Steve had been unhappy for years and his career in accounting at PWC had not given him the satisfaction he craved. After being dismissed for gross misconduct at the office party (and divorced for the same incident) he finally found peace and happiness as a greeter at his local Walmart. Shortly after this picture was taken he was promoted to store manager and announced his engagement to his long-term partner “Tiddles”.
A city in Xinjiang province in the PRC (Peoples’ Republic of China) has banned matches & burned-up more than 20,000 boxes of them as part of their own “war against terror”, a state-run newspaper said.
In Fukang, which sits near regional capital Urumqi, the authorities decided to remove all matches from circulation to ensure they are not used by “terrorist groups or individual extremists to carry out criminal activities”, the People’s Daily said on its website.
Police destroyed 20,223 boxes of matches, which will ensure that the city maintains its current peaceful environment, the newspaper claimed, citing an unnamed local government official.
The Fukang mayor’s office made the original announcement last week but it was only picked up by national media yesterday. The statement didn’t explain how the matches have been used for “criminal activities.”
This brave, new experiment in crime prevention comes after a spate of bloody incidents nationwide allegedly centered on Xinjiang, the traditional home of the Muslim Uighurs. The government of the PRC has blamed attacks on Islamist separatists in the region, who, it says, want to establish an independent state there called East Turkestan.
Since there have also been a number of car bomb attacks recently expect to see the internal combustion engine banned soon.
In San Diego a protester is standing trial on criminal vandalism charges (with a possible sentence of up to 13 years if convicted) for a scribbling a series of anti-bank slogans in chalk on a city sidewalk.
Mayor Bob Filner has denounced the prosecution of Jeff Olson as a waste of taxpayer money & an abuse of power that infringes on the First Amendment.
The city attorney, Jan Goldsmith, defended his pursuit of the case in remarks published yesterday on a San Diego news website, saying: “We prosecute vandalism & theft cases regardless of who the perpetrator or victim might be.”
“We don’t decide, for example, based upon whether we like or dislike banks,” Goldsmith added. “That would be wrong under the law….”
To add to the air of farce a Superior Court Judge yesterday issued a gagging order in the case, forbidding all parties from discussing the trial further. He previously ruled that Olson would not be permitted to invoke freedom of expression as a defense in the case.
Olson is charged with 13 misdemeanor counts of vandalism, each carrying a maximum penalty of one year in jail plus a $1,000 fine.
He is accused of writing a series of protest slogans between February & August 2012 on sidewalks in front of various Bank of America branches.
Olson has admitted to the graffiti protests, but said nothing he wrote was profane or vulgar & suggested his prosecution was politically motivated.
“I wrote, ‘No thanks big banks.’ I wrote, ‘Shame on Bank of America,'” he said, adding: “If I had drawn a little girl’s hopscotch squares on the street, we wouldn’t be here today.”
The mayor’s office would not rule out the possibility that the mayor might appear as a witness for Olson.
The mayor & city attorney have previously clashed over the mayor’s recent successful effort to cut $500,000 from the city attorney’s budget.
So much for the land of the free. In France he would by now be a national hero with a promising career in politics (a younger M. Bové).
In Australia this week the theft of an adult emu from a wildlife park left only a small pile of feathers & questions about the motive for snatching a flightless & ugly bird that is common & has no cash value.
The thieves are believed to have stolen the bird at night, a theft that involved lifting the 2 metre tall, 35kg bird (known for its speed, powerful legs, clawed feet & extremely bad attitude) over electrified barbed wire mounted above a 2 metre fence, while at the same time eluding a guards & security cameras.
Police think a getaway vehicle was parked about a kilometre away, said Chad Staples, a senior curator at Featherdale Wildlife Park.
“It would have had to be carried the whole way & lifted over the fences twice,” he said.
Chad said he was mystified by the theft, the first of its kind.
“Emus don’t have any monetary value because they are so common,” said Staples.
Must be aliens or KFC……
ThursdayAgain 
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