Posts Tagged ‘remove’
Villagers told “move your cars” so caravan can be illegally parked
Villagers have reacted with fury after being ordered to move their cars so that police can escort an extra wide mobile home to an “illegal” travellers’ site.
They have been told to move their cars off the road so that the 15 foot wide mobile home can be delivered to the site which has been ruled illegal but which is subject to a planning appeal. The wide load will be accompanied by a police motorcyclist and Land Rover and any cars blocking the path face being removed.
Two caravans have occupied Three-Cornered Piece, in East Harting, West Sussex, since 2009 after self-proclaimed “travellers” from a village 15 miles away moved in on a Bank Holiday weekend.
Now villagers in South Harting, are up in arms that they risk having their vehicles towed away by police if they don’t remove them from one of the two main village streets. Two days ago they found a notice on their car windscreens saying: “Will owners of vehicles please make sure that there (sic) vehicles are removed from these roads until after the abnormal load has passed, which should hopefully be by 2pm Friday.
“Any vehicle that is obstructing this movement will be towed away at the owners’ expense.”
The occupation led to a planning inspector’s inquiry, but Eric Pickles’s Local Government department stepped in to rule the land agricultural…
The caravanners are claiming that the mobile home is a “replacement” for one of the other much smaller caravans. A concrete base for it is already laid, even though a retrospective planning application for that and a septic tank has yet to be considered.
A spokesman for Sussex Police said: “At the moment, this is not an illegal site. The court case is pending. We’re blind to the wider sensitivities of the case.
In my peaceful neighborhood, someone attempting to do something like might be met with the neighborhood lying in the road to halt the procession. The saddest part – as I’m certain everyone in East Harting already realizes – is that the local coppers are “blind to the wider sensitivities” of an illegal act.
So, if someone decided to open an illegal gambling casino in their potting shed the police wouldn’t get in the way of that endeavor either?
Hogwash. Lazy coppers. Incompetent roads administration. Politicians with the testicles of a fruit fly.
Man with a ring stuck on his penis … and other fire brigade stories
Not the best tool for removing stuck rings from swollen, um, members
A man who turned up at hospital with a ring stuck on his penis had to be cut free by 10 firefighters, according to data released by the London fire brigade.
It took firefighters 20 minutes to remove the ring after staff at Queen Elizabeth hospital, Woolwich, were unable to prise it from the man’s genitals.
Two fire engines were dispatched to perform the delicate procedure, which took place in May this year. Two? One to watch and learn?
It was just one of three incidents in which firefighters were called to remove a ring stuck on a penis between April 2010 to May 2011, records show.
The disclosure is one of 417 incidents attended by London’s firefighters involving people stuck in objects, machinery and furniture – not including road traffic accidents…
The removal of rings from fingers accounted for 160 incidents, while 74 people had “other” objects removed. Some 133 people had become trapped in or under machinery or other objects, and 14 people were impaled.
Dave Brown, the brigade’s assistant commissioner for operations and mobilising, said: “You wouldn’t believe some of the incidents we’re called to deal with…we’d ask the public to take greater care to avoid getting themselves into these often ridiculous situations, and to think carefully before dialling 999 and calling us out if there isn’t an emergency.”
Phew? I never matched any of these. But, barely.
Several years back, picking up one end of a heavy chest-of-drawers to help move it a few feet, I felt the tendon in my ring finger pop and let go. Fortunately, I knew what would happen if I wasn’t quick enough to react. I immediately ran into the bathroom and held my hand under the cold water while I worked my wedding ring off asap. Within a minute that finger was double normal size – and I would have been in need of someone to cut the ring off if I hadn’t already forced it off.
And, no, I’ve never gotten near any other portions of my anatomy threatened by something similar. 
Polish party calls for removal of crosses from public buildings
A new Polish political party has ruffled conservative feathers in the Catholic country with a campaign to have the cross ousted from public buildings.
Supporters of the party want the crosses removed, or hung alongside the Star of David, in an attempt to diminish the power of the Church.
In a clear challenge to the strong and omnipresent influence of the Catholic Church in Poland, members of the Support Janusz Palikot party caused outrage in the city of Szczecin by trying to hang Jewish and Muslim symbols in the town’s council chamber alongside the Christian cross, before removing the cross…
The Christian cross is ubiquitous in government buildings in Poland and hangs from thousands of walls in schools and hospitals across the country.
A maverick politician – who said last week that “Poles have been slaves to the Catholic Church for a 1,000 years” – Mr Palikot argued that under the Polish constitution Poland is officially a secular state and therefore there should be no religious symbols.
As an alternative, he said that as the constitution guarantees the equality of all faiths, no one symbol should take precedent.
“Why should there be only one religious symbol?” the politician asked in a television interview.
“I’m all for removing all of them but that would be treated as an attack on the Church.”
We should run this dude for office in Chicago. After we take out a life insurance policy on him.
PR firm ordered to remove phony iTunes reviews
A public relations company and its owner have been cited for having staff post glowing reviews of game applications for companies it represents at the online iTunes store.
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Reverb Communications and its owner Tracie Snitker engaged in deceptive advertising by having its employees pose as ordinary consumers when posting the reviews.
“Companies, including public relations firms involved in online marketing need to abide by long-held principles of truth in advertising,” said Mary Engle, director of the FTC’s advertising practices division.
The California-based Reverb Communications represents dozens of major video game companies and developers.
The FTC, however, claims Reverb did not disclose the reviews were written by its staff, nor that they were hired to promote the games and that they often received a percentage of the sales.
That information is relevant to consumers who were using the endorsements as a guide to whether or not to buy the games…
Under a proposed settlement order, Reverb will have to remove any previously posted endorsements that misrepresent the authors as ordinary consumers.
