Eideard

A ”belligerent” clamper placed clamps on two unmarked police cars which were providing security for a visit by the Queen and refused to remove them despite an officer showing his warrant card, a trial heard.

Gareth Andrews, 39, of Fareham, Hampshire, denies a charge of wilfully obstructing a police constable in the execution of his duty.

Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court was told that the Queen had made an unannounced visit to Portsmouth, Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 25. Colin Shackel, prosecuting, said that Pc Mark Cox and a second officer, both in plain clothes, had parked their unmarked cars at the Gunwharf Quays marina retail complex that the monarch was visiting…

Mr Shackel said that the parking spaces allocated for the officers were temporarily being used by a delivery lorry so, after consulting security staff, they placed their vehicles in adjacent spaces, the court heard.

Mr Shackel said that one of the police officers had gone to consult colleagues and, while Pc Cox was talking to security staff, two clamping vehicles arrived. He described how Andrews and his colleagues then clamped the two vehicles, an Audi and a BMW, and he refused to remove them when confronted by Pc Cox.

The court heard that the two cars had been parked for about 15 minutes in the restricted spaces enforced by Shoal Enforcement.

Mr Shackel said: ”It’s not just a plain clothes officer speaking to the defendant, there’s uniformed security guards from Gunwharf, other officers arrived and identified themselves, even then Mr Andrews said he didn’t believe he was dealing with real police officers.

”By the time you have been shown a warrant card and security guards are involved, it would be clear to anyone that it was real officers who weren’t just trying to avoid a clamping charge and had duties to perform.”

Petty punks with a public service job – who think they are little tin gods – should be required to spend time training to be a thoughtful human being. Or at least thoughtful.

 
Many internet users in the United States have watched with horror as countries like France and Britain have proposed or instituted so-called “three strikes” laws, which cut off internet access to those accused of repeated acts of copyright infringement. Now the U.S. has its own version of this kind of law, and it is arguably much worse: the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced in the House this week, would give governments and private corporations unprecedented powers to remove websites from the internet on the flimsiest of grounds, and would force internet service providers to play the role of copyright police.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation notes in a post on the proposed legislation, the law would not only require ISPs to remove websites from the global network at the request of the government or the courts (by blocking any requests to the central domain-name system that directs internet traffic), but would also be forced to monitor their users’ behavior in order to police acts of copyright infringement. Providers who do not comply with these requests and requirements would be subject to sanctions. And in many cases, legal hearings would not be required…

In addition to using what some are calling the “internet death penalty” of removing infringing websites from the DNS system so they can’t be found, the proposed bill would also allow copyright holders to push for websites and services to be removed from search engine results and to have their supply of advertising cut off — and would require that payment companies like PayPal and ad networks comply with these orders. If you liked what PayPal and others did when they shut off donations to WikiLeaks, you’re going to love the new Stop Online Piracy Act…

The bottom line is that if it passes and becomes law, the new act would give the government and copyright holders a giant stick — if not an automatic weapon — with which to pursue websites and services they believe are infringing on their content. With little or no requirement for a court hearing, they could remove websites from the internet and shut down their ability to be found by search engines or to process payments from users. DMCA takedown notices would effectively be replaced by this nuclear option, and innocent websites would have to fight to prove that they deserved to be restored to the internet — a reversal of the traditional American judicial approach of being assumed innocent until proven guilty — at which point any business they had would be destroyed.

Just as our Congress has become the kind of legislative body that would make any corporation happy and content, this bill would make for the kind of internet that would increase smiles and profits for media conglomerates — regardless of the stifling blanket dropped on the whole Web.

All Americans will have broadband access to Internet and telephone services by the end of the decade under new rules adopted by U.S. regulators. The rules also reform a broken system of phone charges fraught with inefficiency and should result in $2.2 billion in savings passed down to consumers, the Federal Communications Commission estimates.

