A SWISS driver blamed Canada's lack of goats as possible roadside obstacles for his speeding through the countryside after police nabbed him, an official said.
The driver was caught travelling 161km/h on Canada's busiest highway between Montreal and Toronto on Sunday.
The posted speed limit is 100km/h.
An officer stopped the car for speeding along a straight stretch of road and the driver told him he thought it would be alright to go fast because he wasn't likely to hit a goat, said Constable Joel Doiron.
I've never been to Switzerland, but I guess there must be a lot of goats there, he said.
Const. Doiron noted that in his 20 years as a police officer, nobody's ever used the lack of goats here as an excuse for speeding.
A CALIFORNIA judge has sentenced singer Victor Willis, who dressed as the policeman in the hit 1970s disco band The Village People, to three years' probation on drug and gun possession charges. Willis, who co-wrote some of the band's biggest hits such as YMCA and In the Navy, pleaded no contest and got a suspended three-year, eight-month prison sentence. He must complete a 30-day drug treatment program at the Betty Ford Centre in Southern California, followed by at least six months in a treatment program in Long Beach, California.
Willis, 55, was arrested in March near San Francisco on drug and gun charges, the latest in a series of run-ins with the law after he left the band in 1980. He has been having drug abuse treatment in San Mateo County since his arrest. Mark Geragos, Willis' attorney, told Judge Mark Forcum Willis was making progress in treatment and was serious about making a recovery. Mr Forcum said Willis "needs to be in a program that is structured and sound" but warned he would go to prison if he violated his probation.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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A Muslim leader has criticized plans to honor late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury with a huge beach party this weekend.
Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991, violated Islam with his flamboyant lifestyle, said Azan Khalid of Zanzibar's Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation.
Khalid said anything linking Mercury with Zanzibar's Muslim population would be offensive and that a waterfront restaurant's plans for a party Saturday honoring Mercury's birthday must be stopped.
Simai Mohammed, manager of the Mercury restaurant, which was named for the singer, said the party would go on as scheduled. Mercury would have been 60 on Sept. 5.
Mercury, who acknowledged being gay, was born in Zanzibar when the country was still a British protectorate. He was educated in India and moved with his family to Britain in the early 1960s, after a bloody revolution that drove out many immigrants of Indian or Arab descent.
"Our main idea is to promote tourism and Freddie Mercury was from Zanzibar. It's part of our history," Mohammed said. "We
are all Muslims and it's not our intention to offend any religion."
Last year some 500,000 tourists traveled to Zanzibar, bringing vital foreign currency to the Indian Ocean island. This semiautonomous part of Tanzania is mostly Muslim.
Zanzibar's government sent a letter asking state-owned media not to report on Mercury's birthday because of the tension between the religious group and the restaurant.
Mercury gained fame as the bravura singer for Queen, whose elaborate and occasionally bombastic songs made the group one of the favorites of the 1970s. Queen's hits included "Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Are the Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."
Posted by: john ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara on the African island of Zanzibar (at the time a British colony, now part of Tanzania). [2] His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were Indian Parsis,[1] Zoroastrians of Persian descent. The family had emigrated to Zanzibar in order for Bomi to continue his job as a middle-ranking cashier at the British Colonial Office. Mercury had one younger sister, Kashmira.[2]
Mercury was sent back to India to attend St. Peter's boarding school near Bombay (now Mumbai). It was at St. Peter's where he learned to play the piano and joined his first band. He stayed in India for most of his childhood, living with his grandmother and aunt. Mercury completed his education in India at St. Mary's High School in Mazagon before returning to Zanzibar. He was 17 when he and his family finally fled to England, as a result of the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution.
Posted by: john ||
09/06/2006 5:52 Comments ||
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#3
I don't know if its true, but once at a party attended by Pete Townsend, Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury, Elton John proposed those 3 form a band and call themselves Hair, Nose & Teeth.
Even if its not true its still funny.
#4
His were the only "Western" rock albums/CDs allowed in Iran for a time (because of his Persian heritage) and maybe still are.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/06/2006 16:33 Comments ||
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#5
Dunno who this Freddy is (not our Fred, right?), or what he's queen of, but if he's got these clowns' panties in a bunch he must be doing something right. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/06/2006 23:03 Comments ||
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Barbara, your tolerance is ever-so commendable.
