Eideard

A former Beefeater at the Tower of London has reportedly been thrown out of his local pub for talking German to his daughter.

Tom Sharp, 71, said he was talking to his half-German daughter in the Packhorse pub in the Peterborough village of Northborough when their conversation slipped into German.

Mr Sharp…said the pub’s landlady flew into a rage when she heard the language being used on Wednesday evening.

He claims she told him: “We are white, you are English so you speak English in my pub otherwise get out.” Other drinkers who witnessed the row and spoke up for Mr Sharp and his 49-year-old daughter Nichole Falconer were also ejected, he said.

“I honestly couldn’t believe she was telling us we couldn’t speak German. Now and again the odd German phrase slips up – it is my daughter’s mother tongue. It is natural,” he said…

“I think it is a sad reflection of her attitude to life that she can be upset about speaking a language she can’t understand. It’s outrageous. She was just like a mad woman completely possessed.”

The incident has been reported to police as a hate crime…

“I served in the army for 26 years before joining the beefeaters for 20 years. I guarded the Tower of London…Should a father not speak to his daughter in her mother tongue..?”

The landlady of the pub, which is owned by Scottish and Newcastle but managed by LT Pub Management, declined to comment.

A police spokesman said…”Officers attended and spoke to both parties.”

Well, there’s local coppers with an aggressive approach to dealing with bigotry.

Zophia and Nicole

A pregnant woman and her husband were arrested for allegedly stealing two sandwiches at a supermarket in Honolulu, resulting in their 3-year-old daughter being put into state care for 18 hours, officials said on Saturday.

The supermarket that called the police was a Safeway in Makiki, a neighborhood in Honolulu. “From our preliminary investigation, it appears we may not have handled this matter in the best possible way. We are taking this situation seriously, and giving it our full attention,” Safeway said in a statement.

Do you think?

Famished mother Nicole Leczcyzynski, 30-weeks pregnant, was feeling faint and noshed on a chicken salad sandwich while shopping at the store on Wednesday, Leczcyzynski said in an interview with local television station KHON.

She paid for roughly $50 dollars worth of groceries but forgot about the two sandwiches, valued at $5 each, according to Safeway.

The family was stopped by security staff while leaving the store. Leczcyzynski offered to pay for the sandwiches, she said, but the security guard called the police, the couple were arrested, and their daughter was taken into custody by Child Protective Services…

Both Leczcyzynski, and her husband, Marcin, were charged with theft, Honolulu police said. Bail was set at $50 apiece.

When did Hawaii become one of the Confederate states?

One of the “terrorist” photos

A father has been questioned by police under anti-terror laws for taking pictures of his own daughter in a shopping centre.

Chris White was approached by staff after taking a photograph of four-year-old Hazel eating an ice cream in the Braehead shopping centre near Glasgow on Friday afternoon. Mr White was questioned by a security guard, who told him it was illegal to take pictures in the centre. He was then asked to delete any photos he had taken from his mobile phone.

Mr White explained that he had already uploaded two photos, in which his daughter was pictured riding a novelty motorbike in an ice cream parlour, to his Facebook page.

The police were called and Mr White was told there were “clear signs” saying no photographs were allowed. He said one officer claimed that he was within his rights to confiscate the mobile phone containing the pictures under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Lazyass coppers everywhere in the Western world have learned they can shout “Terrorist” and get away with crushing the civil rights of any ordinary citizen.

A Facebook group set up in support of Mr White has called for supporters to boycott the Braehead shopping centre in protest over his treatment. By Monday afternoon, more than 7,700 people had “liked” the ‘Boycott Braehead’ campaign page.

A spokesman for Braehead said…”We have a ‘no photography’ policy in the centre to protect the privacy of staff and shoppers and to have a legitimate opportunity to challenge suspicious behaviour if required. However, it is not our intention to – and we do not – stop innocent family members taking pictures.”

Then put up longer signs with all the ifs, outs and excuses. Meanwhile, the question remains about the legitimacy of inventing private regulations which are counter to constitutional rights. Even for Glaswegians, right?

Supt George Nedley, of Renfrewshire and Inverclyde division…said a full review had been launched.

 
A baseball fan in Taiwan dropped his toddler daughter while trying to catch a foul ball.

Cameras at the televised game between the Taipei Brother Elephants and Taoyuan’s Lamigo Monkeys, also caught the fan’s wife shouting at him afterwards.

Mr Bai later said “I was going to catch the ball using one hand but ended up lifting both hands and dropped my daughter.”

The girl said she slightly hurt one leg but was otherwise unhurt.

Do not miss the look – that look, dumbass – and somewhat “corrective” words from this guy’s wife at the end.

Mari Carmen Garcia set fire to the man found guilty of raping her youngest daughter in 1998 when she was 13 years old.

The man, identified only as Antonio C.V, had been sentenced to nine years for the crime but was on day release from prison in June 2005 when he approached his victim’s mother at a bus stop near her home in Benjuzar, near Alicante, on Spain’s Costa Blanca.

When he asked after her daughter, Mrs Garcia became so enraged she went and fetched a bottle of petrol, doused him with fuel and then set him alight. He died in hospital from the burns several days later.

Her case won her sympathy across Spain but a judge sentenced her to nine and a half years in jail, a sentence that was reduced to five years on appeal to the Supreme Court.

The court this week agreed to suspend her sentence pending an application for an official pardon for her crime after a petition bearing 5,000 signatures was handed to judicial authorities in her support. She had served a total of one year and ten days in prison…

But the lawyer representing the family of the rapist said it showed “preferential treatment”.

