[Arab News] MIDDLETON, Massachusetts: An American man who used his prosthetic leg to take down a robber says he didn't have time to think, he just reacted.
Stephen Cornell peered through the window of his neighborhood convenience store in Middleton on Wednesday and saw a man pointing a gun at the owner.
He tells The Salem News he intended to tackle the thief when he left JC Grill & Pizza, but instead stuck out his artificial leg and tripped him.
Cornell and owner Edson Andrade disarmed the thief and dragged him back into the store in a chokehold before calling police. The weapon was a pellet gun.
The 55-year-old Cornell lost his leg at age 12.
The suspect, 23-year-old Eric Homen, pleaded not guilty "Wudn't me." to charges including armed robbery.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Odds that Mr. Cornell gets charged with assault with an unregistered prosthetic leg?
[Straits Times] INDONESIAN police say they have placed in durance vile three debt collectors hired by Citibank in the death of a customer at one of the bank's branches.
Police say Irzen Octa, the head of a small political party, was found dead on Tuesday in the Citibank branch in southern Jakarta after he protested that his credit card bill had soared from US$7,825 (S$9,900) to US$11,500.
Interest rates have gone up recently, it appears.
South Jakarta police chief Col Gatot Edy Pramono said on Friday the suspects met with Octa in a small room and interrogated him roughly because they were angry about his protest. He said an autopsy found a ruptured blood vessel in his head and wounds on his nose.
Citibank said it has a strict code of conduct in debt collection and will cooperate with police to see if any of its employees failed to comply.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2011 00:00 ||
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Here's the deal: After getting off the plane from Salt Lake City and making my way home to a cup of tea, I sit down at my kitchen table and I see this guy in a City of Oakland car taking photos of my garden. I go down and he said I'm out of compliance for "agricultural activities". I'm supposed to get a Conditional Use Permit for growing chard. The annual fee: $2500.
Last year, when I bought my lot, I went to the planning department to find out what I needed to get a business license and all that stuff. The very nice planning person told me that by the spring, the City of Oakland would be changing the laws about urban agriculture in the city, so I should just wait. Guess that hasn't happened.
The photo taking city guy said they are going to use me as an example, and that I'll get fined around $5000 for non-compliance. All of this was triggered by one person, who complained to the animal control, who then passed it on to the city, who is now making my life hell. I said to the guy--one person caused this, that's not fair. "Life's not fair," he replied. Novella Carpenter - author of the book Farm City - is an old friend of mine and an all-around good egg whose whole thing in life is teaching urban people how to grow and raise their own food. She certainly deserves your attention and support. However, two things from the blog that should amuse my fellow Rantburgers:
1) The posters in the comments section keep talking about how Oakland isn't being very "progressive." I beg to differ: Oakland is being extremely progressive. Stomping out any activity that is not under centralized control, heavily taxed, and completely regulated is the entire point of American progressivism.
2) It appears she was turned in by rabbit rights activists. Also very progressive, non?
#2
Can't make the argument that Chard is ornamental and not for eating?
For a 5K fine I sure would.
and what is this $2,500 fee all about?
Curious... So if one had an apple tree that had been there for 50 yrs the turds would cut it down?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
04/02/2011 1:28 Comments ||
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#3
So if one had an apple tree that had been there for 50 yrs the turds would cut it down? Nah, they would have (1) fined you for not paying your fee and/or (2) added the fee/fine to your property tax and/or put a lien on your property until you paid them off.
#4
Obviously the author doesn't live in the part of Oakland where the city workers are scarce because their life expectancy is minimal if found out in the wild without proper armed escort. That's the part of town where the city workers are 'made an example of' who cop an attitude.
#5
We need to get these progressive idiots out of our lives. They stifle creativity, individualism, and freedom. Come the food shortages, Novella will be sought out for her know-how!
#7
Obviously the author doesn't live in the part of Oakland where the city workers are scarce because their life expectancy is minimal if found out in the wild without proper armed escort.
That's the funny thing: she did. I never used to go to her place without hiding a .45 revolver below my shirt: there were that many crackheads, hookers, and general lowlifes hanging around.
It was beyond urban blight. It was urban abyss.
