Fine? Why Fine?

Animals

I caught a headline this morning about some farmer in England who was forced to give up his Guinea pig farm due to the pressure put on him by animal rights groups. I didn't read any further into the article because, you know, par for the course, but checking Samizdata this afternoon I realized what really happened.

Farmers breeding guinea pigs have said they will abandon the work in the hope that the remains of their grandmother dug up from a grave in Staffordshire will be returned.

The Hall family, who run Darley Oaks Farm in Newchurch, have been targeted by animal rights activists during a six year campaign of intimidation.

They have been breeding guinea pigs for biomedical research.

In October 2004 grave robbers removed the remains of their 82-year-old grandmother, Gladys Hammond, from a churchyard in nearby Yoxall.

Are you shaking with outrage too? Good, you've passed the test that you're a civilized human being. The group's spokesman, "Johnny" celebrates the family's concession in language that's reminiscent of some other types of terrorists that have been in the news lately.

"This is the most fantastic day of my life.

"It's a victory for the animals and it's a fundamental victory for the animal rights movement. I feel so unbelievably proud to be part of the movement."

Looks like I'll have to have a steak for dinner in the small hope that it will somehow make "Johnny" and his comrades cry.

Running (Kids Over) Back

Lawrence Phillips? Still nuts.

Phillips joined a group of 16- and 17-year-olds in a pickup football game in Exposition Park on Sunday and got into an argument with some of the teens, said Los Angeles Police Officer Sandra Escalante. He left, but came back and drove a car onto the field, hitting three of the boys, she said.

[...]

The car was reported stolen in San Diego last week, Escalante said.

What did these kids do, say "Mississippi" too fast for Lawrence's liking?

UPDATE

I'm assuming it's only because of his totally shitty NFL career that Phillips didn't make this list.

Don't Run

I doubt anyone really needs another reason to not flee from the cops but here's two more anyway.

One.

An Oceanside man who police say robbed an Atlantic Beach bank apparently drowned yesterday after fleeing police by plunging his getaway car into the East Rockaway Channel.

And two.

A driver fleeing police early Friday crashed his Mercedes Benz through a divider and two fences, sparking a fiery explosion that killed him and his passenger on the Henry Hudson Parkway, police said.

How Many Posts Will Be Titiled "Beat It" Today?

Well, there you go.

Somebody tell these idiots it's time to go home now. Or to get jobs or something.

UPDATE

(Via Galley Slaves.) Triumph interviews the maniacs outside the courthouse.

...It's not from today though but still worth the look.

"Greetings & Salutations"

Slater in cuffs.

Actor Christian Slater was arrested on Tuesday and charged with sexual abuse and forcible touching after a woman accused him of groping her buttocks, authorities said.

Slater, 35, was accused of groping the woman, a stranger, at a small store after he was seen arguing with his girlfriend, prosecutors said. The victim called police and identified the actor, who was arrested shortly after 2 a.m. in Manhattan's Upper East Side, they said.

[...]

At the bail hearing before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Patricia Nunez, Slater shouted: "This is bullshit. I didn't do anything.

"I'm going to sue everybody," he said.

This will probably end up as a He Said/She Said kind of deal and while I'm not impressed with Slater's Jerky Boys courtroom outburst, he may not even be guilty of a crime at all.

Knife Fight

Knives don't kill people...

LONG, pointed kitchen knives should be banned as part of a concerted effort to reduce the terrible injuries and deaths caused by stabbing attacks, doctors warned today.

Accident and emergency medics claim the knives serve no useful purpose in the kitchen but are proving deadly on the streets of Britain, with the doctors claiming the knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

The doctors claimed they had consulted leading chefs who said the knives were not needed for cooking - a claim disputed by chefs contacted by The Scotsman.

Latest figures from the Scottish Executive show that in 2003, 55 of 108 homicide victims were stabbed by a sharp instrument - often a kitchen knife.

[...]

Scotland's most respected pathologist, Professor Anthony Busuttil, said: "All the statistics show that for the last 15 years, victims of stabbings, whether fatal or seriously injured, are caused by kitchen knives such as steak knives rather than knives bought specially for the purpose."