One in six people in London have admitted moving seats on public transport to avoid a passenger they think is Muslim, according to a survey published on Tuesday. Around 35 percent of travellers in London said they had felt nervous or uncomfortable in the last year because of someone with a south Asian or north African appearance on an underground train or bus. Of that number, nearly half said they had moved seats or sat down away from them, the survey, by pollsters YouGov for London's Evening Standard newspaper, suggested.
That could actually be the deodorant thing, though...
Maybe I shouldn't have brought that up.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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#3
The root cause of this differential treatment is: the presense of Muslim primitives in Western Civilization. If they don't get the hell out, then impatient lads might resort to terror. Not that I am making an oblique threat, or something like that. If you disagree, then you are a Kafirphobe and I will have to report you to the Council of American Kafir Relations (CAKR).
#5
'One in 6 Londoners avoid Muslims on buses, trains'
I think things will only get better when a significant percentage of people are not avoiding Muslims but, instead, confronting them. Not physically, perhaps, but definitely questioning them out loud as to why their faith breeds up the vast majority of this world's terrorist atrocities and so forth.
So long as Muslims remain in almost total denial regarding the impact of their abominable religion, they need to be faced with having such pointed inquiries directed at them on a daily basis. Little questions like, "Why is Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' so popular in Muslim countries?", and the like.
I thought going on strike was the basis of education in La Belle France?
DISCIPLINE and the three Rs were the order of the day for French children as they began the school year with a new back-to-basics curriculum and marks for their conduct. As with most attempts to revamp the centralised French school system, the Education Ministry's reforms have run into opposition from teachers' unions. They are planning a one-day strike later this month.
the Education Ministry's reforms have run into opposition from teachers' unions, which are planning a one-day strike later this month...
The reforms respond to declining standards, declining literacy and a breakdown in classroom discipline in a school system which, though still rigorous, has failed to adapt to the internet age. Like Britain's Tony Blair in 1997, the two leading candidates for next year's presidential elections have put education at the top of their manifestos. Segolene Royal, of the Socialist Party, and Nicolas Sarkozy, of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement, called last weekend for a return to old-fashioned effort and respect for schoolteachers.
Among the novelties this year is the Common Base of Knowledge, a list of basic skills that all school-leavers must master to qualify for a job or higher education. Education Minister Gilles de Robien said the common base was the most significant reform since the Jules Ferry laws of the 1880s, which created free universal education. Bruno Racine, the chief of the advisory body that devised the reform, said that the goal was not to ensure that "every child has read Victor Hugo" but that school-leavers at least knew some of Hugo's characters as part of a basic knowledge of French culture.
... the unions condemn the conduct mark because it is a 'moralising concept' that leaves too much discretion to the teacher...
The Syndicat National des Enseignements de Second Degre, the main teachers' union, is opposed to the common base on the grounds that it will discourage excellence and that pupils who fail to meet it will be penalised when seeking work. Teachers are also under orders to abandon the "global" or whole-language approach when teaching reading. They must stick now only to the old-fashioned phonics method, which teaches the consonants and vowels and the sound of their combination.
Junior secondary pupils are being marked on their behaviour, as they were until the 1970s. The scores will contribute to the brevet, the exam at the end of middle school. While many teachers back the measure, the unions condemn the conduct mark because it is a "moralising concept" that leaves too much discretion to the teacher.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh. For a minute there I thought it meant, y'know, teachers of French...
#2
"Like Britain's Tony Blair in 1997, the two leading candidates for next year's presidential elections have put education at the top of their manifestos."
We in the UK know what's been done. Teching is now more PC bollox than ever, and all that's happened is grade inflation. i.e. you get an A**++WOW for spelling your name correctly on the top of the test paper.
In fact Labours legacy is that of manipulating statistics.
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris overcame a campaign ridiculed even by her own party to easily claim the GOP nomination for the Senate on Tuesday, and Rep. Jim Davis held a narrow lead in the race for the Democratic nomination to succeed popular Gov. Jeb Bush. Harris next faces an uphill battle against the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Bill Nelson, who had no primary challenger.
