[Quote]:

Officials in east Mississippi operate a “school-to-prison pipeline” that incarcerates students for disciplinary infractions as minor as dress code violations with a policy that affects mostly black and disabled children, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.

The Justice Department said police in the city of Meridian routinely arrest public school students without determining if there’s probable cause when the school wants to press charges for a violation. Federal authorities say the students are then denied due process in youth court and on probation. The Justice Department did not outline specific allegations of wrongdoing against the school district in a letter to state and local authorities. Instead, it appears from the letter that the problems begin once a student is arrested.

Once arrested, the youth court puts the students on probation, sometimes without proper legal representation, according to the letter. If the students are on probation, future school violations could be considered a probation violation that requires them “to serve any suspensions from school incarcerated in the juvenile detention center,” the department said.

That means if a student is on probation and then gets suspended for a minor infraction like “dress code violations, flatulence, profanity, and disrespect,” the student could have to serve that suspension in the detention center.

“The students most severely affected by these practices are black children and children with disabilities in Meridian,” the Justice Department said.

[Quote]:

Here is the formal statement I gave to Federal Police on 16 June 2012:

On a trip to visit family in Seoul in April, I was approached by a man and a woman who claimed to be North Korean defectors. They presented me with a DVD that recently came into their possession and asked me to translate it. They also asked me to post the completed film on the Internet so that it could reach a worldwide audience. I believed what I was told and an agreement was made to protect their identities (and mine).

Despite my concerns about what I was viewing when I returned home, I proceeded to translate and post the film on You Tube because of the film’s extraordinary content. I have now made public my belief that this film was never intended for a domestic audience in the DPRK. Instead, I believe that these people, who presented themselves as ‘defectors’ specifically targeted me because of my reputation as a translator and interpreter.

Furthermore, I now believe these people work for the DPRK. The fact that I have continued to translate and post the film in spite of this belief does not make me complicit in their intention to spread their ideology. I chose to keep posting this film because – regardless of who made it – I believe people should see it because of the issues it raises and I stand by my right to post it for people to share and discuss freely with each other.

And for contrast, here’s an actual propaganda film from North Korea:

[Quote]:

A man from Britain with Parkinson’s disease was arrested while watching the Olympic cycling road race because he “failed to smile or look like he was enjoying himself.”

Mark Worsfold, a martial arts trainer and former soldier, said that he was thrown to the floor and handcuffed just as cyclists passed by, Gulf News reported.

His worried wife Nicola only found out he was being held after she reported him missing when he did not turn up for their daughter’s ninth birthday party.

The 54-year-old had his fingerprints, DNA and mugshot taken before being questioned about why he did not appear to be enjoying the event on July 28.

Police said Worsfold, who was held for over five hours, was arrested because of “his manner, his state of dress and his proximity to the course.”

A spokesman added that the arrest was necessary to avoid a breach of the peace because he was standing near a group of protesters.

But Worsfold, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2010, said that one of the symptoms of the disease is muscle rigidity, which can cause his face to become expressionless and mask-like.

[Quote:]

[Quote]:

Houston Police officer Adan Jimenez Carranza was put in jail on Friday after DNA evidence linked him to a rape he is accused of committing in June.

The victim says that she was involved in fender bender with other cars when Carranza came to the scene and directed all parties to a nearby parking lot. She says Carranza handcuffed her and put her in the back of his patrol car. He then waited until the other people involved in the accident left the scene, and raped her in the the backseat. He had his badge and gun on the entire time.

After the rape, Carranza drove the victim to the precinct and booked her in for reckless driving.

[Quote]:

Hannity asked Zimmerman if he regretted getting out of his car to follow Trayvon, carrying a gun, or anything at all about the night he killed Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman said he regretted nothing because he believed “it was all God’s plan.” He also said there isn’t anything he would do differently in retrospect.

[Quote]:

To Rush Limbaugh, it can’t be a coincidence. The villain in the new Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is named “Bane.” The name of Mitt Romney’s old private-equity firm? Bain Capital.

“Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bain [sic]?” Limbaugh asked on his radio show today, according to a transcript of the audio on his show’s website.

But the character Bane first appeared in Batman comics in 1993. The Bane character in “The Dark Knight Rises” was chosen in early 2011.

[Quote]:

In the Name of Allah The Beneficient The Merciful

Toronto Sun Staff and Writers:

My Name is Al-Haashim Kamena Atangana and I have been reading in recent weeks sexual Assaults that have been occurring At York University. I just wanted to suggest a few changes within the Canadian laws that will help prevent sexual assaults from happening in the future.

