 The number of escaped prisoners is on the increase |
Official figures show the number of prisoners absconding is on the rise, with over 1,200 escaping last year.
The Home Office responded saying the cost of calculating the number of prisoners at large would be too expensive.
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The Gay Old Party Award honors Republicans whose relationship with homosexuality is conflicted at best. The nominees are...
Tom Coburn: The newly elected senator from Oklahoma warned that "lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in Southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom."
Ed Schrock: The Virginia representative, husband, father, and practicing Baptist was also a cosponsor of the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and, according to the National Journal, the second most conservative member of the House. Schrock dropped his bid for reelection after blogger Mike Rogers posted voice messages that Schrock allegedly left, trolling for hook-ups, on a gay telephone dating service. "I have to be incredibly careful, incredibly discreet," the voice on the recording says. "I cannot overemphasize that."
David Dreier: The California representative has steered dozens of antigay bills through Congress, from a 1998 bill to prevent couples in D.C. from adopting kids to the 2004 Marriage Protection Act. Blogger Rogers also targeted Dreier, granting him the "Roy Cohn Award" for "24 years of working against gay and lesbian rights while living as a gay man yourself." Such rumors have dogged the 52-year-old bachelor, who, when pressed about his sexuality in an August radio interview, said: "I'm not going to talk about that issue. That's really not what I'm here about."
Rick Santorum: The junior senator from Pennsylvania—who denounces sodomy in vivid detail to almost anyone who visits him in the nation's capital—is nominated simply because he doth protest too much.
John Cornyn: The senator from Texas issued a statement in which he advocated a constitutional ban on gay marriage with the following logic: "It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. . . . Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife."
AND THE WINNER IS… Tom Coburn, who followed up his talk of rampant teen lesbianism with the exhortation, "Now think about it!"—without realizing that most men have been thinking about it since they were 15.
Monday, December 27, 2004
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- A former Ohio Army Reserve commander who was court-martialed for taking abandoned Army vehicles in Kuwait so her unit could carry out its mission in Iraq returned home Monday after serving a six-month sentence.
"What we did, we did at that time because we thought we needed to do that," Maj. Cathy Kaus said at Dayton International Airport, adding that she would do it "all over again" if put in the same circumstances.
Kaus, released Monday from a Navy brig in San Diego, said she was convicted of theft, willful neglect, abandonment and conspiracy of abandonment.
She was among six Ohio reservists from the Springfield-based 656th Transportation Company who were court-martialed. Members of the unit said they needed the equipment to deliver fuel to U.S. forces in Iraq.
They took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that had already moved into Iraq.
96 YEARS AGO TODAY
Dec 28, 1908
On December 28, 1908, at approximately 5:20am, Europe's most powerful earthquake shook southern Italy. Centered in the Messina Strait, which separates Sicily from Calabria, the quake's magnitude equaled a 7.5 by today's Richter scale. Moments after the quake's first jolt, a devastating tsunami formed, causing forty-foot waves to crash down on dozens of coastal cities.
Most of southern Italy's cities lost as many as half their residents that morning. The population of the city of Messina alone -- 150,000 -- was reduced to only hundreds; the total death toll throughout Italy was estimated at nearly 200,000. Accounts of shaking and aftershocks were reported throughout Sicily. Signs of the jolt even appeared in Washington, D.C., where the day's crude technology picked up signals of the disaster.
"An instant of the power of the elements has scourged two noble provinces – noble and dear – demolishing many centuries of construction and civilization. It is not only a misfortune for the Italian people; it is a misfortune for mankind, hence the compassionate cry burst forth on either side of the Alps and of the seas, melting and blending together, in a competition of sacrifice and of brotherhood, every person, every class, every nationality. It is the compassion of the living that attempts the resurgence of mankind over the violence of the earth. Perhaps the terrible picture is not yet full in our minds, nor precise the conception of the great misfortune, nor are we yet able to sound the depths of the abyss, from whose dreadful bottom we wish to arise. We know that the damage is immense, and that great and immediate provision is necessary." - Report to the Senate of the Kingdom
Man-made or massive natural disasters may be followed by 'epidemics' of the muscle crush syndrome. The first descriptions of the crush syndrome were after the earthquake of Messina.
Crush syndrome is a condition that may occur if a large bulk of muscle is crushed, e.g. if a patient is crushed by falling masonary.
This condition is characterised by the development of a profound shock. If a limb has been trapped, it will become pulseless on release. Later, it will become red, swollen and blistered. There may be loss of sensation and muscle power.