With 62 percent of the precincts reporting, Davis led state Sen. Rod Smith 46 percent to 42 percent. The winner will face Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, who claimed the Republican nomination to replace Bush. Crist had 64 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Tom Gallagher, the state's chief financial officer. Harris had 50 percent of the vote against three relative unknowns. Attorney Will McBride ran second at 30 percent, and retired Navy admiral LeRoy Collins had 15 percent.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2006 00:04 ||
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#5
I think Harris would be a much better senator than Nelson. However, she's been successfully portrayed as a complete 'ultra-right-wing' 'Christian Fundamentalist' extremist. This is partly because of Florida's evenly divided electorate, and also because of various missteps and ill-advised comments from Harris herself. Gotta admire her tenacity, but I'm afraid she doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
#7
A quote from Katherine Harris (hat tip Wikipedia)
"But the real issue is why should Baptists care, why should people care? If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin. They can legislate sin. They can say that abortion is alright. They can vote to sustain gay marriage. And that will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong."
I'm sorry but as a Christian, and a Baptist, I consider her completely wrong. Non-Christians are going to be elected in a representative republic. That's just a fact. This is not a theocracy. And the genius of our country and our Constitution is that ALL the people are represented, and that despite these disparate voices, you can still make it work. I could swear her quote above could have been said by an Iranian mullah or Ahmedinejad. All you would need to do is replace 'Christian' with 'muslim'.
I'd still vote for her over Nelson, but hey, I'm a Republican and would never even consider voting for a dem for national office. Lesser of two evils.
Los Angeles -- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, aiming to energize union members and party activists on Labor Day, charged that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a "first-class fraud" whose moderate stands on issues like global warming and a minimum wage increase will disappear if he is re-elected.
Phil Angelides charged that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a 'first-class fraud' whose moderate stands will disappear if he is re-elected...
"The fact is, this is a guy who wouldn't know the truth if it slapped him in the face," said Angelides, who spent the traditional opening of the fall campaign on a four-city fly-around that took him across the state. "What he's doing, for 90 days before the election, is trying to trick the people of California to save his own job ... (but) his conversion is as fraudulent as Bush's claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." Angelides made the statement after an address to several hundred union activists at the annual breakfast at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Tuesday that he will veto a universal health care bill that is headed for his desk, claiming the measure would set up a "vast new bureaucracy" that would be too expensive. The Republican governor said the single-payer system proposed by Sen. Sheila Kuehl would "cost the state billions and lead to significant new taxes on individuals and businesses, without solving the critical issue of affordability. "I won't jeopardize the economy of our state for such a purpose," the governor said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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#3
Snease: They have free healthcare already! Hospital emergency rooms were turned into free clinics years ago by a Federal Gummit that mandated ...... no sick person left behind, to include child birth, which produces instant US citizenship. Nothing is free however, you and your insurance company pick up the tab.
#5
Well, BP, thats whats in store for everyone in the end. No one gets out of this life alive. Unfortunately, like the Pharaohs of old, the newly empowered population has been sold a bill of goods that they too can obtain immortality simply by robbing everyone else. So we end up with a black hole of a health care system in which more is spent on the last 6 months of our lives that buys those 6 months than is spent on the first 16 years which would buy literally many years. Medicare was zero percent of the national budget in 1960 cause it didnt exist. Look at it today as percentage of the federal budget. Its not going to get smaller. It wont even see real control till we accept the fundamental fact that death is as natural as birth and, once a lot of stupid human tricks are removed from the calculation, largely determined by genetics.
#8
Wikipedia: She is better known for her portrayal of the "irrepressible" Zelda Gilroy in the long-running 1950s TV show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Her own spinoff series as Zelda was cancelled (four episodes were filmed, but never aired) after rumors of her homosexuality circulated, the reason given being that she was too "butch".
Kuehl then changed her focus to academics and was accepted in the first group of women admitted into Harvard Law School. She became known as a feminist lawyer in her professional life.
Kuehl was first elected to the California State Assembly in 1994, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/06/2006 10:54 Comments ||
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#9
Well, at least he got one right. He's been signing a whole slew of bullshit rules and regs into law lately.
I've been putting a 9/11 anniversary post up ever since the first year when Fred let us common citizens contribute to the site. I will continue to do so every year so long as the mods will tolerate me. The headline links to last year's edition.
Anyone out there know of something I've left out but shouldn't have, or something new I should know about? (I already added the Evan Coyne Maloney video to the list.) If so, put a link in the comments and I'll add it to this year's version of the posting.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/06/2006 00:00 ||
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Mike - you don't need to add it but I heard the following story this summer on a cruise from the man and his wife at the next table.
