Sunday, April 1, 2007

In Estonia, a mouse made its nest in a cash machine and spent the weekend eating tens of thousands of kroons in bank notes. The critter was discovered after a customer making a withdrawal got half-eaten bills from the machine.

Experts are now investigating how the rodent was able to get into the ATM.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court upheld a ballot measure, Proposition 66, approved by voters last November which speeds up the death penalty appeals process. The court, however, weakened a provision of the proposition setting a deadline for appeals.

The plaintiff in the case, former El Dorado County supervisor Ron Briggs, claimed that the proposition was unconstitutional under the California Constitution which prevents ballot measures from addressing more than one subject. The court disagreed with Briggs’ claim, writing that “Proposition 66 is more focused on a single subject” than other measures upheld by the court.

The weakened portioned of the measure would have set a deadline of five years for the appeals process. The court wrote in its opinion for the case, Briggs v. Brown, that “provisions of Proposition 66 that appear to impose strict deadlines on the resolution of judicial proceedings must be deemed directive rather than mandatory” in order to prevent difficulties with the separation of powers.

The new measure moves habeas corpus review from the Supreme Court to the lower courts. Habeas corpus review allows those convicted to contest procedures from during the trial process, such as possible problems with jurors. The measure also ended public review of execution methods.

Briggs had also challenged how the proposition affects habeas corpus review, but the court ruled in favor the defendants.

Five justices, of the court’s seven, signed the majority opinion. Two justices were defendants in the case as part of the Judicial Council and recused themselves, and two alternate justices were brought in from appeals courts in Santa Ana and Sacramento. The council is responsible for making policy for the state’s courts.

Currently, the appeals process for death penalty cases can last for years or even decades. The ballot measure sought to speed this up. It could affect 15 or more inmates currently sitting on death row who have already completed the appeals process.

The state has not conducted any executions since 2006. A federal court imposed a moratorium on the use of California’s lethal injection method in 2006 after a challenge to the methods used. This order remains in effect, so the state must first receive approval from the federal court regarding its method before it is allowed to resume executions. In January a proposal to conduct lethal injection with a single drug was rejected by a state agency.

There were 747 people on California’s death row as of Thursday according to the state corrections department. The state applies the death penalty for several crimes including murder, treason against the state, train wrecking causing death, and perjury causing the execution of another. Lethal injection is one of two methods used by the state for executing inmates. The gas chamber remains an option for inmates who elect that method of execution.

While voters approved Proposition 66 last November with 51% voting yes, another ballot measure to repeal the death penalty, Proposition 62, was rejected by voters in the same election with 53% voting against.

[edit]

Friday, January 20, 2006

A recently created Danish clothing company is selling on the internet T-shirts in order to support the clandestine radio station of the Colombian guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the graphical workshop of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In fact the money will be used by these groups to carry on their terrorist activities. FARC activities include kidnappings, masacres, bombs, extortions and the drug trade.

Fighters and Lovers is selling the T-shirts at 170 DKK (US$27.6), from which 35 DKK (US$5.7) are to be destinated to support both armed groups.

Anna Duever, Fighters and Lovers PR chief, said to Spanish news agency EFE that their objective is to “defend freedom and social justice, which is FARC and PFLP are fighting for”. Duever believes the fact the FARC has been included by the EU in its terrorist group list is a “political game”. “We pay our taxes in Denmark, and that money is used for financing the troops our government has sent to Iraq. That’s terrorism. Besides, in Colombia there’s a regime oppressing population and torturing and killing its people”, she said.

Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolina Barco, said to local media that “financing terrorist groups is unacceptable and goes against all the international norms. Yesterday [Tuesday 19] our ambassador contacted the Danish government, we sent a protest note and have demanded an explanation.”

A year ago, a Danish NGO named Oprør (“Rebelion”) stated it had donated money to the Colombian guerrilla. A new antiterrorism law in Denmark may punish it.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Lewis Hamilton, the current leader in the Formula One World Championship, is to take part in this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed.[1]

The initial announcement was made by veteran DJ Johnnie Walker on BBC Radio Two this morning and later confirmed on the annual events official website. Hamilton will join other well known motorsport personalities, including Damon Hill, Jenson Button and Sir Stirling Moss, at the Festival.

Hamilton became the youngest driver ever to lead the Formula One World Championship after finishing second at the Spanish Grand Prix earlier this month. He leads the championship by two points from team-mate and reigning champion, Fernando Alonso. Hamilton’s appearance at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed has yet to be announced on the official website.

The Goodwood Festival of Speed is an annual hill climb featuring historic motor racing vehicles that is held in the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, UK. It was started in 1993 by the present Earl of March in order to bring motor racing back to the Goodwood estate – a location steeped in British motor racing history. Since the early days of several tens of thousands of visitors over the weekend it has grown to attracting daily crowds of around 100,000 visitors of the three days it is held. The record was in 2003, when a crowd of 158,000 attended before the advanced ticket policy came in to force, but in 2005 attendance has crept back to 150,000. This year’s Festival takes place on 22nd-24th June.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

A magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurred in southern Mozambique near the small farming town of Espungabera near Malvernia just after midnight.

The region is comparatively remote, and detailed reports of what has occurred at the epicenter are not yet available. According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), damage is expected, but there are no detailed reports at this stage. As of February 23, February 23, 2006 07:13 UST there are no reported injuries. The area is approximately 100 km away from the Zimbabwen border.

Residents in the surrounding region have been urged not to return to buildings due to possible aftershocks. The region is home to the East African rift system.

The earthquake was felt as far as 800 km away as Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa, and in Zambia. No damage is expected in those countries.

Earlier USGS reports had estimated the magnitude at 6.9. In comparison, the recent 2005 Kashmir quake in Pakistan had a magnitude of 7.6.

The quake occurred at February 22, 2006 22:19:08 Universal standard time (UST).

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

The final Star Wars film, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith premiered at the Cannes Festival on May 15, 2005, with George Lucas and the stars of the movie in attendance at the Grand Theatre Lumiere.

At the subsequent United Kingdom premiere on May 16, 2005, fans turned out in costume. Outside London’s Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, dozens of fans dressed as storm troopers, Jedi knights, and other characters for the film.

The movie is about the temptation of a Jedi knight to the Dark Side of the force, and his fiery transformation into the arch-villain Darth Vader.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is scheduled for general release in the United States on May 19, 2005, and is rated PG-13.

Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian described the climax of the film as following “what seems like seven hours of CGI action as dramatically weightless as the movement of tropical fish in an aquarium”. Bradshaw said the leading characters “gaze out over massive futuristic cityscapes resembling the photorealist artwork once used for 1970s sci-fi paperbacks: pointy buildings with swarms of pointy aircraft criss-crossing overhead, often bathed in crimson sunsets”.

He described Ewan McGregor‘s accent as “a simperingly lifeless Rada-English accent, a muddled and misconceived backdating of the Guinness original”, and said of Hayden Christensen that “If Princess Diana had gone to the Dark Side, she would have looked a lot like this”.

Describing Jimmy Smits, and Samuel L. Jackson as “acting as if on some kind of medication”, Natalie Portman as “incorrigibly clunky”, Bradshaw concluded that the film was “a product of George Lucas’s overweening production giant Industrial Light and Magic. No magic, little light, but an awful lot of heavy industry.”

Wendy Ide from The Times commented that “any spark of humour or irreverence that might have been present in the earlier films has been all but extinguished”, and accused the film of being carpeted by “a bombastic and overbearing” musical score.

Ide concluded that the film was “a textbook example of style over substance and, more importantly, soul”.