There are times when special circumstances and preferential treatment are legitimate expressions of justice. I am neither an advocate for vigilante justice or anarchy. But – sometimes – impulsive justice unrestrained might serve us better.

A man in Egypt has named his newborn daughter “Facebook” in honor of the role the social media network played in bringing about a revolution, according to a new report.

Gamal Ibrahim, a 20-something, gave his daughter the name “to express his joy at the achievements made by the January 25 youth,” according to a report in Al-Ahram, one of Egypt’s most popular newspapers.

Many young people used Facebook and other social media networks to organize the protests, which began January 25 and ultimately led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak after 30 years in power.

Rock on, dude! May your daughter enjoy the fruits from the tree of liberty and democracy.

Obvious threat to Arizona Anglos

The leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group has been convicted in a home invasion that left a 9-year-old girl and her father dead in what prosecutors said was an attempt to steal drug money to fund the group’s operations.

A Tucson jury found Shawna Forde, 42, guilty of murder in the May 2009 killings of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia at their home in Arivaca, a desert community 10 miles north of Mexico…

Forde is the leader of the Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group. Prosecutors argued that she planned the attack to help fund its anti-immigrant operations.

Forde, formerly of Everett, Wash., and two men dressed as law enforcement officers forced their way into Flores’ home then shot him, his daughter and wife, Gina Gonzalez, who survived her injuries after getting into a gun battle with the attackers, authorities said…

A 911 recording released by the Pima County sheriff’s office captured Gonzalez pleading for help after her husband and daughter were shot. She was heard crying out in pain from a gunshot wound then becoming frantic as the attackers returned.

The sound of nine gunshots was heard as Gonzalez engaged the intruders.

“Oh my God, I can’t believe they killed my family,” Gonzalez said on the recording.

Police said Gonzalez shot and wounded one of her attackers, Jason Eugene Bush, who officers believe was the gunman.

Another man, Albert Robert Gaxiola, is accused of providing information about the area.

Bush and Gaxiola go on trial in the spring.

Like many rightwing vigilantes. Forde preferred 2nd Amendment Justice instead of the real deal. I guess some of that was her own tweaked mental imbalance. Some just the product of absolute belief in the ideology of bigotry and fear.

Like most political cowards, she tried to weasel out of responsibility at the end.

“Twilight in Canyon Blue” by Jerry Anderson

In an act of extraordinary kindness, a Southwest Airlines pilot delayed his plane by 12 minutes to ensure a passenger would be able to say goodbye to his murdered grandson.

The man’s three-year-old grandchild had been killed by his daughter’s live-in boyfriend in Denver and was due to be taken off life support ahead of donating his organs…

Having been in Los Angeles on business, the man’s wife had arranged for him to transfer at Tucson airport in Arizona onto a flight bound for Denver to be with his bereaved daughter…

Yet, despite arriving at Los Angeles International Airport two hours before his flight was due to depart, lengthy check-in lines meant he faced a race against time to board on schedule.

Even after sprinting from the security checkpoint in his socks, the grandfather still arrived at the departure gate 12 minutes late…

According to a letter written to travel blog Elliott.org by the man’s wife, he was greeted by the pilot and ticketing agent with the words: ‘Are you Mark? We held the plane for you and we’re so sorry about the loss of your grandson…’

The letter continues: ‘As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

‘The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”’

Thanks to the kindness of the pilot, the man was able to reach his daughter in Denver and bid farewell to his grandson…

A Southwest spokesperson said the airline was ‘proud’ of the pilot’s behaviour.

My kind of pilot. My kind of airline. The rare corporation that hasn’t forgotten that human beings are the source of their income.

Very special thanks to Mr. Fusion.

A Florida woman was charged with trying to sell her infant son in order to pay for a new car…

The baby’s grandmother brokered the deal and initially demanded $75,000 but agreed to cut the price to $30,000 when told the prospective buyer could not get a bank loan, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) said.

The mother of the eight-week-old boy, Stephanie Bigbee Fleming, 22, of Bradenton, Florida, was to receive $9,000 of the proceeds, the FDLE said.

“Fleming planned to purchase a new vehicle from the money received,” an FDLE spokeswoman said.

Fleming also needed money to pay court costs for an unrelated probation violation, the arrest documents said.

Fleming was arrested Tuesday. The grandmother, Patty Bigbee, 45, was arrested last week…

The baby remains in state custody.

The rest of the family should remain in state custody. For a long, long time.

A woman has been arrested over allegations that she murdered her pregnant journalist daughter for falling in love with a boy from a lower caste.

Nirupama Pathak, 22, who worked for the Business Standard, a leading financial newspaper in Delhi, was found dead last week at her family home in the northern state of Jharkhand.

Her mother, Sudha Devi, was arrested yesterday.

“There are indications that family pride was the prime motive behind the murder,” a police spokesman told reporters.

Nirupama’s family are Brahmins, who are at the top of India’s caste hierarchy. She is understood to have agreed to marry her college sweetheart, Priyabhanshu Ranjan, another journalist, who reportedly comes from the lower Kayastha caste…

Police said their suspicions were raised when the mother gave conflicting explanations for her daughter’s death, first claiming that Nirupama had been electrocuted then stating that she had committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan…

Honour killings are not rare in India, but cases involving middle-class families seldom come to court.

“If the charge sticks, it will be a rare case in which an educated middle-class woman will face trial for murdering her own daughter,” the Indian Express newspaper said.

Overdue.