The man was an auditor for the city colleges of NYNY. His office was across the street from one of the buildings. After the first building was hit, he tried to call his wife on his cellphone to tell her he was OK but reception was bad in his office so he left it and entered a hallway where he was able to contact his wife. As they were talking the second plane hit. The engine from the plane smashed through his office window and hit his desk head on. If he had not tried to call his wife he would have died.
He told me the moral to him was - "Always tell the wife what you are up to!"
Mother Nature, not an ordinance, will draw the covers over public nudity in Brattleboro.
The town's Select Board decided Tuesday to take no action on an anti- nudity ordinance that was introduced in response to a clothing- optional movement launched by local teenagers this summer.
"Winter is coming. If spring comes and we still have a problem, we'll take another look at it," said Select Board Chairman Steve Steidle.
Vermont has no state law against public nudity, though at least eight communities have banned it locally.
Brattleboro, however, has long had a live-and-let-live culture. Its 12,000 residents have seen clothing-optional swimming holes, streakers, and even an event known as "Breast Fest," with women parading topless.
But the public nature of the latest movement _ naked teens smack in the heart of downtown _ raised eyebrows.
The stripping apparently started in early summer when a young woman sat naked on a park bench, said Police Chief John Martin. Then another woman took her shirt off downtown, a music festival inspired nude hula hoopers in a downtown parking lot, and in August a half dozen young people bared their bodies in a parking lot encircled by the backs of bookstores, coffee shops and restaurants.
One of the nudists, 19-year-old Adhi Palar, told the town board the issue was freedom.
"Our acting in nudity is an act of celebration of this history and traditional values as a place where you're allowed to be nude," he said. "I find that important, and I find that proud."
Not everyone agreed.
"I just think it's anarchy, because they won," said resident Theresa Toney, whose complaint about the public nudity prompted the debate. "It's inappropriate behavior for downtown. It has nothing to do with the weather. There's good behavior and there's bad behavior and that's bad behavior."
Town Manager Jerry Remillard said the town's image was tarnished by the uproar.
"We have been the brunt of phone calls from all over the world," Remillard said. "The media made this into nothing less than a circus."
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
09/06/2006 16:31 Comments ||
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#2
I've been to Brattleboro many times. You don't want photos, trust me.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/06/2006 17:16 Comments ||
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#3
If it was only me, only 16 (ok, 18, just to be on the safe side) to 30 years old hard-bodied wimmen should be allowed to go nekkid in public, no restriction.
Below that, it's kinky, above they're going downhill fast in the firmness department (gravity is an harsh mistress); unsexy wimmen should cover themselves all the time, burkhas optional.
Men are of course a big no-no, if they're ugly or old or fat or something, it's a reminder of what I am/will be (not good); if they're good looking, it makes me all unsecure and freaks me out (not good at all).
#4
Never been to Brattleboro, don't expect to go there either. Been to Burlington a few times. It's a nice town. Everybody I met had their shorts on. Burlington has a culinary school and resturant downtown that is absolutely superb. Theyk used to have an operating railroad roundhouse which was neat. Not too much of a drive to Ben and Jerry's if you like lefty made icecream.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A CALIFORNIA judge has sentenced singer Victor Willis, who dressed as the policeman in the hit 1970s disco band The Village People, to three years' probation on drug and gun possession charges. Willis, who co-wrote some of the band's biggest hits such as YMCA and In the Navy, pleaded no contest and got a suspended three-year, eight-month prison sentence. He must complete a 30-day drug treatment program at the Betty Ford Centre in Southern California, followed by at least six months in a treatment program in Long Beach, California.
DISCIPLINE and the three Rs were the order of the day for French children as they began the school year with a new back-to-basics curriculum and marks for their conduct. As with most attempts to revamp the centralised French school system, the Education Ministry's reforms have run into opposition from teachers' unions. They are planning a one-day strike later this month. 
U.S. Rep. 
Los Angeles -- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, aiming to energize union members and party activists on Labor Day, charged that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a "first-class fraud" whose moderate stands on issues like global warming and a minimum wage increase will disappear if he is re-elected. 
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Tuesday that he will veto a universal health care bill that is headed for his desk, claiming the measure would set up a "vast new bureaucracy" that would be too expensive. The Republican governor said the single-payer system proposed by Sen. Sheila Kuehl would "cost the state billions and lead to significant new taxes on individuals and businesses, without solving the critical issue of affordability. "I won't jeopardize the economy of our state for such a purpose," the governor said in a statement.
Mother Nature, not an ordinance, will draw the covers over public nudity in Brattleboro. 