The FCC voted unanimously on Thursday to modernize its universal service program, aiming to help the 18 million Americans who have no access to broadband where they live and work.

The new rules will shift the roughly $4.5 billion in public money spent annually to subsidize telephone service for rural families to high-speed Internet in rural America and costly-to-serve areas…

“We are taking a system designed for the Alexander Graham Bell era of rotary telephones and modernizing it for the era of Steve Jobs and the Internet future he imagined,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the agency’s open meeting.

Broadband buildout to unserved areas could begin in early 2012 under the plan, bringing high-speed Internet to hundreds of thousands of homes in the near term.

The plan approved on Thursday would phase out funding for landline phone service over a period of years as companies move to a competitive bidding process for securing funds for broadband. Companies now receiving phone service subsidies would get first dibs in some areas to receive support for deploying broadband service.

The rules will also reform the complex system of payments among carriers called intercarrier compensation, gradually reducing per-minute intercarrier compensation charges…

The new Connect America Fund created by the rules will have a firm $4.5 billion a year budget, the first budget constraint ever imposed on the program.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell said the fund will not be able to exceed its annual $4.5 billion cap through 2017 without agency approval. “It is my hope that competitive forces will flourish and the development of new technologies will create additional efficiencies throughout the system,” McDowell said.

We all know how well Congress and the corporations sharing their beds strive for competitive forces.

Actually, politicians and administrative hacks may be stuck with the democratic basic premises of legislation that goes back to FDR and the Communications Act of 1934. Republicans hated it, then – I imagine they still do; but, they’re stuck with the egalitarian premises.

Invading a truck in Massachusetts

The price of a couple’s Hertfordshire house has dropped by more than £250,000 because Japanese knotweed has invaded it, according to an independent surveyor.

With its value falling from an estimated £305,000 to £50,000, experts have told owners Matthew Jones and Sue Banks from Broxbourne that, unless action is taken, it will be impossible to sell.

They have been told 10ft of soil needs to be removed from beneath the foundations to remove the plant.

The invasive weed was discovered in the garden of their new-build house in April 2009 after they had been living there for about a month.

A couple of months later it was found growing in the dining room…

Mr Jones, 38, explained that he first discovered the climbing plant outside one evening after it had made its way from a nearby field over the garden fence.

“I was out in the garden and I noticed some stems coming through the lawn,” he said.

“They were like asparagus tips but they had a reddish tinge to them. I had never seen anything like that before so I didn’t touch it, I went to bed and in the morning it had grown a couple of inches.”

Broxbourne Borough Council sent an environmental specialist along who identified Japanese knotweed straight away and advised the couple to contact a solicitor immediately.

Just two months later it had forced its way into the house through the flooring and skirting boards.

Experts have advised that demolishing the house and removing the soil will provide a permanent eradication.

Right now, they’re stuck in the middle of negotiations with the homebuilder over warranties that supposedly are standard in the UK – but, you can guess happy the contractor is about sorting out a problem of this magnitude.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A civic activist and vocal critic of President Lee Myung-bak rode a growing call for political change to become mayor of the South Korean capital, Seoul, winning a poll widely seen as a bellwether for the presidential election in December next year.

The activist, Park Won-soon, an independent candidate who was supported by the main opposition Democratic Party, clinched the mayoral race by winning 53.4 percent of the 4 million votes cast, according to the country’s Central Election Management Committee.

His rival, Na Kyung-won, a candidate affiliated with President Lee’s Grand National Party, won 46.2 percent.

“Citizens defeated political power,” said Mr. Park, who refused to join a political party, billing himself as a “citizens’ candidate.” “Through election, they defeated an outdated era…”

Sohn Hak-kyu, head of the Democratic Party, indicated the victory of Mr. Park as an independent would prompt all the liberal opposition parties to regroup toward “a change of governments next year.”

