COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – South Carolina’s prisons director on Tuesday defended a policy of punishing inmates who perform sex acts by dressing them in pink, despite a lawsuit claiming the rule subjects prisoners to ridicule.
State Corrections Department John Ozmint said the two-year-old punishment deters inmates and protects female officers. His agency has asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
“We don’t believe the United States Constitution protects an inmate’s right to publicly gratify himself,” Ozmint said. “We’re hopeful federal courts won’t look into our Constitution and create such a right.”
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. quietly stopped selling two brands of dog treats in July, after customers voiced concerns that the Chinese products may have caused their pets to fall ill, but no recall has been announced, a company spokeswoman confirmed.
The world’s largest retailer started pulling Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading on July 26, spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said late Monday.
Wal-Mart also placed a computerized block on all cash registers to prevent workers from selling the products, Galberth said.
As an aside I have to admit it’s pretty neat that they can put a company-wide block on the registers to halt sales of a product.
British dwarf’s penis gets stuck to hoover
A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry.
A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal apparently tried to have sex with her.
The woman was found dead at the family’s sheep and cattle ranch near the town of Mitchell in Queensland.
…On Saturday the woman apparently became the object of the male camel’s desire.
It knocked her to the ground, lay on top of her and displayed what the police delicately described as mating behaviour.
The poor woman. Evidently there were warning signs, though:
The camel was just 10 months old but already weighed 152kg (336lbs) and had come close to suffocating the family’s pet goat on a number of occasions.
BELGRADE, Serbia (Reuters) — A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival.
The man was found naked, with his clothes lying intact inside the cage. Two adult bears, Masha and Misha, had dragged the body to their feeding corner and reacted angrily when keepers tried to recover it.
“There’s a good chance he was drunk or drugged. Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage,” zoo director Vuk Bojovic told Reuters.
Local media reported that police found several mobile phones inside the cage, as well as bricks, stones and beer cans.
In case you missed it the first time, the Travel Channel is re-broadcasting Tony Bourdain in Beirut at 10 p.m. e/p tonight. (9c) It’s pretty terrific, not only for the heartbreaking realization of what the Lebanese people have lost as a result of Hezbollah’s actions and, pretty much, their government’s inaction, but as well for the turn-about in Bourdain’s attitude when he finally walks into the welcoming arms of the U.S. Marines. To his great credit, he is emotional and eloquent.
If you have an hour this evening, we recommend it.
Highly.
What else can one think about these dishonest creatures we have running our state here in New Jersey? Lawhawk has an excellent post up on the gyrations that Corzine et al go through to avoid addressing the key issue: if the existing immigration laws had been followed those 3 Newark residents, citizens, by the way, would still be alive today. Full stop. End of story. We don’t need new gun control legislation, we don’t need any new legislation. We simply need to enforce the laws that are on the books.
But I guess that’s a bit much to expect from our Governor and Senators.
Author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal when he started signing books during an unannounced visit to a shop in Australia, according to local media.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said staff at the Alice Springs book store did not initially realise the writer was autographing his own novels.
Bookshop manager Bev Ellis said: “When you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey [nervous].
I would like to thank the Beeb for translating the Australian for us, as well; I fear had I asked some folks what that meant I might have gotten a somewhat different answer.
When Tim and I went wine shopping the other weekend he gave me a helpful Rule of Thumb to follow when purchasing Australian wine: “Generally, the uglier the label the better the wine.”
With that sage advice in mind I picked up a bottle of this
Slipstream ‘Fastback’ 2005 Shiraz, which comes in with a glorious 15% alcohol content. Yeah baby!
This is a wine that will taste very hot if you quaff immediately upon opening. But if you let it breathe in a large glass for 10 minutes or so it becomes very smooth and tasty, with a full velvety mouth feel and some very nice subtle blueberry flavors on the finish. Quite yum, and at around $5 very fairly priced for those special occasions.
And what dinner with your Bride is not a special occasion?
Enough already. This latest toy mess is just the last straw, given the contaminated pet foods and other products they’ve shipped of late. While I doubt it will do much to their economy I’m going to look at the origin of every product I buy and if it says ‘China’ I will do my absolute darndest to avoid it. I only hope that I can find a higher-priced made in the US of A product to replace it. Call it knee-jerk, xenophobic, yawn, whatever. I’m tired of this crap and the companies here that collude with them.