Restaurateurs and chefs reacted angrily to suggestions of banning kitchen knives. Malcolm Duck, chairman of the Edinburgh Restaurateurs Association, said: "Kitchen knives are designed for a purpose. It would be like asking a surgeon to perform an operation with a bread knife instead of a scalpel. Anything in the house like a cricket bat could be used as weapon in the hands of an idiot."

Local Foot Perv Caught

Generally speaking, I'm pretty much anti-touching-other-people's-feet anyway, but I think this guy would piss me off even if I wasn't.

Suffolk police have arrested a man who they say approached young girls asking them inappropriate questions about their feet, in one case removing a girl's shoe and massaging her feet.

Hate

This ABC report on the Lockheed shootings that occurred in July 2003 is one of the most frightening things I've ever read. ABC uncovered a bunch of Lockheed's internal documents that revealed that the murderer (who killed himself after killing 6 other Lockheed employees) had a sustained history of outright racial hatred and threats of violence.

A longtime Lockheed employee, Williams fumed when blacks at the plant complained about his racial slurs or received better-paying jobs, according to several co-workers. He once wore the bootie of a white protective suit on his head in the shape of what black workers said looked like a Ku Klux Klan hood. Given the choice by management to remove it or go home, Williams left. Lockheed took no disciplinary action against him for the incident, according to Lockheed documents.

Many who knew Williams had feared, even predicted, violence would eventually erupt.

"He said, 'You know, one of these days, I'm goin' to come in here and kill me a bunch of niggers and then I'm goin' to kill myself,'" according to Aaron Hopson, a black employee at the plant who says Williams threatened to kill him in 2001.

That threat was reported to the plant managers and a company equal employment officer was sent to Meridian to investigate the matter in December 2001. Lockheed company documents obtained by ABC News show that Darold Sawyer, based at Lockheed's offices in Marietta, Ga., interviewed several workers in Meridian and took extensive notes detailing Williams' threats to kill black workers.

Sawyer's notes also show that Lockheed veteran Lynette McCall reported to management that Williams told her he saw "a race war coming," and that she "was on his list too." McCall told Sawyer that she took Williams' death threats seriously. On the day of the killings, Williams stalked his way to McCall's work station where witnesses say he taunted her before shooting her at point-blank range.

"Lockheed is responsible for maintaining a workplace where people aren't threatened with death and called 'nigger,' " said Blair. "It's beyond any kind of description why they allowed this to take place. They could have stopped it."

The article then details Williams' spree where he deliberately sought out black employees to murder. Horrific. Absolutely horrific.

Also, the piece gets into whether or not Lockheed will lose some of it's government contracts for failing to deal with this maniac. From this article, the only thing I've read about the case, it looks like Lockheed had fair notice that this psycho was on the verge of doing what he did. His behavior seems to have been documented to the extent that they'd have a tough time claiming "they didn't know."

And since I have no idea whether or not Lockheed's gov't contracts are in jeopardy, I won't say anything about that.

Son of Bosox

Weird.

The son of Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski stole his father's identity and ran up thousands of dollars in debt before he died last year, according to the elder Yastrzemski's lawyer.

Michael Yastrzemski son incurred debts including an IRS lien for $46,000 in unpaid taxes and credit card debt that attorney Neil Abbott would describe only as being under $100,000.

Yaz's son ripped him off. Ted Williams' son made a mockery of his father's death.

Williams' son, John Henry Williams, had his father placed in cryonic suspension, a deep-freezing process done in hopes that future scientific advances will restore the dead to life.

Somewhere, Dewey, Rice, and Pudge are making mental notes to keep an extra close eye on their male progeny.

Flash

Don't mess with "feisty Catholic schoolgirls."

A subway pervert was caught in a flash yesterday by feisty Catholic schoolgirls armed with a cell phone camera in Queens, cops and witnesses said.

The suspect sicko flashed the teens twice last week as they rode the F train toward their high school in Jamaica Estates.

He got away - but made the mistake of lurking inside the 179th St. station yesterday just as the girls stepped off the train at 7:30 a.m.

Terrified, but determined to get the creep arrested, one of the girls snapped his photo with her cell phone and ran to NYPD Officer Vincent Tieniber for help, police sources said.

"The cop looked at the picture, ran down to the platform and spots the guy getting on a train," a high-ranking police source said.

"He grabs him and takes him upstairs where the girl IDs him," the source said. "A little bit of new-age policing."