BERLIN (Reuters) - A would-be German thief went from predator to victim when he tried to mug a taxi driver but ended up having his own wallet snatched instead. After the 20-year-old stole the driver's wallet, a scuffle broke out between the two, in which the cabbie not only recovered his property but also took his attacker's wallet, police in the western town of Aldenhoven said on Tuesday.
The driver then locked himself in his taxi and called the police, who were amazed to find the mugger waiting patiently for them on the kerb next to the vehicle when they arrived. "He wanted his wallet back," a police spokesman said. "I'm gonna call the police on you!"
After taking the man in for questioning, police released him and returned his wallet. He faces charges for attempted robbery. Not smart enough to be a threat to public order.
#1
Maybe not the whole story. I suspect that these were "damned babies", illegal, that the government wanted to never be born and might even use a little "retroactive abortion" on them in the rural provinces.
By being sold, they might make it to the city where adopted by childless couples. They also might end up as slaves, but living slaves.
HAVANA (AP) - Vilma Espin Guillois, wife of acting President Raul Castro, died Monday, the Cuban government announced. She was 77. She headed Cuba's largest women's organization and was among the communist island's most politically powerful women.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/19/2007 00:00 ||
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#2
The daughter of an executive at the Bacardi rum distillery, Espin grew up in comfort in the eastern town of Santiago.
She was one of the first Cuban women to earn a degree in chemical engineering and did post-graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
However, she turned her back on her upbringing in the 1950s, joining the armed struggle against right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista and adopting the nom de guerre Deborah.
She married Raul in 1959 after Batista was forced to flee and the rebel fighters made their triumphant entry into Havana.
The couple went on to have four children.
Posted by: John Frum ||
06/19/2007 7:25 Comments ||
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#3
AKA Comrade Debbie? sounds fierce
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/19/2007 9:30 Comments ||
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#4
"Debbie does Havana", soon to a theater near you.
Note how the "low quality" second tier system for rural areas is better than %99 of us in the USA can get for any kind of money. Also, look at the city speed: 50 to 70 mb/sec.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday announced a 2.0 billion dollar (1.68 billion US) plan to provide fast and affordable Internet access across the vast country.
Howard said Optus, the Australian offshoot of Singapore telco Singtel, had been awarded a 958-million-dollar contract to build a broadband network in the bush with rural finance company Elders.
The joint venture, known as OPEL, would contribute a further 900 million US dollars to provide broadband of at least 12 megabits per second by June 2009.
"What we have announced today is a plan that will deliver to 99 percent of the Australian population very fast and affordable broadband in just two years' time," Howard said.
An expert group will also develop a bidding process for the building of a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network, funded solely by private companies, in major cities.
Communications Minister Helen Coonan said wireless was the best option for rural Australia because it was impossible to install cables which would reach every farm and property across the country.
"It's been specially developed for rural and regional areas, where (with) fixed broadband you've got to actually run a fibre optic," she said.
Senator Coonan said the broadband speed of 12 megabits per second could "scale up" to very fast speeds as the technology evolved.
"It will be able to go much faster, up to 70 megabits a second and of course our new high-speed fibre network will be able to go up to 50," she said.
But the opposition labour Party attacked the plan, saying it was too little, too late ahead of this year's election and provided country people with a second-rate service.
"The government proposes a two-tier system -- a good system for the cities, they say, and a second-rate system for rural and regional Australia," labour leader Kevin Rudd said.
labour has proposed spending 4.7 billion US dollars to build a national fibre optic network which would cover 98 percent of the population.
The National Party, which is part of Howard's ruling Liberal/National coalition, welcomed the proposal but said it would continue to push for FTTN technology in regional areas.
Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said the fact that Australia was a vast country with a small population meant it would always be playing catch-up with other countries when it came to broadband.
"We'll always be catching up, always, because we are 20 million people in a country (the size) of the United States without Alaska," he said.
#1
Rhetoric parted company from the facts sometime ago as Broadband became a political football here in Oz.
The reality is that we are currently on a par with comparable developed countries, especially given Australia never had a competing cable network to push the telcos to innovate on broadband.
This is good politics from John Howard. He's saying, we can give you fast broadband at half the cost of Labour.
And, building fibre to the node out in the bush is nuts. It would be cheaper to launch a couple of satellites and give everyone out in the bush, free satellite broadband.
#2
Australia is way to vast to bury fiber to every home in 2 years. It's not even possible in the cities unless the fiber is already laid.
For Americans, it's possible to get low end DSL for $10/month (including DSL modem). AT&T is providing it in 22 southern states.
AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Basic Package
Up to 768 Kbps download
Up to 128 Kbps upload
$10.00/month
Go here and answer the question to see if the service is available in your area and you qualify.
Posted by: ed ||
06/19/2007 22:50 Comments ||
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#3
That is a 14.95 service from ATT in the Northern states. Where is the extra five bucks going?
#4
We should have been making good vigerous fun of these Islamic fanatics years ago.
But I'm afraid Mainstream Hollywood would much rather re-fight old fights, or make a movie based on a 70's teevee show that wasn't very funny anyway.
#6
The problem with NatLamp movies is that most of them move too slowly. The Zuckers ("Airplane") realized that the best comedies use a high volume of fast gags, so that when a joke falls flat it gets lost in the shuffle.
For instance, imagine if the chief terrorist had been played for gags, even as silly as having him cast so he looks like Anton LaVey, speaks with a Bela Legosi accent, wears a shiny silk turban and a silver scimitar, etc. At times they could show him having a ham sandwich and drinking a bottle of Mogen-David kosher wine.
And the two college boys are way too normal.
The scene where one is making a crude remark to the two girls just wasn't funny. The pacing was sluggish, and she punched him. Nothing unexpected or even sight gag. All sorts of comic possibilities were ignored there.
I don't think their writers were even up to Pauly Shore standards.
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.
Mugger, from robber to robbed
