Four heroin addict prisoners received thousands of pounds in compensation last year after being forced to go cold turkey. Two inmates at Stafford Prison, one at Sudbury Open Prison and one at Dovegate, near Uttoxeter, were each paid £3,807.
What happens if an alcoholic gets thrown into prison? Can they sue if they don’t get a beer?
You have to feel sorry for the police officers who are working in that kind of environment. Especially as they seem to be understaffed.
If you don’t have your head in the sand, you know that there is a big offensive underway in Iraq. One of the first reporters on scene is Michael Yon and you can find his first report here. Not much info so far, but I would keep an eye on his site if you are interested in the details of this offensive as it unfolds.
Also, check out this story by Michael Yon. Not because of how it relates to the war, but because of the portrait he gives of a modern Bedouin.
I left this comment over at the Belmont Club.
Wretchard,
I share Teague’s concerns though I am not sure why he chose this particular post to raise those concerns. Nonetheless, the substance of Teague’s comment is an issue that I would like to see you address in greater detail, because your answer to Teague seems to miss Click Here to continue reading.
In this rant, The EU Referendum wonders why the European council of ministers has over ruled the European Union’s high court and put The People’s Mujahideen of Iran on its list of terrorist organizations. After all, The People’s Mujahideen of Iran opposes the Iranian government and supposedly most European governments would like to see the government in Iran change. So why are they overruling their own courts to call it a terrorist organization?
This has been all over the net, so I have been trying to avoid it myself. But it is kind of hard to avoid something like this…..
Before trial began yesterday in the case of the D.C. judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaners after they lost his pants, the most extraordinary fact was Roy Pearson’s demand for $65 million in damages.
That was before Pearson, an administrative law judge, broke down while testifying about the emotional pain of having the cleaners give him the wrong pants.
That was from the Washington Post and it really does not need much commentary.
Since this week’s Essay of the Week is about death and society it is only right that this weeks rant should be about society and death. And so we present a British Inspector’s rant on the indignities that modern regulations force on the dead and the grieving.
In American, the word conservative can mean so many things in a political context as to be practically meaningless. There are conservatives who believe in relatively open borders and who celebrate immigration and there are conservatives who want a wall around the entire country. There are conservatives who want a strong federal government that will fight evil both here and abroad and there are conservatives who would prefer that the federal government barely exist.
One thing that seems to unite them all though, is a disdain for that false civility know as political correctness. That is what this week’s rant is all about.
The European Commission is currently undertaking legal action against 14 member states for failing to enforce landfill regulations, with large fines expected to follow. Similar waste disposal crises have led to strikes and riots in Greece and Bulgaria this year, while Britain was recently warned that landfill capacity will be exceeded by 2016.
Naples’ rubbish crisis may worsen tomorrow with the planned closure of the only remaining working landfill in the area. The southern Italian city has been turned into a stinking dump this week as rubbish collectors have gone on strike complaining that they have nowhere to take it. Angry residents have burnt refuse piled up in the streets. Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano, in a letter published this week in the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, appealed for a quick solution, warning that further delay would “precipitate an ecological and health disaster, with serious economic and labour repercussions.”
Collectors have stopped hauling the rubish away because they have nowhere to take it. The government has approved construction of more dumps but there have been delays in getting them working because of opposition from local communities.
The Blog called the EU referendum has some nice pictures of the mess. They blame the EU rules for the problem. And I can well believe that EU is a contributing factor. But not all the blame cannot be put on the EU doorstep (this from France 24)….
The chronic problem is the result of a lack of space in existing dumps, some of which have been closed by court injunctions after their operations were taken over by organised crime, dubbed the “ecomafia.”
A May 10 decree by the centre-left government creating four new dumps — fiercely opposed by people living nearby — will not come into effect for several weeks.
Lebanese army has been fighting an Islamic militant group and I have been somewhat surprised by how they have been performing. I had always thought that the Lebanese army main function in life was to avoid conflict. They avoid conflict with the Israelies. They avoid conflict with the Syrians. They avoid conflict with Hezbollah. But apparently, they are not averse to shooting Palestinians. This makes a certain amount of sense. None of the warring parties in Lebanon like the Palestinians. Even Hezbollah does not really care.
Snark aside, Fatah al Islam started the fight and it seem like the Lebanese army is going to finish it. I think that this was a bit of a surprise to Fatah al Islam. I don’t really think they expected to have this big of a fight on their hands. All they wanted was some money. This from the LA Times…
A bank heist Saturday led to the raid that started the fighting.
Four men believed to be members of the militant group robbed a bank near Tripoli, threatening tellers with guns and a homemade bomb before speeding off with $125,000 and a bag of blank checks in their black Mercedes, security officials said.
The next day, Lebanese security forces trying to arrest the suspected robbers were met with a barrage of bullets and grenades from an apartment in an affluent Tripoli neighborhood where the suspects had barricaded themselves. Soldiers later killed 10 men inside the apartment. Several were wearing explosives belts, officials said.
Two of the men were identified by the officials as Abu Yassen and Saddam Hajj Did, believed to be key leaders of Fatah al Islam. Other members of the group, meanwhile, overran a Lebanese checkpoint, and fighting spread to the camp.
I think the Lebanese response has been fiercer than Fatah al Islam bargained for. That is why I imagine they have just announced a unilateral cease fire. It is sort of like a request to the Lebanese army not to hurt them any more.
Not that it has been easy for the poor Lebanese army.
Fatah al-Islam gunmen fired at troops throughout the day. At times, gunmen and soldiers, separated by only a few dozen feet, faced off across a road bordering the camp. Families from surrounding towns fled along the same road, dodging gunfire.
Lebanese soldiers in armored vehicles lined up along the road served as warriors and traffic cops. When gunshots sounded from fighters hiding in the brush along the other side, military gunners held up a hand to hold back fleeing residents long enough for the soldiers to squeeze off several high-caliber rounds, then waved the civilian vehicles on.
At midday, Lebanese soldiers careened down the road in civilian cars, shouting warnings that militant fighters had broken out of the camp. “Go inside! Protect yourself!” soldiers shouted.
“Fatah al-Islam is coming!” small boys screamed as they ran along the road. Ambulances and U.N. vehicles with horns honking sped past them, retreating among scores of civilian vehicles.
At Borj Arab, a small town about 1 1/2 miles from the camp, 7-year-old Mohammed al-Mouri leapt for the handle on the metal shutter of his family’s sweets shop, struggling to pull the shutter down with his weight as women up and down the street hustled children inside and men took to rooftops with family guns.
“Do you hear the shooting? They are coming!” his 20-year-old sister, Tamam al-Mouri, said inside. “Everyone is afraid. There are children, and they will shoot them.”
Government officials said at least 60 people had been killed — 30 soldiers, 15 militants and 15 civilians — in the fighting that began when a police raid on bank robbers early Sunday escalated into one of Lebanon’s most significant security crises since the end of the civil war in 1990.
The militant group, Fatah al Islam, which is thought to have links to Al Qaeda, fired antiaircraft guns and mortars and had night vision goggles and other sophisticated equipment. The Lebanese Army does not have such gear.
Here is a Belmont post with interesting links on the subject.
Lebanese troops are using a small mosque as a front-line position. It overlooked the beginning of the camp, a row of shell-pocked and smoke-blackened three or four-storey apartment buildings, 200 yards away beyond a dense orchard of orange trees. Among the soldiers were several local civilians, dressed in jeans and T-shirts and wearing green canvas ammunition pouches. Most of them were veteran militiamen from Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war who had volunteered to help the army to fight the Islamist militants in the camp.