Embattled NFL quarterback Michael Vick, facing federal charges related to his alleged participation in dogfighting, has been hit with a “$63,000,000,000 billion dollar” lawsuit filed by a South Carolina inmate who alleges the Atlanta Falcons star stole his pit bulls and sold them on eBay to buy “missiles from Iran,” FOX News has learned.
Jonathan Lee Riches filed the handwritten complaint over “theft and abuse of my animals” on July 23 in the U.S. District Court in Richmond, Va.
Riches alleges that Vick stole two white mixed pit bull dogs from his home in Holiday, Fla., and used them for dogfighting operations in Richmond, Va. The complaint goes on to allege that Vick sold the dogs on eBay and “used the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government.”
Sixty-three billion for 2 pit bulls? There must be something else to this sordid tale…ah yes, I knew it! There is
“Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes,” Riches writes in the complaint.
Who can put a value on hurt feelings? And just ask any Falcons fan if you want to hear about Vick and “dashed hopes”, buddy.
Now, given the state of our legal system, let’s assume that our dear Jonathan Lee “Richie” Riches wins this suit; should Vick just, say, write him a check? Well, our dear Mr. Riches has a rather unique payment request, due to his current living arrangements
Riches wants $63 billion dollars “backed by gold and silver “ delivered to the front gates to the Williamsburg Federal Correctional facility in South Carolina. Riches is an inmate at the facility serving out a wire fraud conviction.
Makes me wonder how much a lawsuit versus a certain well known Puppy Blender would bring…
Not surprisingly, most of the weekend consisted of this
combined with a lot of this
Mind you, those sad few whose joys are found in somewhat shallower pursuits were also not forgotten
TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — A Japanese biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2 km (1.2 miles), leaving a friend to pick up the missing limb.
The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, on Monday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.
He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.
My knowledge of motorcycles is somewhat dated, but how did he shift gears or brake?
Sure, it may seem rather curious that this issue arises immediately after last weekend where for the first time in 25 some odd years all of us siblings got together. Myself, Treehugging Sister, Crusader and Mountainman all gathered together along with our better halves and the younger offspring in Northern Alabama to enjoy the lovely weather and see how much we could eat and how much alcohol we could consume. It turned out to be a surprising amount on both counts. But really, you can’t blame this on us
ATHENS, Ala. – Voters have a chance on Tuesday to return this northern Alabama city to the days of Prohibition.
I don’t think.
Hell, we did our best to make it a dry county; these folks should be thanking us.
You self-centered idiots, because they are a private company and not the government
NEW YORK (Billboard) – Pearl Jam fans and Internet watchdogs were up in arms Thursday after it was revealed that AT&T Inc. censored portions of the rock band’s live concert cybercast on Sunday.
While performing “Daughter” during the annual Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, the band segued into a portion of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” during which frontman Eddie Vedder sang, “George Bush, leave this world alone” and “George Bush, find yourself another home.” Those lyrics were missing from the broadcast.
Let’s review, shall we?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances.
Private companies can, and should be allowed to, censor whatever the hell they want when it is something they are paying for. If you don’t like it then don’t take their money.
“This event shows that companies like AT&T will risk the appearance of censorship by turning off the sound on a webcast that’s being viewed by thousands of people, just because it works counter to their financial interests,” said FOMC executive director Jenny Toomey.
No shit, Sherlock.
Should Coke pay for someone to espouse the joys of Pepsi?
This is so symbolic of how completely retarded our system has become
The first 2008 presidential votes may be moving into 2007 after all, making a race that has started earlier than ever even more intense.
South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson will announce that he is moving its primary date ahead of Florida’s Jan. 29 vote, to reclaim his state party’s “first in the South” presidential-nominating banner. But he will do so in New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation primary. And he will be joined by New Hampshire’s longtime Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who alone has the power to set that state’s date for both parties, now tentatively Jan. 22.
If both were to move their dates up, that likely would force Iowa — always protective of its party caucuses as the first nominating contests of any kind — to consider moving its date from next Jan. 14 into pre-Christmas December.
We’re talking about the process of choosing the President of the United States, and these bastards act like 3rd graders lining up for ice cream.