The race in Seoul, home to one-fifth of the country’s 50 million people, was also widely regarded as a referendum on President Lee ahead of the parliamentary elections in April…

The poll, although confined to Seoul, drew nationwide attention by pitting a woman against a man, a political establishment star against an outsider — and Park Geun-hye against another possible candidate for next year’s presidential election, Ahn Chul-soo, a Seoul National University professor whose meteoric rise to political stardom analysts said reflected a gathering storm for change…

Mr. Park, 55, is a former student activist expelled from his university in the 1970s for demonstrating against former President Park Chung-hee, who was assassinated in 1979. Mr. Park later became a human rights lawyer who led two of South Korea’s most influential civic groups that exposed corruption in the country’s powerful conglomerates and accused members of the conservative elite — including President Park — of collaborating with the Japanese during their colonial rule in Korea.

RTFA to get yourself up to speed on contemporary politics in South Korea. Understand that changes like this one are at least as qualitative as the American attempt at the end of the Bush/Cheney cabal. And may actually produce changes that are qualitative rather than quantitative.

Does Europe have too many people paid as political and financial journalists?

Journalists in the main media hall at the European Union summit in Brussels, October 27, 2011.

There are plenty of times everyone feels the European Parliament is roughly akin to a Roman circus. They’re not feeding xhristians to lions or staging phony sea battles in their shiny coliseum – but, the attention paid to the smoke and mirrors that passes for planning, that imitates serious well-thought-out legislation, is as much of a joke as the content of that legislation itself.

Peering in at row after row of people paid to report on these events as a serious record of history somehow reminds me of the scribes covering Roman holidays before the obligatory crucifixions.

Laura Chavez did not pass go. She did not collect $200.

Instead, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies took the 60-year-old directly to jail after they say she repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend Wednesday after arguing during a game of Monopoly.

Police responded to a stabbing call at 1:21 a.m. Wednesday in the Casa Villita Apartments…Deputy Kurt Whyte arrived at the apartment where he says he found the 48-year-old male stabbing victim, “bleeding heavily from his head and right wrist area.”

Chavez, who police say admitted stabbing the man with a kitchen knife, was arrested and charged with aggravated battery on a household member with a deadly weapon, battery upon a peace officer, assault upon a peace officer and resisting or evading a police officer…Her boyfriend, meanwhile, remained hospitalized late Wednesday but was in stable condition, according to Lt. Adan Mendoza.

Police say both Chavez and her boyfriend appeared to be intoxicated.

According to the statement of probable cause filed for Chavez’s arrest drafted by Detective Andrew Quintana, Chavez and her boyfriend were playing a late Tuesday night game of Monopoly with her 10-year-old grandson. The young boy told police the couple began fighting because his grandma thought her boyfriend was cheating at the classic Parker Brothers game…

Investigators say they were not aware of past domestic violence calls regarding the couple, but jail records show Chavez has been booked into the Santa Fe County jail nine times since June 2006, many of which were related to violations of probation and the conditions of her release from a 2009 felony drug possession case in which she eventually received a conditional discharge.

Every aspect of life in a banana republic culture can be exciting. Even a board game can turn into an assault.

What happens if you can’t find an actual scandal? Make one up. The Fisker “scandal” that started at ABC News has jumped to Fox and right wing blogs, where the idea that the U.S. bumbled into paying for cars built overseas is gaining steam.

ABC’s report incorrectly stated that Fisker had made off with U.S. taxpayer funds in a kind of bait and switch, promising jobs in America then outsourcing to Finland. Since that report rolled out last week, Fox has jumped on the issue with a story headlined “Federal Loan… for Finland?” Fox’s Neil Cavuto jumped in to add that, two years after the payments to Fisker, “those jobs still are not here, they’re in Finland.” Attempts to turn the Fisker loan (not a grant) into a scandal have become entangled in Republican primary politics, with candidate Mitt Romney calling for an investigation and claiming that loans to both Fisker and Tesla were payback for political donations.