Just to introduce myself I am a Muslim born in Montréal, Quebec 33 years ago. I was born in a Christian Family and I have decided to embrace Islam in 1998. I do allot of Islamic Outreach Programs downtown (yonge and Dundas).I am from African Carribean Ethnicity.

I wanted to mention that the reason why these sex attacks are continuously happening is because the Canadian laws, which gives too much freedom to women, are the cause of these sex attacks. It has been revealed that every 5 seconds a woman is being sexually assaulted in North America. Women in North America are falling victims of the Democratic Freedom that you they passionly believe in. The reason why a woman gets raped is because of the way she dress. Women dress so provocatively so much that they receive too much attention for themselves and that attention at times leads to death.

[Quote]:

As lifeguards are paid and trained to do, Tomas Lopez rushed down the beach to rescue a drowning man — and then got fired for it.

The problem: Lopez stepped out of the beach zone his company is paid to patrol, a supervisor said Tuesday.

Quote

Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned from the UK-based financial services giant amid an interest rate-fixing scandal that some believe could be a watershed moment for Britain’s banking system.

In a statement released by the company on Tuesday, Diamond said he chose to leave because “external pressure” on Barclays had “reached a level that risks damaging the franchise”.

Oh yes, the reputation they have as tax shy, totalitarian regime-supporting thieves and free-loaders of the first water will be irreparably damaged if he stays.

[Quote]:

Sgt. German Bosque of the Opa-locka Police Department has been disciplined, suspended, fined and sent home with pay more than any officer in the state.

He has been accused of cracking the head of a handcuffed suspect, beating juveniles, hiding drugs in his police car, stealing from suspects, defying direct orders and lying and falsifying police reports. He once called in sick to take a vacation to Cancún and has engaged in a rash of unauthorized police chases, including one in which four people were killed.

Arrested and jailed three times, Bosque, 48, has been fired at least six times. Now under suspension pending yet another investigation into misconduct, Bosque stays home and collects his $60,000-a-year paycheck for doing nothing.

[..]

Bosque admits that in his early years as an officer, he was immature and made some mistakes. But he insists he is a good, hardworking police officer.

According to the notes, Frank de Grave, member of the Eerste Kamer (the senate) said this last Tuesday.

source

[Quote]:

Floods and abortions are distinctly different topics — except to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is trying to attach an anti-choice amendment to the Senate’s flood insurance bill.

[Quote]:

I can say that Charles Carreon remains a petulant, amoral, censorious douchebag without violating his trademark because that’s nominative, not commercial.

Imagine a 9 year old kid posting this picture on her weblog:

What do you do as a school council? Indeed, you make taking pictures in the lunch room illegal, based on the “distress and harm” the picture caused.

UPDATE: Ban lifted

[Quote]:

“If they are going to legislate my anatomy, I see no reason why I cannot mention it,” she said according to the Free Press.

“Regardless of their reasoning, this is a violation of my First Amendment rights and directly impedes my ability to serve the people who elected me into office,” Brown added in a statement released by her office.

Brown was not the only woman silenced on the floor today. Rep. Barb Byrum was also not allowed to speak on the floor.

“Byrum, D-Onondaga, caused a disturbance on the House floor Wednesday when she wasn’t allowed to introduce an amendment to the abortion regulations bill banning men from getting a vasectomy unless the sterilization procedure was necessary to save a man’s life,” the Detroit News reports.

Assuming that half the population of Michigan is female, how is it possible that there will be a single Republican in office after the next election?

[Quote]:

A man suffering from a toothache shot himself in the jaw with a gun in an effort to remove the troublesome tooth, Decatur police said.

Officers called to a home in the 2800 block of Locust Street Southeast at about 4:15 p.m. Monday arrived to find the man bleeding heavily from his mouth and his brother trying to stop the bleeding with a towel, said Lt. John Crouch, a police spokesman.

“The man was conscious and alert when officers arrived,” Crouch said. “He told them that he was tired of his tooth hurting and attempted to shoot it out.”

[Quote]:

When the Brown County, Wis., Drug Task Force arrested her son Joel last February, Beverly Greer started piecing together his bail.

She used part of her disability payment and her tax return. Joel Greer’s wife also chipped in, as did his brother and two sisters. On Feb. 29, a judge set Greer’s bail at $7,500, and his mother called the Brown County jail to see where and how she could get him out. “The police specifically told us to bring cash,” Greer says. “Not a cashier’s check or a credit card. They said cash.”

