‘Smokers could be forced to pay £10 for a permit to buy tobacco if a government health advisory body gets its way.
No one would be able to buy cigarettes without the permit, under the idea proposed by Health England.
Its chairman, Professor Julian Le Grand, told BBC Radio 5 Live the scheme would make a big difference to the number of people giving up smoking.
But smokers’ rights group Forest described the idea as “outrageous”, given how much tax smokers already pay. [..]
He said it was the inconvenience of getting a permit – as much as the cost – that would deter people from persisting with the smoking habit.
“You’ve got to get a form, a complex form – the government’s good at complex forms; you have got to get a photograph.
“It’s a little bit of a problem to actually do it, so you have got to make a conscious decision every year to opt in to being a smoker.”‘
‘Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.
Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.
The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.
Doctors warned last night that the practice of “patient-stacking” was putting patients’ health at risk.
Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that last year 43,576 patients waited longer than one hour before being let into emergency units.’
‘A woman in Germany who became pregnant after an online sex auction has won a court battle to force the Web site that hosted the sale to reveal the names of the winners, so she can find out who’s the father.
Six different men won Internet auctions to have sex with the woman in April and May last year. They were only known to her by their online names, a spokesman for a court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart said Wednesday.
“The woman wanted to discover which one of the men had made her pregnant,” the spokesman said. “So she needed their contact details. Of course, if they’re not willing to go along with the gene test, she’ll have to take them to court.”‘
‘Ongoing turmoil in the troubled kitchen-floor region of the Branson household reached a boiling point Tuesday, as relations between rival house cats Boswell and Johnson erupted into fresh violence. Observers said the arrival of a new brown paper-bag in the area ignited long-standing tensions and set off another round of territorial conflict between the two factions in the most serious aggression since the devastating stove-side siege of 2005.
The afternoon was marred by sporadic fighting, according to reports, with opposing forces darting and then retreating in surprise attacks. Boswell held his position despite relentless onslaughts from Johnson, who repeatedly batted the controversial bag along the ancient linoleum surface. By the end of the day, neither side displayed any intention to halt reprisals without the other first relinquishing claims and pulling out permanently — an outcome those close to the fighting called “unlikely at best.”‘
I’m coming to get you.. in my DC-8.. there’s no escape.
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Doesn’t seem so tranquil. 🙂
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‘Drugs and guns don’t mix as a 51-year-old Langley man found out the hard way.
The local man, who was known to police, is dead after accidentally shooting himself in the head while mishandling an Uzi-type gun at a well-known drug house on Thursday morning.
Around 2:10 a.m., Langley RCMP were called to 20217 82 Ave. in Willoughby.
The 51-year-old victim is a resident of the home along with a 33-year-old man and 56-year-old Langley woman. Police say the three had been using drugs and handling a pistol similar to an Uzi. The weapon is illegal in Canada.’
‘Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.
The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.
And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist. [..]
Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns’ fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.’
‘The mayor of a small town in Texas has resigned after secretly keeping her neighbour’s Shih Tzu while pretending it had died.
Neighbours had asked Alice Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez to look after the dog, Puddles, during a holiday. She called them to say it was dead.
But the dog, which Ms Saenz-Lopez had renamed Panchito, was later seen at a dog groomer’s and at her sister’s home.
A custody hearing on Monday is expected to decide who keeps the pet.’
‘The team appointed to oversee Ted Haggard’s “spiritual restoration” after scandal forced him to end his ministry at New Life Church has agreed to his request to end their oversite of his recovery program.
New Life Church issued a statement Tuesday saying it believes the termination of the relationship is premature, but would not say why. Earlier in the process, church leaders had said they assumed that Haggard’s recovery could take several years.
The Colorado Springs evangelical congregation that Haggard founded also said it remains convinced that he should not return to any church ministry.
A year ago, Haggard voluntarily entered into an arrangement with a team of “overseers” to guide what it called his “spiritual restoration” following a scandal that rocked the 14,000-member church community over Haggard’s admitted “sexual immorality.”
While Haggard never specified, a Denver man accused him of engaging in sex with him.’
Followup to Haggard says he is “completely heterosexual”.
‘I’m grandpa!’
Followup to Angry Grandpa Pissed About Dinner.
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aka. how to make yourself dizzy at work and lose no weight at all.
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Certainly not the best way to go about it.
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‘The State Attorney’s Office will decide whether to charge two teens who admit they robbed a 9-year-old Girl Scout selling cookies outside of a Boynton Beach supermarket. [..]
Authorities said that a 17-year-old girl in a hot-pink sweatshirt approached Smith outside of a Winn-Dixie supermarket at Hypoluxo and Jog roads in Boynton Beach Wednesday evening and asked the girl what her favorite cookies were. Police told WPBF that, while Smith was telling the teen about her favorite Cinna-Spins, the teen snatched an envelope containing about $167 off of Smith’s table, hopped into another teen’s car and drove away. [..]