All of which conveniently ignores some important facts. Yes, Fisker’s first model, the Karma plug-in hybrid sports car, is currently being assembled in Finland. However, the first $169 million in loans provided to Fisker were not for the assembly of the Karma. The loans went toward the design and engineering of the car, activities that took place at Fisker’s Pontiac, MI headquarters.

The bulk of the loan for Fisker was provided not for the Karma, but to support the upcoming Nina model, which will be built at the company’s new factory in Delaware starting in 2013. There are already 100 plant workers in Delaware employed by Fisker in preparation for the Nina and millions have been invested in preparing the Delaware assembly lines.

…Fisker has stated that “not a single dollar” of the money it received from the government has been spent overseas…[The federal funds were] used soley in the U.S. to fund design, engineering and integration work.”

Even real journalists hate to admit they screwed up. Retractions and corrections would appear in a follow-on edition – usually a tiny paragraph buried next to city council notes or something equally boring. Not anymore.

Poisonally, I think it’s time for ABC News to act like grown-ups and own up to their lousy reporting – and quit worrying about where that leaves Rupert’s army of toy noisemakers.

Fishing in a seawater canal that leads to the desalination plant

Towering over the Bohai Sea shoreline on this city’s outskirts, the Beijiang Power and Desalination Plant is a 26-billion-renminbi technical marvel: an ultrahigh-temperature, coal-fired generator with state-of-the-art pollution controls, mated to advanced Israeli equipment that uses its leftover heat to distill seawater into fresh water.

There is but one wrinkle in the $4 billion plant: The desalted water costs twice as much to produce as it sells for. Nevertheless, the owner of the complex, a government-run conglomerate called S.D.I.C., is moving to quadruple the plant’s desalinating capacity, making it China’s largest.

“Someone has to lose money,” Guo Qigang, the plant’s general manager, said in a recent interview. “We’re a state-owned corporation, and it’s our social responsibility.”

In some places, this would be economic lunacy. In China, it is economic strategy.

As it did with solar panels and wind turbines, the government has set its mind on becoming a force in yet another budding environment-related industry: supplying the world with fresh water.

The Beijiang project, southeast of Beijing, will strengthen Chinese expertise in desalination, fine-tune the economics, help build an industrial base and, along the way, lessen a chronic water shortage in Tianjin. That money also leaks away like water — at least for now — is not a prime concern.

“The policy drivers are more important than the economic drivers,” said Olivia Jensen, an expert on Chinese water policy and a director at Infrastructure Economics, a Singapore-based consultancy. “If the central government says desalination is going to be a focus area and money should go into desalination technology, then it will.”

The government has, and it is.

You needn’t be as old as me to remember when we did things like this in the United States. Even apart from nuclear weapons.

Since the days of Reagan – nada, nuttin’ honey. Think we have the politicians, nowadays, to regain that kind of international and national competitiveness?

The cat that vanished in baggage claim at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and whose plight became an online sensation has been found after being missing for two months.

“American Airlines is happy to announce that Jack the Cat has been found safe and well at JFK airport,” the carrier wrote in a post on the “Jack the Cat is Lost in AA Baggage at JFK” Facebook page Tuesday evening.

“Jack was found in the customs room and was immediately taken by team members to a local veterinarian. The vet has advised that Jack is doing well at present.”

The airline plans to fly the cat to California to be reunited with his owner, Karen Pascoe.

The saga started on August 25, when Pascoe was flying from New York to San Francisco with Jack and a second cat as part of a job relocation. But Jack escaped his kennel and was last seen at JFK’s inbound baggage claim…

When a search failed to turn up Jack after a few days, Pascoe became frustrated with American Airlines and started the Facebook page “to help us put pressure on AA to step up their efforts.” She also urged fliers to “do whatever they can do to keep their animals out of cargo.”

American even hired a pet detective and issued a pet Amber alert in hopes of locating the feline. I’m not quite certain how a pet Amber alert functions – but, I am glad they found Jack.