Sleaze ain’t any less relevant when it’s geeks and gamers indulging in the practice.
Australia’s turn to deal with burkas in a court case
A Muslim woman has sparked a national debate in Australia after she said she would feel uncomfortable giving evidence in a A$1 million fraud trial unless she were able to wear a burka.
The woman, who is a witness for the prosecution, has asked a judge at Perth District Court for permission to appear in the full burka, which covers the whole body except the eyes and hands.
Mark Ritter, a lawyer for the prosecution, told the court that the woman, who has only been identified by her first name Tasneem, wanted to give evidence but would feel uncomfortable without the burka and that could prejudice the way she presented her evidence.
“It goes beyond stress, it would have a negative impact,” he said…
Tasneem, 36, has lived in Australia for seven years and has worn the burka since the age of 17, he said. She had worn the veil while passing through customs and is photographed in it on her driving licence.
She would usually only remove it for her family and male blood relatives at home, he said because “female modesty is a very important part of the religion.”
However, the defence team have argued that wearing the burka is a cultural, not a religious, choice and that it would prevent the jury from reading her facial expressions during her testimony.
Lawyers for the defence also said that in Islamic courts women were obliged to remove their veils. They suggested allowing Tasneem to appear via video link with a limited number of people present in the court.
In the history of Islam, the burka is in fact cultural. Preferred in some countries. Required in a few. Accepted or rejected as a political statement in some Muslim nations.
I don’t believe she can argue for it legitimately – as a point of religious principle.
Not that “legitimate” has much to do with how attorneys would/will approach the question. The essential premise of most legal pleading – as opposed to jurisprudence – is getting a victory regardless of how you achieve it. Sophistry was invented for lawyers.
GM’s dealers told to stop selling non-GM brands
General Motors Corp. has told its roughly 4,000 surviving dealers to stop selling non-GM brands in their showrooms by the end of this year, said an official of the company.
Mark LaVeve, GM’s vice president for sales, services and marketing, told the Detroit News in a letter that the dealers must also be prepared to sell more vehicles and improve the look of their showrooms, if necessary.
GM is seeking to close at least 2,400 of its nearly 6,200 dealers during its stay in bankruptcy court.
The company said it expects that its continuing dealers will remove non-GM brands from the GM showroom by Dec. 31, 2009, and will operate a showroom exclusive to GM products going forward…
Nearly 90 percent of GM’s continuing dealers have signed or verbally agreed to the participation agreements, while 75 percent of the closing dealerships have agreed, the company said.
Of course, the latter are still appealing to on high to retain their dealerships.
Brits will destroy DNA database profiles of 800,000 innocents
The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, will publish plans this week for the destruction of the DNA profiles of nearly a million innocent people from the police national database. The government’s response follows a ruling by the European court of human rights last year that the practice of retaining the DNA profiles was illegal.
In a retreat from plans to get round the judgment, first reported in the Guardian in February, the new proposals will also include the destruction of all physical samples, such as mouth swabs, hair and blood. They will be published in a consultation paper on forensics.
Smith told the Observer today that there were genuine concerns over the size and scope of the DNA database. “It is crucial that we do everything we can to keep the public safe from crime and bring offenders to justice,” she said. “The DNA database plays a vital role in helping us do that. However, there has to be a balance between the need to protect the public and respecting their rights. Based on risks versus benefits, our view is that we can now destroy all samples.”
Of the 5.1 million people on the database, about 800,000 have no criminal conviction; they may have been arrested and never charged, or taken to court and found not guilty. After the court ruling last December which criticised the “blanket and indiscriminate nature” of the UK regime, Smith ordered the profiles of all young children to be removed immediately, and indicated that time limits would be introduced for those not convicted of any crime.
Civil liberty groups will be anxious to see how long the police are allowed to keep the DNA data before they are required to remove it.
The next step.
Lose 10 Facebook friends and get yourself a free Whopper
The labyrinthine world of social networking can be confusing for everyone, particularly small-business owners trying to figure out how platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter fit into their business plans. If you or your company is already on Facebook, chances are your account is already cluttered with “friends” you may not even know, or with PR reps who want to keep visible. If you can think of 10 of them you want to remove, Burger King will give you a Whopper, for free…
This week, fast-food giant Burger King released a Facebook application that gives you a free Whopper burger for every 10 friends you delete. On the Web site Whopper Sacrifice, Burger King keeps a tally that records the number of friends who have been sacrificed for the company’s signature sandwich offering.
The promotion is limited to one coupon per account, so don’t go thinking you can “sacrifice” your entire tech department and eat for a week (though that may be a tempting thought). At the time of this article’s publication, 54,563 friends have been deemed less important than a mouthful of bread, meat and vegetables.
I’m already confident about our evolution as omnivores. A certain portion of that relied on animal protein. Killed and eaten – or found lying on the ground and eaten.
Over the counter is OK, too.
Does your dog rattle when he walks?
A dog had to have 13 golf balls removed from his stomach after eating them on walks near a golf course.
Oscar, a five-year-old black Labrador, was taken to the vet after his owner noticed a rattling noise coming from his pet.
The vet, Bob Hesketh, was stunned: “When I went into his stomach I was expecting one or two balls, but they just kept coming.” One of the balls had been in Oscar’s stomach so long, it had turned black.
Oscar’s owner, Chris Morrison, takes the dog for regular walks near Pitreavie golf course in Dunfermline, Fife. Oscar is thought to have swallowed the balls over a period of months.
Morrison said: “He normally picks up golf balls and brings them home but must have been swallowing some all along. He hunts them down like truffles. He finds them in all sorts of places where golfers lose them.”
Oscar obviously wasn’t being fed enough. Right?
Every Lab thinks he’s not being fed enough.