BUT the land on her block was so cheap it was nearly free. So people like her and her husband, the NIMBI (Not In My Backyard) art collective, and even a group of Buddhist monks moved onto the block. They were, of course, in search of what Americans are almost always in search of: cheap land and the freedom to use it as they saw fit. And they did the thing that city governments in the Bay Area always want you to do: take a risk and turn the urban desert into a garden.
#8
I never used to go to her place without hiding a .45 revolver below my shirt:.../em>
Really? Long Colt?
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
04/02/2011 17:58 Comments ||
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And she's getting punished for it.
Yep. [funneling Otter from Animal House] She f******p, she trusted them. The key is to strike a balance between the low lifes and the nannyists. If you clear the environment of one predator its just as likely you just open up a niche to another.
#10
A friend told me of a get together with his parents, hosted by his grandparents. Along with dinner his grandmother served chard. Being just a kid at them time, he took a bite and loudly proclaimed that chard tasted awful
"But you should eat it!," said his grandmother. "Your father likes it." At which point his father said that he'd never liked it, and only eaten it to be polite.
"Well, your grandfather likes it!," she said.
"Now that you mention it, I think it tastes awful", said grandfather. "I've never cared for it."
"The only reason I served it was because I thought you two liked it!," grandmother proclaimed. "I always thought it tasted like ****!"
Which is why, my friend explained, you should never mix honesty with tradition.
#11
Ha! You round eyes no know how to make Chard taste good. Lot's of crispy bacon, simmer chard in chicken stock heavy with chicken fat and top with a little garlic ghee. Yum!
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
04/02/2011 19:11 Comments ||
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"You round eyes no know how to make Chard taste good. Lot's of crispy bacon, simmer chard in chicken stock heavy with chicken fat and top with a little garlic ghee."
Why add the chard and ruin perfectly good bacon, chichen fat, and garlic ghee, SM?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/02/2011 19:24 Comments ||
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#13
Why add the chard and ruin perfectly good bacon, chichen (sic) fat, and garlic ghee, SM?
Fiber, you silly round eye woman! ;-)
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
04/02/2011 21:45 Comments ||
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#14
Really? Long Colt?
No, actually. That particular gun was chambered for .45 ACP.
A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation - at her own hospital.
Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex. But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.
Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust - the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.
He said: 'I don't really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off.' Welcome to ObamaCare...
And do click through to the photo to see the very flower of British femaledom.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/02/2011 14:39 Comments ||
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#9
That lady looks to have had a lavish hand with both tea and cream cakes. And a standard NHS dentist. It's a wonder she didn't die of an unnoticed dental abscess instead.
DALLAS, April 2, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ Southwest Airlines said early this morning it is working with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to determine the cause of a depressurization event during a Phoenix-Sacramento flight on Friday that diverted to Yuma, Ariz., for a successful emergency landing. There were 118 passengers on board and five Phoenix-based crew members aboard Flight 812. Preliminary reports indicated the aircraft lost pressure and oxygen masks were deployed. After the plane landed safely in Yuma, the crew confirmed a hole in the top of the aircraft, approximately mid-cabin. Other available reports indicated several passengers fainted before they could use their oxygen masks while the pilot executed an emergency descent to a safer altitude. One passenger described the hole as right above an overhead luggage rack. No one was hospitalized.
[Straits Times] A TOP Islamic official in a Malaysian state has outlawed a popular line dance, claiming on Friday that it contained cult practices and elements of 'Christian rituals' unacceptable to Mohammedans.
Harussani Zakaria, mufti of the northern state of Perak, told AFP the 'poco-poco' dance violated Islamic law.
'The poco-poco dance is actually a cult dance,' he said. 'Our research indicates that the dance really originates from Jamaica and there are many Christian rituals to it as the moves reflect the making of a cross and so is unacceptable in Islam,' he added. Good Gawd! What must they think of the Chicken Dance?
How else is one to time a three-minute egg? The Chicken Dance comes before the egg, everyone knows that.
'The dance is also practised in the Philippines and parts of Indonesia which have a Christian majority and so the dances have many Christian influences, which clash with Islam,' Mr Harussani said.
In Malaysia, many adults practise the dance, which is considered a recreational activity to keep fit.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2011 00:00 ||
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"And a fatwa of death for anyone who dances to 'Achy Breaky Heart'."
