Eideard

Oy, we saw you picking yer nose!

Metropolitan police officers fired a Taser nine times at a man sitting on a train in the belief he was carrying a weapon in his briefcase.

The use of Tasers on a train comes as the commissioner of the Met police, Bernard Hogan-Howe…said this week he wanted to see more Tasers in response cars and Scotland Yard has confirmed work is going on to review the availability of Tasers for its officers…

BTP said Tasers were used by Met officers to restrain Justice Livingstone when he failed to comply with officers’ requests to remain seated. Scotland Yard said a Taser was fired several times after the suspect moved towards officers while shouting and refusing to move his hands from his pockets.

The Met police and British Transport Police said the suspect was in possession of an “imitation” firearm.

Livingstone, who said he had no history of mental health problems, had bought the toy gun earlier for his son’s birthday. “It was 99p,” he said…

“…they jumped at me and used the Taser four times at my chest. That did not have any effect, I felt no current. They then held me down, grabbed on to my head and pinned me down and shot me in the back of the head with the Taser three times and I felt the current…

Livingstone said he was taken to a police station in Victoria where…he was stripped naked, he said, and refused access to a lawyer.

He was eventually sent to Bethlem Royal hospital in Beckenham where he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. But on Wednesday, after he made an appeal to the mental health tribunal, he was released and is now at his home in south London…

BTP said its officers were called along with the Met to reports that a man was on the platform waving a gun.

Livingstone said he would be making a formal complaint about his treatment.

At this point the story is pretty confused. I know a fair bit about the fog or war and comparable foggy minds in the heat of civil conflict. Police are as likely as civilians to jump to conclusions based on what they expect to confront – regardless of the facts.

If this ever gets to court and the coppers place in evidence a 99p toy gun made of orange plastic – I don’t think they stand a prayer of getting away without paying a considerable amount in compensation to Mr. Livingstone. Especially if they allow photos of his injuries.

A bullet train was halted in Japan the beginning of the week after a snake was found coiled on a passenger seat.

The red and black snake, measuring three feet in length, was discovered by a surprised conductor shortly before 9am on board the Kodama 642 bullet train just outside Kyoto in Shiga prefecture.

Staff immediately halted the train before a worker from a nearby animal protection centre was sent to the scene to remove the snake from the seat.

The reptile is currently being treated as lost property by police, who suspect it may be the escaped pet of a rail passenger. They are currently searching for its owner…

The animal is believed to be a Honduran milk snake, which is commonly bred in captivity and has become a popular pet choice due to its distinct colouring.

Bullet train operators normally request that passengers do not bring animals other than small birds or fish in containers on board their vehicles.

There are so many delightful differences in culture delivered on our cyber-doorstep in this article. We start by boarding a bullet train – something we’ll probably not see in the United States in the next couple of decades.

Then we see transportation staff treating the incident as lost goods from a perfectly ordinary passenger. Stateside, there could be a search of the train for poisonous snakes deliberately planted as part of a terrorist plot – eventually leading to a Congressional mandate for increased spending on searching train passengers – accompanied, of course, by a matching bill to reduce research in herpetology to keep the budget balanced.

Vietnamese authorities are on alert for animal smugglers after four bags of deadly snakes were found on a train from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, according to local press reports.

The bags contained an undetermined number of snakes including some king cobras, the on-line news service VnExpress reported.

A guard and a conductor found them while inspecting the train when it made a stop at Quang Ngai railway station on Thursday, the website reported. The guard and conductor were not injured.

Passengers panicked when they heard about the snakes…NSS

The snakes, which are protected by law in Vietnam, were handed over to the Quang Ngai forest protection agency on Friday and released into the wild…

The king cobra is the world’s longest venomous snake with a length up to 13 feet according to New York’s Bronx Zoo…

I could tell you how far away to stay from a cobra to be safe – but, I doubt if most of you need that particular information as part of your skill set.

Animal welfare officers in Wales were on Thursday trying to trace a man seen trying to board a train with a pony.

CCTV images showed the pair unsuccessfully attempting to buy a ticket at a station in Wrexham. The man then led the horse onto the platform as a train pulled in, but they were turned away by the conductor.

Later in the day the man also took the horse to a hospital in the town, media reports say.

Wrexham Council’s animal welfare staff are now trying to speak to the man to confirm the horse is not in danger, spokeswoman Gill Stevens told CNN…

Arriva Trains Wales said dogs and other small pets were allowed to travel on its trains, but larger animals such as horses were banned for “common sense” reasons.

