‘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.”‘
‘The Gilbert Highland High community is outraged that a diorama they helped build has been destroyed after Texas museum officials said it was historically inaccurate.
The 10- by 5-foot diorama of the Battle at Palmetto Ranch, the last land battle of the Civil War, was shipped in August to the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin to be on display along with four other dioramas built by Gilbert students. [..]
Highland history teacher Glen Frakes is especially outraged because more than 7,000 hours were put into the project by his students and other volunteers.
He supervised the after-school project, which involved more than 200 of his students. They helped build, paint and complete the diorama in a little more than three years. [..]
The diorama cost about $23,000, with labor worth between $60,000 and $130,000, Frakes said. [..]
“It looked like someone took their arm and back-swapped the whole thing,” Savoy said. “A master’s thesis doesn’t give you the right to destroy a diorama.”‘
‘Two shop-owners were today fined for selling chocolate cake – which had been sprinkled with human faeces.
A horrified customer ate the foul-smelling gateaux but noticed that it didn’t taste or smell “quite right” and handed the cake to public health scientists.
The analysts soon established that the sweet treat was covered in faeces and legal proceedings against the shop owners were started.
Shop owners Saeed Hasmi, 25, and Jan Yadgari, 23, were fined £1,500 for selling food unfit for human consumption.
The pair – who ran the Italiano Pizzeria in Roath, Cardiff – admitted the charge but did not say how the chocolate cake was contaminated.’
‘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 restaurant owner has apologised after diners had their very own F word experience – without Gordon Ramsay.
Ten friends found the abusive and sexually-explicit message on their bill at Joe Delucci’s Italian restaurant in Bird Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire.
Diner Clare Watkin said she thought it was written after they complained about poor service.
The party from Walsall had gone to the restaurant on Friday. Owner Nigel Langsdon has begun an investigation.
Ms Watkin said: “I couldn’t believe it. The bill read ‘fish cakes’, which one of us had for a starter, and it was written right above it – absolutely disgusting language.’
‘A national dance craze in Ivory Coast has spawned a black market in treatments claiming to increase one’s bottom size.
The dance in question has been inspired by DJ Mix and DJ Eloh’s hit song Bobaraba, which means “big bottom” in the local Djoula language.
When it plays you can be guaranteed that the dance floor will be packed with people shaking their derrieres.
Even Ivorian footballers have adopted the moves and could be seen wiggling their bottoms in a curious on-pitch dance after each goal scored during the just-ended Africa Nations Cup.
However, doctors have warned of the possible dangers of some of the concoctions on sale. ‘
‘A Central Florida woman whose 17-year-old daughter was killed in a murder-suicide apparently committed by her ex-boyfriend said the teen was told by police to stop calling for help or she’d be arrested.
Police said Clay Coffner shot his estranged girlfriend, Natasha Hall, in the head outside her DeLand home Friday before turning the gun on himself.
Hall’s mother, Sherry, said her daughter was concerned about Coffner and informed police.
In fact, Hall said her daughter called police so much that on Jan. 15 they threatened her.
“The police officer said if you call us one more time on him, I’m going to arrest you both,” Sherry Hall said. “So, the day she died, she knew she couldn’t talk to police. So, she handled it herself.”‘
‘Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war. But in the immediate aftermath nothing was heard from the government of Israel. In contrast, in 1981, when the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, near Baghdad, the Israeli government was triumphant, releasing reconnaissance photographs of the strike and permitting the pilots to be widely interviewed.’
‘The Queensland government says there is no reason to change the law after a court found a teacher could legally slap a student in the face.
An assault charge against a Gold Coast high school teacher who admitted slapping a year eight student in class was thrown out yesterday.
The magistrate accepted the teacher was practising “domestic discipline” – a law that allows a teacher to use reasonable force “by way of correction, discipline, management or control”.
Southport Magistrates Court was told Upper Coomera State College teacher Justin Ransfield, 37, slapped Aidan Pascoe, 14, in the classroom in December 2006.
The court heard Ransfield and the student clashed physically after the boy disobeyed a direction to start work.’