#1
It was only a matter of time... all that water being pumped in to cool the partially-melted fuel rods would eventually trickle down and find its way out.
Now it goes into the food chain, the algae then the fish then the bigger fish then us as we eat them. Then we get cancer and birth defects.
#3
WaPo has a related article:Insufficient monitoring has become a pressing safety issue at the plant. Nuclear regulators warned Tepco on Friday that every worker must wear a radiation-monitoring dosimeter to keep track of exposure.
The warning came in response to a revelation Thursday by company officials that most of their dosimeters had been destroyed by the tsunami. Sometimes only group leaders were given a badge. Tepco officials on Friday said they had obtained more badges and that all workers would wear one.
More boneheaded negligence. How long would it have taken TEPCO to get dosimeters flown in from anywhere in the world to use with each worker IF THEY HAD ONLY ASKED?
#4
And this report from the Guardian borders on nonsensical: According to the few reliable descriptions of conditions at the plant, the workers are given just two meals a day crackers and a small carton of vegetable juice for breakfast; dried rice and canned fish or chicken for dinner and take naps in cramped corridors on lead-lined sheets to limit their exposure to radiation.
"That's where they sleep, with only one blanket each to wrap themselves around," said Kazuma Yokota, a Nisa official who spent five days at the plant.
Yokota said the rush to save the plant meant some workers had been unable to change their underwear, while high radiation levels were hampering the arrival of fresh supplies.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2011 10:08 Comments ||
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#7
Come on, guys. This is serious. If the radiation flowing into the sea combines with the radiation streaming in from the Sun and outer space, the streams could cross and before you know it, once again giant rubber monsters are stomping down Tokyo. I'm not even going to mention the Unstoppable Neutrino Flux, except to point out that it is unstoppable.
Like some hippie chick said, the man who invented radiation should be shot.
#10
I saw a National Geographic or some such show some months ago about the nature of Chernobyl a decade following the accident. It was gorgeous, as such things are, full of flowers and animals, and even a bear of some sort breaking into a house. The thing that the orotund voice-over kept remarking upon was the complete absence of mutated critters, whether plant or animal -- not even extra toes or the slightest in-the-dark glow. The focus of the show, such as it was, was a mama cat and her kittens, living in the house the bear took. As peak predators, the effects of the radiation should have accumulated in them, and yet all were utterly, normally adorable.
This suggests two things to me in my ignorance: most mutations self-destruct in the womb, and Darwin prunes even more severely under straitened circumstances than he does normally. Only in hot-houses do the sports survive and multiply, producing wonderfully striped tulips to bankrupt the Dutch.
#11
Water levels are now low enough in tap water in all areas to be safe for babies except for one location, the village immediately adjacent to the plant. The radiation level of the water there is now safe for adult consumption but still too high for infant consumption but there is nobody there anyway.
Earlier reports of radiation contaminated meat turned out to be a measuring error.
The international nuclear agency is reported that no worker has currently received more than the allowed 250mSv accumulated dose allowed for rad workers in an emergency (which is half the dose allowed for rad workers in most of the rest of the world, Japan has the lowest allowable dose of any nuclear power).
The international agency says that so far they consider Fukushima Dai-ichi to be a "minor" event and they have had significantly worse events in places like Thailand and Indonesia when it comes to radioactive contamination.
The water in unit 2 may be coming from the reactor or it may have come from overflow from initial efforts to dowse spent fuel pools. The doors leading to the basement of unit 2 were damaged and would not close. But they do suspect there is a water leak someplace in the #2 turbine building but they can't search for it until they get that water pumped out.
Workers that had been in the unit 2 basement have all been cleared, there were no "beta burns" and none of them received greater than the allowed dose of radiation.
So far .. nobody killed, nobody injured, and nobody sickened by radiation and it is likely nobody will be.
The reactor temperatures continue to decline:
"The indicated temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV has decreased from 256 °C to 249 °C and at the bottom of RPV decreased from 128 °C to 119 °C." Unit 1
"The indicated temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV has decreased from 165 °C to 161 °C. The temperature at the bottom of RPV was not reported. " Unit 2
"The indicated temperature at the feed water nozzle of the RPV is about 119 °C and at the bottom of RPV is about 90 °C." Unit 3
So unit 3 is very near "cold shutdown" conditions and it looks like they will be in pretty good shape once they can find the water leak in unit 2 that is seeping water into the basement.
