Twitchers Have Feathers Ruffled

Farmer's pink paint fooled twitchers

Birdwatchers who hoped they had found a new species of hawk were shot down - when a farmer turned out to have been painting them pink for fun.
The strangely coloured hawks caused great excitement in the twitching community when they were first spotted in New Zealand three years ago.
But suspicions set in when one of the birds was hit by a car - and closer investigation revealed that it had been spray-painted a pinkish-red colour.
Animal protection officers began investigating and local farmer Grant Teahan was uncovered as the culprit, reports the Manawatu Standard.
He was first suspected when his nephew uploaded a video onto YouTube which showed a home-made bird trap covered in the same colour paint.
Computers seized at his farm, in Dannevirke, had files, photographs and films relating to red hawks deleted. Another file showed a cow spray-painted with "Merry Christmas".
Teahan was this week found guilty in Dannevirke District Court of two charges of ill-treating animals. He's due to be sentenced on 30 January.
Local SPCA manager Danny Auger said it was the most bizarre case he had ever worked on.
"Various people got involved, like experts who thought maybe it was a new strain or a new type of bird or whatever, but then feathers were being found and it was obvious somebody was actually painting these hawks," he said.

Viagra A Day?

Gardener says Viagra perks up plants

A TV gardener has shared his tip for keeping flowers perky - feeding them a tiny dose of Viagra.
David Domoney says one milligram of the blue pill gives drooping blooms a lift and extends their life.
"Drop in a standard Viagra tablet... it stiffens up your blooms a treat," he advised on his website.
The flowers need just one milligram of a standard 50 milligram tablet to regain their vigor, the gardener said.
Viagra contains nitric oxide, a hormone released by humans that enables blood vessels to relax and increases blood flow to the penis. Plants also give off nitric oxide to turn on their immune system.
Australian scientists first discovered Viagra's potential in the plant industry and their research was published in the British Medical Journal.

Phone….Home?

Holidaymaker hit with 1.2k phone bill

A Scottish holidaymaker has been hit with a £1,200 phone bill, despite not making a phone call or sending a text when he was away.
Jeff Craw didn't make a phone call or send a text when he was away in Thailand for 10 days but his phone was blocked after he ran up such a large bill.
The 41-year-old man was charged for receiving emails and Facebook updates during his break - but the thought of paying off the hefty sum has led to some sleepless nights.
Jeff told the Daily Record newspaper: "I've not been able to sleep because of this. The phone bill is almost as much as my holiday. It's sickening."
T-Mobile kindly reduced his bill by £297, but when they sent Jeff a text to inform him it looked like they had cut the bill to that amount.
The network have since apologised for the "error in balance" when they first offered the discount.

Underpants Are Go??

Plastic underwear row sends competitive skiing downhill

The world of competitive downhill skiing has been rocked by a row over plastic underwear.

The undergarments of Tina Maze, a Slovakian skier who came second at a major event in Austria, were subject to intense scrutiny last week after she was accused of wearing a banned design.
The plastic one-piece was rigorously inspected by officials who ruled that the clothing broke no rules, despite accusations that the fabric had given her an aerodynamic edge over her rivals.
“My underwear is obviously too sexy for the Swiss,” Ms Maze said in retaliation to the jibes.
Following the incident, a complaint was lodged by the Swiss Skiing Federation to the International Skiing Federation (FIS), its parent organisation.
Air permeability of the fabric appears to be at the centre of the row, and although Maze’s undergarments were deemed admissible, the FIS concluded that part of the membrane was banned under the rules.
“It is recommended that the one-piece undergarment not be used by any athletes in competition,” was the final verdict, based on evidence that the fabric was bad for the skin.
Earlier this season, Gunter Hujara, the men’s race director for FIS, swung a piece of blue plastic underwear in the air, made from a banned hybrid neoprene sheath, as a warning that anyone caught wearing them would be disqualified

Aussie File Sharing?

Australian File-Sharer Recommends  Surrender

An Australian file-sharer who faced a similar extradition process to the UK student Richard O'Dwyer recommends him to give up and go to the United States voluntarily to face the entertainment industry.
Hew Griffiths, the Australian, explained that he was watching O'Dwyer’s case with a sense of foreboding. The matter is that exactly the same thing happened to him a few years ago. A British judge has decided that the 23-year-old UK student, who created an online website for sharing not illegal content itself, but only the links to TV programs hosted elsewhere, should be extradited to America to face trial and up to ten years in prison.

Although this is regarded as the first time that the bizarre, favor the rich and corporate US justice system has applied to some developed democratic country, this has apparently been already seen in the colonies. Hew Griffiths was bundled on a plane to the United States four years ago in a pointless show of America’s corporate power which did little to stem Internet piracy.

Griffiths explained that if he had been charged in Australia he would have got a 6-month suspended sentence along with a $1000 fine as maximum penalty. However, the United States gave him a 6-month prison time after 3 years in Sydney’s Silverwater jail trying to fight extradition. Although he didn’t earn money from helping distribute illegal software, under American law the entertainment industry demanded his hide, and the industry’s cronies in the government were quick to throw the book at Griffiths. After facing with a 10-year jail term, Hew Griffiths struck a plea bargain as there was actually no choice.

Indeed, there was no way he could have proved his case in Virginia, because it was like juries there just listened to the case and declared him guilty before the jury door swings shut. Griffiths recommended that O'Dwyer was better off giving up and going there voluntarily. Of course, he won’t win the case, but in case of delay the prosecutors will also throw the book at him. Griffiths believes that if O'Dwyer offers a deal there would be no problem, because the politicians don’t really want to tie up their prisons.

American authorities understand that the prosecutions are pointless, but they still want to be seen to be acting for corporations like Adobe and Microsoft, though there’s still more piracy in the United States than ever.

