Madness Beckons

In Gwinnett County, Ga. they have some new infrared license plate scanners capable of scanning up to 15 plates per second.

It seems that not everyone got the news.

Mike Morris – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Thursday, June 25, 2009

When William Harold Brown drove past Deputy James Redfern on Indian Trail Road, the license plate recognition system installed in Redfern’s patrol car alerted him that the tag on Brown’s 1998 Hyundai Accent was stolen, said Gwinnett sheriff’s spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais.

The deputy followed Brown, 34, until he stopped at a nearby laundromat, Bourbonnais said.

“The deputy approached Mr. Brown, spoke with him and informed him he was under arrest for having a stolen license plate on his vehicle,” she said.

Our desperado is now in cuffs. End of story right? — Of course not.

Brown then told the deputy “that there were a lot of weapons in his vehicle and that he had just returned from shooting,” Bourbonnais said.

“Deputy Redfern located in the vehicle two shotguns, one rifle, six handguns and a large case that contained 1,249 rounds of ammunition for the different guns,” she said.

Deputies later discovered that Brown had a prior burglary conviction in South Carolina.

“Because he is a convicted felon, he is not allowed to own firearms,” Bourbonnais said. “He was charged with nine counts of possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, theft by receiving and driving with a suspended/revoked driver’s license.”

He’s a convicted felon driving a 98 Hyundai with stolen tags. –Probably because he didn’t have any money to buy and register a car since he seems to have spent all his hard earned/stolen cash on guns and ammunition– and he decided to do it in one of the few places in the country with the latest technology installed in their cop cars.

Now that’s a bad day.

AP – PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The country’s smallest state has the longest official name: “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.”

A push to drop “Providence Plantations” from that name advanced farther than ever on Thursday when House lawmakers voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the “State of Rhode Island.” It’s an encouraging sign for those who believe the formal name conjures up images of slavery, while opponents argue it’s an unnecessary rewriting of history that ignores Rhode Island’s tradition of religious liberty and tolerance.

In 1663 King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements of Rhode Island into a single colony called “The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” –Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.

Some people argue that the word “plantations” conjures up images of slavery and therefore should be dropped from the state name.

Others argue that the word applies to all farms, not just those run by slave holders, and represents a major part of the state’s history and should remain unchanged.

The reality is that the majority of the state’s residents will undoubtedly vote to change the name. Not because of moral or historical issues, but because it’s just too damn long.

BBC Online:
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around “as high as a kite”, a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.

“The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told the hearing.

“Then they crash,” she added. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.

–Stoned wallabies are easy to spot. Right after eating the poppies the lot of them head for the nearest 7-11 for bean dip and Fritos.

In Australia the problem of drug addicted wallabies is so pervasive that as far back as 1957 a man named Rolf Harris tried to warn people about the dangers of dealing with stoned wallabies in the song “Tie me kangaroo down sport.”

♪Watch me wallaby’s feed mate.
Watch me wallaby’s feed.
They’re a dangerous breed mate.
So watch me wallaby’s feed. ♫

In case you missed this back in ‘07:
Heather Mills wants us to drink rat’s and dog’s milk

Media-shy Heather started off by storming out of a radio interview with London’s LBC station.

She then drove a gas-guzzling Mercedes 4×4 to Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park to speak about ecological matters – and kept the engine running for part of the morning.

Once there she proceeded to launch into an extraordinary ecological rant and exhorted the assembled crowds to try drinking rat’s milk instead of cow’s milk in a bid to save the planet from deforestation for livestock.

I think it was sarcasm, but with her……

From our WTF? department.

MINNEAPOLIS – A replay of the nation’s only file-sharing case to go to trial has ended with the same result — a Minnesota woman was found to have violated music copyrights and must pay huge damages to the recording industry.

A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song.

Defense attorney Joe Sibley said the music companies failed to prove allegations that Thomas-Rasset gave away songs by Gloria Estefan, Sheryl Crow, Green Day, Journey and others.

“Only Jammie Thomas’s computer was linked to illegal file-sharing on Kazaa,” Sibley said. “They couldn’t put a face behind the computer.”

Sibley urged jurors not to ruin Thomas-Rasset’s life with a debt she could never pay. Under federal law, the jury could have awarded up to $150,000 per song.

A security company downloaded songs from a directory on the defendant’s computer via Kazaa so the case was over before it started. –But up to $150k per song???

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