#15
Barbara, anon1 and others KNOW that ALL radiation is harmful and must be avoided. I'll bet that she doesn't go out into the sun, use a microwave, watch television, or even use a computer.
Oh, wait...
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/02/2011 18:03 Comments ||
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#18
So IOW, Fukushima could still end up being "CHERNOBYL II", or even a "SUPER/MEGA-CHERNOBYL" as AFAIK Tokyo itself says that high-yield explosions can still occur.
And not counting any new EarthQuakies.
Sub-IOW, Tokyo should keep handy those international invites from foreign Govts for Japanese to come + stay in their countries, includ iff need be for Japanese to PERMANENTLY GIVE UP JAPAN AS THEIR SOVEREIGN HOMELAND.
* MAHA-RUSHIAN QUESTION OF THE DAY = WILL LIBYUH'S UNCLE MUAMMAR STAY WID HIS PREGGERS UKRAINIAN NURSE-GIRLFRIEND BACK IN UKRAINE OR RUSSIA, OR ELSE FIND A NEW NIPPON BABE(S) AMONGST THE UKRAINE'S? RUSSIA.S? [Other?] MILYUHNS-N-DILYUHNS OF NEW JAPANESE CITIZENS-RESIDENTS FRESH FROM "CHERNOBYL, FORMER JAPAN STATE"???
Could easily be in WoT since this fighting is about whether citizenship is given to 4M Muslim immigrants, turning the Ivory Coast into a Muslim dominated nation.
In a sign of how bloody the conflict has become, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday at least 800 people were killed in intercommunal violence in the western Ivorian town of Duekoue this week.
Gunbattles and the sounds of heavy weapons fire rang out across Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan as the country's former rebels pressed an offensive to oust Gbagbo. Pro-Ouatarra fighters met with resistance from Gbagbo fighters around strategic locations like the Presidential Palace, the state broadcaster RTI, and key military bases.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Gunfire erupted around the home of under-siege Cote d'Ivoire strongman Laurent Gbagbo ... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... and the presidential palace on Friday, Abidjan residents and AFP journalists reported.
"The shooting doesn't stop. Gbagbo's men are resisting in all their positions," a resident of the northern suburb of Cocody, where Gbagbo lives, told AFP.
"We are hearing deafening artillery shots, RPG7 (rockets) and machine guns," he said.
Intense fighting between soldiers loyal to the outgoing president and the army of internationally recognised president Alassane Ouattara, started Thursday night around 10:00 pm within the perimeter of Gbagbo's residence.
It was impossible to confirm if Gbagbo was still in his home.
Pro-Ouattara fighters entered Abidjan, the country's economic capital, Thursday after sweeping through towns across the country in an all-out offensive against Gbagbo's regime.
They seized the airport and the state television on Thursday night.
On Friday fighting continued in the administrative district of Plateau, home to the presidential palace, where the roar of heavy artillery shelling pierced the air.
Incumbent Gbagbo, clinging onto the presidency despite losing elections in November to internationally recognised successor Ouattara, failed to respond to a deadline set by his rival to step down on Thursday and now faces being ousted by force.
The bloody post-election dispute has plunged the world's top cocoa producer into political and economic crisis, with nearly 500 killed and up to a million having decamped their homes as rival forces clash.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Forces loyal to internationally-recognized Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara are trying to take over the presidential palace in Abidjan.
Elite troops loyal to Gbagbo battled his rival's army in the heart of Abidjan on Friday.
Eyewitnesses say gunfire is intense in the Abidjan's Cocody neighborhood.
''The shooting doesn't stop. Gbagbo's men are resisting in all their positions,'' residents and witnesses of the northern suburb of Cocody, where Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo ... President of Ivory Coast since 2000. Gbagbo lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and Laurent has refused to leave despite the international community's hemming, hawing, and broad hints... lives.
''We are hearing deafening artillery shots, RPG7 [rockets] and machineguns.''
Pro-Ouattara forces say they have seized the state television headquarters. Earlier on Thursday, Ouattara declared an overnight curfew in Abidjan. His camp also announced the closure of all borders.