The girls, whose names are not being released because they are minors, told WPBF that they were not remorseful for the crime, and that they did it because they “needed money.”
“We went through all that effort to get it, we got all these charges and we had to give the money back. I’m kind of pissed,” one of the girls told WPBF. [..]
“I’m not sorry, I’m just pissed that I got caught,” the girl said.’
‘So what happens if you have two mobile phones, and you use the first phone to ring one garda station and the second phone to ring another garda station and you hold the two phones together to “talk” to each other?’
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He seems to be going at a decent pace. 🙂
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‘I went into a new clients office to meet with them about a project they wanted done for their website.
When I walked in I found the president of the company talking to someone I had never seen before. They standing next to the photo copier and were talking about some ideas for the company website.
President of company: “This is Scott, he will be your point of contact within the company for this entire project. Under no circumstances do you allow anyone else to make any decisions about this project except for him. Ok so you guys take care of this, I have an important meeting I am late for.” [..]’
‘A kinky sex escapade ended this week with the electrocution death of a Pennsylvania woman and the arrest of her husband for manslaughter. According to cops, Toby Taylor, 37, first claimed that his wife Kirsten was shocked by her hair dryer. But he then admitted that the couple was “into weird sexual behaviors,” according to a probable cause affidavit. Taylor then explained that he hooks clips to his wife’s nipples and “plugs the cord into a electric strip” and shocks her. On Wednesday evening, Taylor said, Kirsten removed her clothes, attached the clips, and shocked herself. He then picked up the electric strip and shocked her several more times, adding that he had placed a piece of electric tape over her mouth during the jolts. After the last shock, Kirsten, 29, “fell over on to her face.” Taylor initially thought his wife was joking, but quickly realized she was unconscious. He then dressed her in preparation for driving to the hospital, but instead called 911 when she stopped breathing. [..]’
‘Two fourth-grade boys mimicking a scene from the movie “A Christmas Story” wound up with their tongues stuck to a frozen flagpole.
Gavin Dempsey and James Alexander were serving on flag duty at Jackson Elementary School Friday morning, with the job of raising and lowering the school’s flags. They decided to see if their tongues really would stick to the cold metal.
“I decided to try it because I thought all of the TV shows were lies, but turns out I was wrong,” Gavin said.’
‘client: can you add a genoua pig with all the animals
me: whats a genoua pig?
Client: they are venazualian pig with a third claw and a white stripe down its back. I had one as a kid and it snuck up the stairs and used to nibble on my dads toenails
me: what happened then? [..]’
‘i was working on the mountain as a snowboard instructor when i was asked at what
elevation do deer turn into elk. im not kidding.’
‘Would you believe it’s possible to narrow the reasons we won’t miss Bush down to 42? No, but it’s a start. We all know the penalty for forgetting history – after all, we’ve been through two Bushes! To get things started, here is a particularly infamous quote for each year of his presidency, from the sadly hilarious to the infuriatingly tragic: [..]
“There’s only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I’ve got an additional responsibility to hug and that’s me and I know what it’s like.” [..]
“I couldn’t imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah.” [..]
“I’m the commander — see, I don’t need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being president.”‘
‘A radical Baptist church in Kansas known for picketing the funerals of soldiers who perished in Iraq said it intends to protest Heath Ledger’s memorial service with signs claiming the actor died and is in Hell because he played a gay character in “Brokeback Mountain.”
Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka said that she and other members will picket Ledger’s United States memorial services, not those held in his native Australia.
“You cannot live in defiance of God,” she said. “He got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it’s OK to be gay.” [..]
“Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there,” the Westboro Baptist announcement says.’
I’m not usually a fan of violence, but there are just some people who need a really hard smack in the face. Several smacks in the face, actually.
Followup to Heath Ledger, Actor, Is Found Dead at 28 and Jury Awards Father Nearly $11 Million in Funeral Protesters Case.
‘Xin Liangkun, 53, of Dalian city, boasted on national television that no person could recreate the five-layer ball he spent 10 years to create.
“If anyone can reproduce it, I’ll give him my three-story building, and the collections within it.”
The ball is so amazing because all five balls can turn without touching each other.
It took less than six months for Sun Zheng, a young porcelain amateur from Luoyang city, to step up and challenge Xin’s public boast. Sun created the exact same ball and demanded his prize.
“At first he said my replica had internal noise. So I improved the technique, and created a perfect one. Then he said the procedure must have been different.”
So he took Xin to court. The court ruled that Xin’s TV pledge just the same as if he signed a contract, and ordered Xin to give up the house and belongings to Sun.’