A spokesman said: “Apart from dogs all other animals have to be in a basket or a cage. Obviously it’s common sense that we don’t allow horses or ponies on the train. He tried to buy a ticket and was refused and then left the station.”

Are we certain the horse wasn’t trying to put the man on the train?

Yeah – that’s what I thought, too, when I first read it

The U.S. Marine Corps will shrink about 13 percent but refocus as a rapid-reaction force after the war in Afghanistan winds down, a top general said. The service will drop to 186,800 from the current force of 202,000, said Lt. General George Flynn, deputy commandant for combat development and integration.

The figure is more than 10,000 troops greater than before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Stars and Stripes reported.

The belt-tightening comes at the direction of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who ordered a “force structure review” to set the service’s future size, roles and missions…

The service does not expect to see “sustained operations in the future” like Iraq and Afghanistan, Flynn told reporters in a conference call.

But the Marines, which date from 1775 and fought in the Revolutionary War, will still be on call to respond to humanitarian crises, evacuate embassies, rescue Americans stranded overseas, train foreign militaries and, if needed, engage in traditional combat, he said.

Washington and the Pentagon do everything in slow motion. They should be getting down to less than what they had at the beginning of Clinton’s Administration.

Let’s get a little back for taxpayers from that “Peace Dividend”.

As the Eurotunnel train from Folkestone to Calais slowed to a halt in France, its passengers were no doubt looking forward to disembarking and enjoying their trip to the other side of the Channel. But rather than being allowed to drive off the stationary train, more than 20 passengers looked on powerlessly as the locomotive doors remained shut and the train powered straight back to Kent.

The “forgotten” passengers using the Channel tunnel to travel to France were in seven vehicles that had been loaded behind a wagon left empty after a fuel spill.

Eurotunnel staff at Calais unloaded the front vehicles on the train without realising there were seven loaded cars behind the empty wagon.

The unfortunate passengers, who minutes earlier had watched the Calais branch of the tunnel approaching, now saw the terminus retreat as they sped back to Folkestone…

On returning to Kent, the passengers were met by Eurotunnel management staff, who apologised, organised transport back to Calais and offered them a refund and a free crossing in the future.

“We have apologised profusely,” a Eurotunnel spokesman said…

Sure.

Someone probably mentioned the World Cup. And Sarkozy ordered their expulsion.

President Obama mentioned an $8 billion investment in high-speed train systems across the country in his State of the Union speech on Wednesday.

Details released Thursday said the investment would be grants from the government’s $862 billion economic stimulus package to begin the planning and initial work on creating the first nationwide program of high-speed intercity passenger rail service.

Overall, projects and planning involving the rail corridors will take place in 31 states, according to a White House statement.

RTFA for key cities on the network

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were scheduled to travel to Tampa, Florida…to formally announce the program. Other Cabinet members and administration officials also were visiting sites of the program in other states…

The statement described the program as “a long-term venture in which states will need to plan projects, purchase and lay track, build and assemble equipment, and construct or upgrade train stations, tunnels and bridges.”

Here in New Mexico we just finished construction, opening up rail service from south of Albuquerque to Santa Fe, the state capitol. The road bed looks good enough to me to serve high-speed trains; but, realistically, we haven’t the population and traffic [yet] to justify such a service.

Phew!

A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks.

The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for traveling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said…

Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 meters, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.

The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake. Rescues services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains.

The man — unharmed except for cuts and bruises — now faces charges of dangerous interference in rail transport, insulting the train staff, and may face sizeable a compensation claim for the delays he caused, police said.

Halfway to qualifying for a Darwin Award.

Click if you wish – NSFW

A drunk French teenager narrowly escaped death on Sunday after falling asleep on a railway track and slumbering undisturbed as a high-speed train roared over him, police said.

The 19-year old, whose name was not released, remained fast asleep face down on a stretch of track near Saint Nolff in southern Brittany, as the Quimper to Paris train passed, leaving only a few grease stains on the back of his jacket.

The driver saw the body lying on the tracks and slammed on the brakes, but was only able to stop a few hundred meters further on.

“It was his unconscious state that saved him really, as he lay there completely still like a dead body,” said a spokesman for the local police force, adding that the clearance under the train is only around 20 centimeters…

Roused by police and fire fighters who attended the scene, the young man gave a one-fingered salute before rolling over and going back to sleep.

He was subsequently transferred to a nearby hospital where police say he is still recovering from his alcohol binge.

Senseless – comes to mind.