The move came after Ouattara's deadline for Gbagbo to relinquish power expired. Ouattara has called on the country's military to join him. Gbagbo's army chief has sought refuge at the home of South Africa's ambassador in Abidjan.
The United Nations ... aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... has recently warned of a civil war if the situation continues to tank in the African nation.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2011 00:00 ||
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To calculate this "economic security" income, the study's authors certainly didn't assume a lavish lifestyle. They considered basic needs--housing, food, utilities, health care, child-care, and transportation--plus the cost of modest saving for retirement and a small surplus for emergencies. (At at a time when economic "shocks" are increasingly common, that's an essential part of financial security.) They don't factor in some things many of us take for granted, like entertainment or eating out.
The result? To achieve economic security, a single parent with two children needs an income of just over $30,000 a year--nearly twice the federal minimum wage--while a two-income household needs almost $68,000.
The study then finds that, according to Labor Department projections, fewer than 13 percent of jobs to be created by 2018 will meet the economic security threshold for a single parent with two kids. Forty-three percent of those jobs will meet the threshold for a two-income household.
#3
These journalists seem to forget that entry level jobs are not meant to be for a lifetime, and therefore need not be capable of supporting an adult lifestyle of home, family, and retirement. The whole purpose of an entry level job is to get enough training to move up to something with which one can support a home, family, and retirement. That's how it worked in the old days, anyway.
#4
That's why I get steamed when the ignoramuses start whining that you "can't support a family on minimum wage," tw.
You're not supposed to.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/02/2011 17:34 Comments ||
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fewer than 13 percent of jobs to be created by 2018 will meet the economic security threshold for a single parent with two kids.
So more than 87% of future jobs will be entry level? That is for a household of 3. So Americans can forget about a the one wage earner, stay at home spouse and 2 kids. A nation of burger flippers and investment bankers.
Muslim lad born in Sierra Leone refugee camp joins with a friend to torment a Muslim girl. Father wants to send him back to the Olde Sod. Community wants troubled school cleaned up.
#1
The "Quran states 'there is no compulsion in religion' so those who want to leave Islam can freely do so," Begg, the senior adviser for the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, added.
Now, quick as you can, name the Islamic nations where there is no penalty for leaving Islam or converting to a different religion?
#3
If the Westboro Baptist Church can do what they do under the protection of the First Amendment, it would seem that these ads would also fall under such protection. Likewise with those who burn the Koran--protected under the First Amendment. One might say that these activities are in bad taste but then a lot is done that is bad taste. So what?
[Arab News] Arkansas students who love their sagging pants should soon leave them at home.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe signed a bill that bans students from wearing clothing that exposes "underwear, buttocks or the breast of a female."
Arkansas educators have long complained about the drooping attire, such as young men wearing saggy jeans that expose the top of colorful boxer shorts.
"We feel the bill can improve the learning environment in schools," said Donna Morey, president of the Arkansas Education Association.
One concern of the General Assembly was that "student competition over the manner in which clothing is worn could lead to violence and injuries during school hours," according to the legislation. Lawmakers also said that students should learn to dress in a way that is acceptable in the workplace as they prepare to enter it.
The new law does not outline how school districts will punish students who wear such clothing.
"School boards will have to look at existing school dress code policies and make sure they are in compliance with this new law," said Kristen Gould, staff attorney for the Arkansas School Boards Association, a non-profit. "Many of them may well be, and if not, they will have to incorporate it into their current policy and design punishment in accordance."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2011 00:00 ||
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I got to ask... Why does he care?
Posted by: Water Modem ||
04/02/2011 1:24 Comments ||
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Cough /sarc on - File under safety hazard in case of quick evacuation of school building. One trips and the rest tumble over. /sarc off
Why does he care?
Who, the administrator or the fashionista impaired ute?
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.
Here's the deal: After getting off the plane from Salt Lake City and making my way home to a cup of tea, I sit down at my kitchen table and I see this guy in a City of Oakland car taking photos of my garden. I go down and he said I'm out of compliance for "agricultural activities". I'm supposed to get a Conditional Use Permit for growing chard. The annual fee: $2500.
Laurent Gbagbo
