialists for a variety of demographic, socio-economic and ideological reasons.
Most Muslims in Europe live in lower-income households and experience higher levels of unemployment. As a result, Socialists and Muslims are locked into a politically advantageous power-dependence relationship, between the givers of social welfare benefits and the givers of votes. Not surprisingly, Socialists favor increased Muslim immigration, which in turn produces more voters for Socialist parties.
In the ideological sphere, Socialists and Muslims generally share a mutual antipathy for traditional Judeo-Christian values. Although many Muslims oppose the secular agenda of the Socialists, most Muslims wholeheartedly support Socialist multicultural dogma, which they are leveraging to promote the Islamization of Europe.
In foreign policymaking, Socialists and Muslims share a mutual disdain for the United States and Israel. Leftwing parties across Europe have turned anti-Zionism into a politically correct form of anti-Semitism. The increasingly hysterical anti-Israel rhetoric emanating from Socialist circles has contributed to a spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes across the continent; many of these crimes against Jews are being perpetrated by Muslims.
Posted by peiper
on 05/18/2012 at 07:17 AM
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Permalink • Thursday - May 17, 2012
Chess Problem #237
I know, the chess problems have been conspicuous by their absence. But here’s a new one. And a difficult one. #237 is White to move. Theme is ‘overload’. I’ll quote:
Overloading involves the exploitation of an enemy unit which must protect at least two other important pieces (or squares). The object of the attacker is to force the overloaded defending piece to relinquish its necessary defensive functions.
White to move and win
Taken from Combination Challenge by Lou Hayes and USCF Senior Master John Hall (2520)
Graphics courtesy of Exachess.
Also, for any who are interested, I’ve posted another amusing game of mine. This was in the second round of the 1993 Gem City Open. My opponent out-rated me by 162 points. He should have kicked my @ss. Indeed he was kicking my @ss. I was down a Bishop and two pawns, but my 27th move really confused him, and I won. I still don’t know if my 27th move was brilliant, bluff, or a brilliant bluff. I do know that if I’d lost, I’d have annotated it as ??, as in losing move. As things turned out, I gave it a !? which is chessic for interesting.
Here’s the link: Christopher (1809) - Friedman (1971), 1993 Gem City Open, Rd. 2.
It’s a javascript animated link. You can play through it right on the webpage.
UPDATE: 5/22/12 Solution to #237. Yes, this is what the book gives.
1. Nxg6! hxg6
2. Rxe6 Qd7
if 2 … fxe6
3. Qxg6+ winning.
3. Rxg6+ Kh7
4. Ree6 Bf6
if 4 … fxe6
5. Rg7+ Kh8
6. Qg6 and wins
5. Rgxf6 Rg8
6. Bg5 Rg7
7. Rh6+ Kg8
8. Qh5 and White wins.
Posted by Christopher
on 05/17/2012 at 09:43 PM
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