‘A car was dropped onto the roof of a building in an industrial park Sunday night, crashing through the ceiling and heavily damaging one business.
A forklift was used to hoist the 1966 Chevy Nova up and onto the roof of the Rancho Vista Business Park on Specialty Drive near Activity Drive about 7:30 p.m., said Sheriff’s Sgt. Jeff Maxin.
The car crashed into a business that specializes in the installation and repair of sliding glass doors and windows; it was heavily damaged, Maxin said.
It appears that both the heavy machinery as well as the car were parked somewhere near the site, Maxin said. The car was being repaired or refurbished, he said.
Witnesses said they saw a man running from the site.’
‘POLICE are stepping up the heat on potential terrorists by seeking access to “tens of thousands” of closed circuit television cameras.
Police will store every NSW camera location in a central database so that terrorists and other criminal activity can be speedily tracked.
Owners of large and small businesses who have installed CCTV cameras in customer areas or outside their premises will be asked to register them with police.
The information will be used to create a map of CCTV locations, allowing police to quickly source footage showing suspects and crimes.’
‘Some big companies have had a surprise during their earnings conference calls this quarter — and it has nothing to do with the weak economy.
At least seven times just the past three weeks, a mystery caller has cleverly insinuated himself into the normally well-manicured ritual of the quarterly calls. As top executives of publicly traded companies respond to securities analysts’ questions about their balance sheets, he impersonates a well-known analyst to get called upon. Then, usually declaring himself to be “Joe Herrick of Gutterman Research,” he launches into his own version of analyst-speak.
“Congratulations on the solid numbers — you always seem to come through in challenging times,” he said to Leo Kiely, president and chief executive officer of Molson Coors Brewing Co., on Feb. 12, convincingly parroting the obsequious banter common to the calls. “Can you provide some more color as to what you are doing for your supply chain initiatives to reduce manufacturing costs per hectoliter, as you originally promised $150 million in synergy or savings to decrease working capital?”‘
‘It is the biggest food recall in US history. About 65 million kilograms of beef products from a Californian slaughterhouse have been recalled because of concerns about the plant’s production line.
Some animals were unable to stand and that has prompted concerns about their ability to be tested for infections like mad cow’s disease.
The plant is now under investigation and two of its employees have been charged with animal cruelty.
Everything from sirloin to taco meat has been recalled, as have some of the more curious by-products of the beef industry such as salivary glands and six gallon containers of beef bile.’
A couple of decent attempts to injure the woman.. Hooray for machines on the rampage. 🙂
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see it here »
‘Police say a Parks Department employee took his city-issued golf cart on a rampage, running over and killing five birds in a public park.
Police said they arrested the 45-year-old employee Friday evening after receiving complaints that he was driving erratically in the park in Lower Manhattan. He faces charges of reckless endangerment and intentional injury to an animal.
Three pigeons and two seagulls were killed.’
‘Grover Cleveland High School Principal Bob Marks has his limits.
On Thursday, it was the labeled diagram of a vagina splashed across the front page of the student newspaper’s Valentine’s Day issue.
Flustered teachers rushed to confiscate the publication, but with some copies already in circulation and the Reseda campus in an uproar, it quickly became a hot read for the school’s roughly 3,700 students.
And some of the contraband issues made their way home, getting a quick reaction from parents.
“My phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Marks said. Only one parent asked why the paper was taken away; the others called to say they were offended, he said.
The drawing in question ran under the hot-pink headline “Have a happy Vagina Day!” and the four-page edition included stories titled “Ending shame for nature’s gift” and “Rejected!!!!!!!”‘
‘As a former child prodigy blessed with chiselled good looks, they called him the David Beckham of the classical violin. Now he is more likely to be known as the lad with the broken Strad.
David Garrett, 26, one of the nation’s foremost young concert performers, had an accident that every world-class musician must dread: at the end of a concert at the Barbican he tripped and landed on his violin.
The instrument is a 290-year-old Stradivarius, so rare that it would be almost impossible to estimate its value. Certainly there are people who would have gladly paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for it, before its glamorous owner did a turn as Mr Bean.