“I’m first!”
“No, meeeeeeeeeee!!!”
They absolutely disgust me.
I guess I missed the part in the Constitution where it says “Thou shalt not caucus before Iowa. Neither shall Thou primary ahead of New Hampshire.”
We need new parties. The two we have are so immovably corrupted by their power and inertia that they are completely removed from representing anything but their own self-interest in self-perpetuating. They have completely rigged the game to their own benefit.
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.
Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning – for the first time – that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.
Described as China’s “nuclear option” in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.
Woods was leading by four strokes Sunday as he stood over his ball far to the left of the fairway after a wild 358-yard drive. He pulled his 9-iron second shot into the trees left of the green and it hit a limb and dropped directly onto Rudy Wittensoldner. The 58-year-old native of nearby Louisville was sitting with friends while covered with a clear sheet of plastic. The ball hit her in the forearm and she pulled her arm up against her body so the ball wouldn’t fall, gamely waiting until Woods came up to collect it.
Woods walked around the greenside bunker and laughed when he saw her scrunched down in her chair with the ball nestled against her body. Woods then asked for a ruling and received a free drop, chipping through the green. While marshals went to get ice for Wittensoldner’s arm, Woods calmly holed an 18-foot chip for par that was met by a huge ovation.
“It’s kind of hot,” Wittensoldner said of the spot where the ball hit her.
Woods was asked for a blow-by-blow of the hole.
“It ended up right on the lady’s jacket, poncho, whatever you want to call it,” he said. “I took a drop, hit a terrible pitch over the green, and I holed it from there with a little 9 iron. Four shots.”
Seconds later, after Sabbatini made a double bogey and was walking away from the ninth green, retired firefighter and paramedic Steve Banky casually said to him, “Hey, Rory. Still think Tiger’s beatable?”
Sabbatini wheeled and pointed to Banky, telling a police officer that he wanted Banky removed from the course. He was escorted to the course’s front entrance by two officers.
Hehe, go whine some more, Rory, after your latest choke.
Fun | Mr. Bingley | 7:36 am | Comments Off on Steve Banky, Real American
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4 — They work in the same building. They slog through the same rigorous travel schedule. Along the way, they often cross paths several times a day.
But Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have barely spoken to each other — at least in any meaningful way — for months.
The tension between the two Democratic presidential hopefuls, which has spilled into public view in the last three weeks, has been intensifying since January. It is clear that the genteel decorum of the Senate has given way to the go-for-the-jugular instinct of the campaign trail.
As the Senate held late sessions of back-to-back votes before its summer break, the two rivals kept a careful eye on each other as they moved across the Senate floor. For more than two hours one night, often while standing only a few feet apart, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama never approached each other or exchanged so much as a pleasantry.
La-dee-freakin’-da.
Who cares.
But I guess that this is the level of insight and analysis that the “All the news that’s fit to print on tiny newsprint” NYT can come up with these days.
My, the corrosive tentacles of AmeriKKKa have spread their sinuous grasp across the globe per the orders of those theocratic Rovian pawns we so mindlessly adhere to. Or something to that effect.
But before you scoff, Gentle Reader, remember that words have consequences (and consonants. mostly). Look at how our poisoned and deranged leadership has corrupted even the most idyllic and bucolic of places
Police chiefs in the Thai capital, Bangkok, have come up with a new way of punishing officers who break the rules – an eye-catching Hello Kitty armband.
The armband is large, bright pink and has a Hello Kitty motif with two hearts embroidered on it.
From today, officers who are late, park in the wrong place or commit other minor transgressions will have to wear it for several days.
Menstruating interogatrixes
lead irrevocably to Hello Kitty.
The evidence is clear and irrefutable.
And Nightfly and Ladybug got married and it was a truly moving and wonderful wedding and reception. Barking Spider and Prussian Tiger were there as well.
It really is a treat to meet other bloggers that one has developed a relationship with; it’s like meeting an old friend for the first time. A weird concept, but there it is none the less. I always laugh though because I can never remember their ‘real’ names; they are always known to me by their nom de blogs. And I answer to “Mr. Bingley” at these events like I’ve been called that all my life. Heh.
Nanny State | Mr. Bingley | 
August 22, 2007 8:37 am | 
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