December 2009
Investors see farms as way to grow Detroit |... →
‘Cottonwood trees grow through the collapsed roofs of homes stripped clean for scrap metal. Wild grasses carpet the rusty shells of empty factories, now home to pheasants and wild turkeys.
This green veil is proof of how far this city has fallen from its industrial heyday and, to a small group of investors, a clear sign. Detroit, they say, needs to get back to what it was before Henry Ford...
Cyclists 'to ride nude in the snow to protest NY... →
Vetting and Barring Scheme – new and improved or... →
“In spite of the proposed changes to the criteria of who must be vetted, the policy would still require the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) registration of the father who helps out at his son’s football team every week, or the mother who volunteers at her children’s nursery. Ordinary people will still have to register on this vetting database - and be subjected to...
Student fined for smashing gallery window and... →
‘Does breaking a window count as art? Yes, murmured the 50 or so artniks who recently crowded into a former Edinburgh ambulance garage to view a film of sculptor Kevin Harman doing just that. No, insisted Kate Gray, director of the Collective Gallery in Cockburn Street, whose window it was.’
‘The student, who has a piece in the current show of the Royal Scottish Academy,...
Suspected Somalia pirates freed by Dutch navy |... →
’ “The European Union has tried in vain since their arrest to find a country which would agree to prosecute them,” the defence ministry statement said.
“The defence ministry regrets that the European Union has not found a suitable solution,” the statement added.’
Anti-terrorism police twice stopped painter near... →
’ “I told them, ‘I’m hardly a terrorist, I’m watercolouring’. One policeman said, ‘you’re not painting the airport, are you?’ I told him I was painting the sugar factory. He said ‘no one paints factories’. I told him Lowry painted loads of factories and made a mint. He got a bit touchy then.”
For 15 minutes, O’Farrell...
"This harassment of people sleeping rough is... →
‘The Simon Community, for whom I work, speaks with rough sleepers across the capital every day, and we know the reality can be quite different. We’ve heard examples of people being woken at 3am for a “welfare check”. They are asked: “How are you? Are you aware of the day centre around the corner? You know you can’t sleep here, it’s private property,...
When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite |... →
‘These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations...
Great Firewall of Australia will nationally block... →
Psychiatry's civil war | Mutate →
‘Two eminent retired psychiatrists are warning that the revision process is fatally flawed. They say the new manual, to be known as DSM-V, will extend definitions of mental illnesses so broadly that tens of millions of people will be given unnecessary and risky drugs.’
Waterworld planet is more Earth-like than any... →
‘Measurements suggest the planet is shrouded in a thick atmosphere of hydrogen and helium that blocks visible light from its sun, plunging the watery surface into permanent darkness. The weight of the atmosphere keeps the water liquid despite it being a searing 120C to 282C.’
Policeman arranged for neighbour to be stopped on... →
‘Sgt Ray Jones, 45, told officers in the traffic department at Devon and Cornwall Police of suspicions that Simon Folkes, 53, who is disabled, was no longer fit to drive.’
‘An internal police investigation found that he had “meddled in the private lives of his neighbours” and “inappropriately interfered”. He has been spoken to about the incident but not demoted.’
Watch“Bizarre” Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters | National Geographic
’ “We were blown away,” said biologist Mark Norman of discovering the octopus behavior off Indonesia. “It was hard not to laugh underwater and flood your [scuba] mask.”
The coconut-carrying behavior makes the veined octopus the newest member of the elite club of tool-using...
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN... →
Anti-gay bigots plunge Africa into new era of hate... →
‘The bill, which will be debated within a fortnight and is expected to become law by February, will allow homosexuality to be punishable by death.’
English anti-terror cops ask nursery school... →
Turkey finds 39 leftists guilty after 28-year... →
‘Twenty-seven years and nine months later, the judges have finally reached a verdict - 39 of the defendants were given life sentences, although they will not actually serve any time, because they have already spent so long in jail.’
“Too many wrongly characterize the debate as “security versus privacy.” The real...”
– — Bruce Schneier: My Reaction to Eric Schmidt (via earthman come home)
From snapshot to Special Branch: how my camera... →
‘It felt like a minor terror alert. Four security guards were watching me, whispering into microphones on their collars. A plainclothes police officer had just covered my camera lens, mentioned the words “hostile reconnaissance” and told me I would be followed around the city if I moved.