So Greer and her family visited a series of ATMs, and on March 1, she brought the money to the jail, thinking she’d be taking Joel Greer home. But she left without her money, or her son.

Instead jail officials called in the same Drug Task Force that arrested Greer. A drug-sniffing dog inspected the Greers’ cash, and about a half-hour later, Beverly Greer said, a police officer told her the dog had alerted to the presence of narcotics on the bills — and that the police department would be confiscating the bail money.

“I told them the money had just come from the bank,” Beverly Greer says. “We had just taken it out. If the money had drugs on it, then they should go seize all the money at the bank, too. I just don’t understand how they could do that.”

The Greers had been subjected to civil asset forfeiture, a policy that lets police confiscate money and property even if they can only loosely connect them to drug activity. The cash, or revenue from the property seized, often goes back to the coffers of the police department that confiscated it. It’s a policy critics say is often abused, but experts told The HuffPost that the way the law is applied to bail money in Brown County is exceptionally unfair.

It took four months for Beverly Greer to get her family’s money back, and then only after attorney Andy Williams agreed to take their case. “The family produced the ATM receipts proving that had recently withdrawn the money,” Williams says. “Beverly Greer had documentation for her disability check and her tax return. Even then, the police tried to keep their money.”

Wisconsin is one of four states (along with Illinois, Kentucky, and Oregon) that prohibits bail bondsmen. So bail must be paid either in cash, with a registered check, cashier’s check or credit card. In fact, Donna Kuchler, a Wisconsin criminal defense attorney based in Waukesha, said police aren’t allowed to insist on cash.

“I would be suspicious of why they would do that,” Kuchler says. “I had a case last year in Fond du Lac County where they tried to say my client could only pay in cash. My guess is that they probably intended to do the same thing that happened here. We brought a cashier’s check anyway, and they knew they had to accept it.”

[Quote]:

Some bouncers have been demanding people hand over their smartphones so they can check Facebook accounts, Newsbeat has been told.

It’s claimed that it is to make sure the person is who they say they are and isn’t using fake identification.

[..]

“If you’re not doing anything wrong you shouldn’t have a problem.”

[Quote]:

In the politically-charged and likely protest-filled streets of Tampa, Fla., during the Republican National Convention in August, water guns will be strictly prohibited. Concealed handguns, on the other hand, will be perfectly legal.

[Quote]:

Through the research into the case testimonies it was found that some of the experiencers were able to stop or terminate the experience. There was a recognized commonality in the method that was used among the Christian experiencers. The experience was shown to be able to be stopped or terminated by calling on the name and authority of JESUS CHRIST. Not as a magic word but by their allegiance to and personal relationship with Him.

We also found that by sharing this with other experiencers we could help them also stop their experiences.

This is called repeatability.

The UFO community has been looking for that repeatable event that research demands to verify the data. We have documented this in our research. There is no other documented repeatable event recorded in any other UFO research. Not only has it been shown that the experience can be stopped or terminated in the name and authority of JESUS CHRIST, but we are able to help you stop the experience.

[Quote]:

The Ministry of Defence says it is evaluating sites for surface-to-air missiles for the Olympic Games, and could place them at residential flats.

Residents at an estate in east London have received a leaflet saying soldiers could be placed there during the Games.

It says part of an air defence system might be based at a water tower on the estate, where 700 people live.

A spokesman said the MoD had not yet decided whether to deploy ground based air defence systems during the Games.

[Quote]:

A Portland City attorney argued in court that a Portland police officer was justified in brutally tasing a non-violent man with no criminal record because it was later discovered that the man owned a classic kung fu film collection. The jury didn’t agree, and the taxpayers now get to pay a $250,000 settlement. Naturally, Officer Benjamin J. Davidson remains on the force.

[Kickstarter]:

The Road to REVOLution is a sidescrolling platformer action/adventure game, reminiscent of console classics like Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog.

You play the role of Ron Paul and make your way across all 50 states collecting Gold (sound money) and Delegates.

I’m sure that’ll be a huge hit.

[Quote]:

“Sir, your trousers.”

“Pardon?”

“Sir, please take your trousers off.”

A pause.

“No.”

[Quote]:

“You’re not gonna use the pink ball. We’re not gonna let you do that. Not on camera.” Santorum went on to say “Friends don’t let friends use pink balls.”