Now he has a badly damaged violin that will be out of use for at least eight months, and may never sound the same again. He is also facing a £60,000 repair bill.’
‘A batch of old documents linked to the slaying of US President John F Kennedy has reportedly been unearthed, the Dallas Morning News said.
The documents are said to include a highly suspect transcript of a conversation between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald’s killer Jack Ruby.
The newspaper said the Dallas County district attorney’s office, which uncovered the documents, would display its discovery at a news conference tomorrow.
The Morning News said the items found in an old safe in a Dallas courthouse included personal letters from former district attorney Henry Wade, the prosecutor in the Ruby trial. Ruby shot Oswald two days after the president’s death.
Also found were official records from Ruby’s trial, a gun holster and clothing that probably belonged to Ruby and Oswald, district attorney Craig Watkins told the newspaper.
But one potentially controversial item is a transcript of an exchange between Oswald and Ruby in which they discuss killing Kennedy to halt the mafia-busting agenda of his brother, attorney-general Robert Kennedy.’
A 2:30am sneaky lotion application doesn’t go as planned.
Followup to Angry Grandpa Ruins Christmas and Angry Grandpa Pissed About Dinner.
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see it here »
‘Ailing leader Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba’s president from nearly a half-century early Tuesday, saying in a letter published in online official media that he would not accept a new term when the newly elected parliament meets on Sunday.
“I will not aspire nor accept–I repeat I will not aspire or accept, the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief,” read a letter signed by Castro published quietly overnight without advance warning in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma. [..]
The 81-year-old Castro’s overnight announcement effectively ends his rule of almost 50 years over Cuba, positioning his 76-year-old brother Raul for permanent succession to the presidency.’
‘Tammie Mills said she was tired of being hurt in relationships. She was just a teenager, she said, but she wanted to be a mother.
Mills, now 24, said she began a sexual relationship with her father seven years ago. She was 17 when their first daughter was born, Mills said, and they have another daughter who is 2.
“I know it was wrong, but it is my life,” Mills said in an interview Friday. “We loved each other. We were in it together.”
Her father, Michael A. Mills, 46, was arrested Thursday on an incest charge, based on the longstanding sexual relationship he allegedly had with his daughter. [..]
Tammie Mills said her father did not force her to have sex. She wanted a baby.’
‘Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, is refusing to remove medieval artistic depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, despite being flooded with complaints from Muslims demanding the images be deleted.
More than 180,000 worldwide have joined an online protest claiming the images, shown on European-language pages and taken from Persian and Ottoman miniatures dating from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, are offensive to Islam, which prohibits any representation of Muhammad. But the defiant editors of the encyclopaedia insist they will not bow to pressure and say anyone objecting to the controversial images can simply adjust their computers so they do not have to look at them.’
‘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.”‘
‘A U.S. study said a protein in the saliva of deer ticks prevents HIV-1 from attaching to the surface of white blood cells called T Cells.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst said the finding may lead to new treatments for autoimmune diseases and prevent rejection of organ transplants, the university said Friday in a release.
The researchers said the HIV-1 virus cripples the human immune system by targeting T cells that form the body’s first line of defense in fighting infection. Deer tick saliva contains the protein Salp15, which stops T cells from activating by binding to a specific site on their surface called the CD4 receptor.’
‘So we stop at Sacramento Street (just before the tunnel), and a whole group of people want to push on to the bus. Everybody at the stop manages to squeeze in when there is a bit of a commotion at the front.
An old Chinese lady (I am assuming she was Chinese) was holding in her hand a live chicken. She was holding it by the feet and, as a chicken in such a situation would do, this particular chicken was squawking up a storm.
The bus driver (a large African-American gentleman; this was back before a majority of the drivers became asian) was standing up, pointing at the squawking chicken, telling the lady, “Hey! You can’t come on the bus with a live chicken!”
Anyone who believes the Chinese people (or asian people) in San Francisco cannot understand english is completely naive. They understand. Oh yes they do. [..]’
‘Saudi Arabia’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced “another 7/7” and the loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.’