Two uniformed officers were on their way to stop and search me under section 44 of the...
DVD: 10 Rules for Dealing with the Police | Boing... →
‘Flex Your Rights is taking orders for its DVD, 10 Rules for Dealing with the Police. Price is $15. Here’s the trailer.’
I think that says something about our society. I wonder if anyone makes a UK version.
Schoolboy, 12, suspended for 'crisp dealing' |... →
‘Joel Bradley was caught allegedly selling a packet of Discos at a marked-up price of 50 pence.’
I’m pretty certain that this is not the first time I’ve posted a story like this. (To my non-UK readers, I should explain that kids aren’t allowed “non-healthy” snacks in school.)
Guards stop Father Christmas entering Yarl's Wood... →
‘An unedifying standoff developed that saw the security personnel who guard the perimeter fence prevent St Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the imprisoned, from delivering £300 worth of presents donated by congregations of several London churches.’
‘Then as St Nicholas, accompanied by the Rev Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey,...
Eczema sufferer Peter Beech on the torture of... →
An ongoing series about an alternative-therapy skeptic attempting to find other ways of curing his chronic Eczema.
‘Deep inside me, a wise and benevolent Yoda, clad in unstained white cotton, is being tickled by a drunk and yodelling Darth Vader, who’s intent on hunting down every last itch and lightsabering the hell out of it, no matter the cost in blood.’
Married couple given jail sentence for getting... →
‘They were arrested when Civil Guard officers discovered them together in their home town of Motril in Andalusia on Spain’s southern coast, although both claimed they were with each other by mutual agreement.’
Police stop church photographer under terrorism... →
‘Grant Smith, who has 25 years experience documenting buildings by Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, was stopped by a squad of seven officers who pulled up in three cars and a riot van and searched his belongings under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, which allows police to stop and search anyone without need for suspicion in a designated area.
“Three of them descended on me and said...
Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net... →
’ “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” Schmidt tells CNBC, sparking howls of incredulity from the likes of Gawker.’
Major record labels rip off 300,000 songs for... →
Police force 'consulted warlock over horse... →
Love the headline, the story not so much, which can’t seem to find an angle. You would have thought it would be easy enough. (Incidentally, according to a pagan friend the least likely part of all this is that a male witch would call himself a “warlock”.)
‘Owners in west Dorset and the surrounding counties had believed that thieves plaited the manes of the beasts to...
Yahoo Issues Takedown Notice for Spying Price List... →
‘The 17-page guide describes Yahoo’s data retention policies and the surveillance capabilities it can provide law enforcement, with a pricing list for these services. Cryptome also published lawful data-interception guides for Cox Communications, SBC, Cingular, Nextel, GTE and other telecoms and service providers.
But of all those companies, it appears to be Yahoo’s lawyers alone who have...
Swindon casts a spell to become Walt Disney... →
Swindon, twinned with Walt Disney World.
Latest lame UK gov't excuse for supressing drug... →
Man in court over pornographic tiger image |... →
Nice headline.
The law in question allows prosecution for possession of artwork, as well as photographs. It seems reasonable to assume that that might be what we are talking about here.
It’s a controversial law. When I can, in theory, be arrested for a doodle I make on a napkin in a restaurant, it makes sense to wonder where we are going with this.
Workshop: Finding medicinal herbs growing in... →
Woman jailed, charged with felony camcordering... →
I'm a Celebrity... producers avoid cruelty charges... →
‘Charges are being brought against the winner, chef Gino D’Acampo and fellow contestant Stuart Manning after cooking a rat for a meal.
The pair have been ordered to appear in court on 3 February 2010.
The RSPCA in New South Wales said it was “not acceptable” an animal had been killed as part of a performance.’
“Animal Cruelty” apparently has nothing...
Sex tips from John Bercow, the Speaker of the... →
‘If you want to pull a drunk girl, offer to take her home and name her breasts. To get her to leave after sex, suggest she might be accidentally infected with Aids.
The author of these and other gems of relationship advice was today revealed to be the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, as it emerged that as a young man, he wrote a personal guide to luring women into bed.’
Don't buy toy guns for Christmas, police force... →
‘Children playing with toy guns run the risk of being confronted by armed marksmen, Essex police have said.’