Acute renal failure may set in during the first sixty hours after release. If renal function does not return then the patient may die within 14 days.
In order to avoid the development of this syndrome any limb that has been severely crushed should be amputated. 
Those who survived the quake faced the bleakest of realities. Their homes were destroyed, their family members were dead, and the cities around them were reduced to rubble. The Italian government relocated many of the Messina survivors to new cities within Italy. Others were forced to emigrate to America. In 1909 a cargo ship, the"Florida" carried 850 such passengers away from Naples. The "Florida" would transport the survivors to a new life in New York City.
Lost in dense fog, the "Florida" collided with the "Republic," a luxury passenger liner. Three people aboard the "Florida" were killed instantly. Within minutes, pandemonium broke out on the ship. The captain of the "Florida," Angelo Ruspini, used extreme measures to regain control of the desperate passengers, including firing gunshots into the air.
After being rescued at sea, the damaged "Florida" and the Messina earthquake survivors arrived in New York's harbor. Shaken and unnerved, the immigrants confronted a new challenge: to begin their lives again.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rescue/peopleevents/pandeAMEX99.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9189260&dopt=Abstract
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=3651
http://www.gpnotebook.co.uk/cache/470155269.htm
Army Sgt. Jeremy Preston directs Scott Weber as he loads some of the armor. (Stephen Brooks -- Jefferson City News Tribune Via AP)
A YEAR AGO:
Army Thin-Skinned Over Homemade Armor JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Fearing roadside bombs and sniper bullets, members of the U.S. Army Reserve's 428th Transportation Company turned to a local steel fabricator to fashion extra armor for their five-ton trucks and Humvees before beginning their journey to Iraq earlier this month. But their armor might not make it into the war, because the soldiers did not obtain Pentagon approval "There's policy you have to consider before you go out on your own and try to do something." The 72 vehicles operated by the 428th have thin metal floorboards and, in some cases, a canvas covering for doors. The soldiers persuaded a local funeral home director who is active in community affairs to pay the $4,000 tab for 13,000 pounds of quarter-inch steel. |
From Sir Arthur regarding the recent tsunamis in South and Southeast Asia:
Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of Sunday’s devastating tidal wave.
I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction.
But many others were not so fortunate. For hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and an unknown number of foreign tourists, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow.
Among those affected are my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa and holiday bungalow in Kahawa – both beachfront properties located in areas worst hit. We still don’t know the fully extent of damage as both roads and phones have been damaged. Early reports indicate that we have lost most of our diving equipment and boats. Not all our staff members are accounted for – yet.
This is indeed a disaster of unprecedented magnitude for Sri Lanka which lacks the resources and capacity to cope with the aftermath. We are all trying to contribute to the relief efforts. We shall keep you informed as we learn more about what happened.
Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean.
Arthur Clarke
27 December 2004
A friend stopped at a pay-at-the-pump gas station to get gas. Once she filled her gas tank and after paying at the pump and starting to leave, the voice of the attendant inside came over the speaker. He told her that something happened with her card and that she needed to come inside to pay. The lady was confused because the transaction showed complete and approved. She relayed that to him and was getting ready to leave but the attendant, once again, urged her to come in to pay or there'd be trouble. She
proceeded to go inside and started arguing with the attendant about his threat. He told her to calm down and listen carefully.
He said that while she was pumping gas, a guy slipped into the back seat of her car on the other side and the attendant had already called the police.
She became frightened and looked out in time to see her car door open and the guy slip out. The report is that the new gang initiation thing is to bring back a woman and/or her car. One way they are doing this is crawling under women's cars while they're pumping gas or at grocery stores in the nighttime. The other way is slipping into unattended cars and kidnapping the women.
Please pass this on to other women, young and old alike. Be extra careful going to and from your car at night. If at all possible, don't go alone! This is real!!
Barbara Baker, Secretary Directorate of Training U.S. Army Military Police School
From u_d1rt1ed_up_my_s0ul
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 - The Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
It has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises. The cutbacks come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.
Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services and other charities have suspended or eliminated programs that were intended to help the poor feed themselves through improvements in farming, education and health.
"We had approval for all of these programs, often a year in advance. We hired staff, signed agreements with governments and with local partners, and now we have had to delay everything," said Lisa Kuennen, a food aid expert at Catholic Relief Services.
Officials say the food aid budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 was at least $600 million less than what charities and aid agencies would need to carry out current programs.
Ellen Levinson, head of the Food Aid Coalition, said the best estimate for the amount of food that was not delivered in November and December was "at least $100 million."
From mezamashii
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