Remember The war??

Retired Beefeater 'ejected from pub for speaking German'

A former Beefeater at the Tower of London has reportedly been thrown out of his local pub for talking German to his daughter.

Tom Sharp, 71, said he was talking to his half-German daughter in the Packhorse pub in the Peterborough village of Northborough when their conversation slipped into German.
Mr Sharp, who also served with the Royal Signals for 26 years during which he met his wife Anni in Germany, said the pub's landlady flew into a rage when she heard the language being used on Wednesday evening.
He claims she told him: "We are white, you are English so you speak English in my pub otherwise get out."
Other drinkers who witnessed the row and spoke up for Mr Sharp and his 49-year-old daughter Nichole Falconer were also ejected, he said.
"I honestly couldn't believe she was telling us we couldn't speak German. Now and again the odd German phrase slips up – it is my daughter's mother tongue. It is natural," he said.
"It's not as if we were always speaking German and being rude. I could understand if it was all the time and looking at her as if we were plotting, but we weren't.
"You just can't tell people they can't speak their mother tongue. Would she do that to the Polish community in Peterborough?
"I think it is a sad reflection of her attitude to life that she can be upset about speaking a language she can't understand. It's outrageous. She was just like a mad woman completely possessed."
The incident has been reported to police as a hate crime.
A witness said: "It's disgraceful. Everyone in the pub was horrified. We all left and I don't think many people will be going back."
Mr Sharp, who was widowed two years ago, said it was the worst racism his daughter, an employment lawyer, had faced.
"I would hate to think what my wife's family would think of this. But it's even more mind boggling to suggest that I am not patriotic if that what her problem was," he added.
"I served in the army for 26 years before joining the beefeaters for 20 years. I guarded the Tower of London.
"Should a father not speak to his daughter in her mother tongue?"
Mr Sharp became a Yeoman Warder in 1984 and carried out the daily Ceremony of the Keys to lock the gates of the Tower.
His daughter, who moved to the village to be closer to her father at the end of last year, said: "It's just not acceptable.
"I have no idea of motivation but I found it very offensive and it caused me a great deal of distress."
The landlady of the pub, which is owned by Scottish and Newcastle but managed by LT Pub Management, declined to comment.
A police spokesman said: "We were called to reports of an alleged prejudice incident at the Packhorse Pub Northborough at 7.20pm.
"Officers attended and spoke to both parties."

A Change Of View?

Politicians Turned Away from Entertainment Industry

Online protests against entertainment industry taking over the American Justice system seem to have got the message to the US politicians that the world is hacked off with them. Press reports show that those politicians who stood for the entertainment industry are now switching sides. The reason is that they finally realized that their careers will be that much tougher when they are treated negatively by their voters.
Apparently, the entertainment industry is realizing that its Washington campaign is faltering. For example, the Motion Picture Association of America described the opposition as an “abuse of power”. In other words, the MPAA really doesn’t know what to do. Recently, Wikipedia, the global free online encyclopedia, went offline for 24 hours. Google and others also used the black censorship bars in attempts to draw attention to what had earlier been a legislative proposal to curb access to foreign websites engaged into infringing the copyright.

Websites that participated in the blackout asked their visitors to reach their legislators on the question, and perhaps they did exactly that. After that, such sponsors of the bill as Senators Roy Blunt, Chuck Grassley, Marco Rubio, and many more announced that they were withdrawing their support. Meanwhile, the others began to attack Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for rushing the Senate version of the legislation. However, it can’t be Reid’s fault, because he was just doing what he was told. In addition, with political apathy in America about such issues he could think it was good to get campaign contributions from the entertainment industry for the coming elections.

In switching sides, some of the earlier bill supporters called it “deeply flawed”, while the others cited “unintended consequences” able to stem from the proposed legislation. All of them claimed that they supported taking action against Internet piracy. The others specified that they supported changes to the law.

Creative America – a studio- and union-supported outfit fighting online piracy, started a TV advertising campaign to air in the areas of key legislators. For example, in Times Square, it turned on a digital pro-SOPA and PIPA billboard in space offered by News Corp that owns Fox Studios. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is again known as a support of SOPA and PIPA and has dubbed Google a pirate.

Don’t Dress Down For The Horses!

Ascot's orange spot of shame

Ascot has apologised after stewards stuck orange dots on racegoers who failed to comply with a new dress code.

It was meant as a way to smarten up dress standards and give racegoers a polite warning if they were not quite up to scratch.
But last night Ascot Racecourse was forced to apologise for a new policy of sticking orange dots on to people who failed to comply with its new, stricter dress code.
Under the new rules, introduced yesterday, men in the premier enclosure are asked to wear a jacket and tie while women should dress smartly.
Those who broke the guidelines were still admitted, but had the stickers applied to their entrance badge.
Ascot said the stickers were designed to act as a warning and to let stewards know that a racegoer had already been spoken to about their outfit, to avoid the embarrassment of repeated verbal warnings.
But those issued with the mark said they felt humiliated, and launched angry complaints at race course chiefs.
Organisers later apologised, saying the tactic was “heavy-handed”.
Nick Smith, head of public relations at Ascot, said: “We are trying to bring in a new dress code but didn’t want on day one to turn anyone away and genuinely thought we were treading quite softly.
“Everything behind the thinking appeared to make a lot of sense, but it’s clear that targeting people like this gave out the wrong message.
“The intention wasn’t to be heavy-handed so we apologise. It was clearly the wrong thing to do and there will not be orange tags next time.”
The dress code for premier admission, set out on the Ascot Racecourse website, states: “A day at Ascot Racecourse is very special. Most racegoers dress up for the occasion and this is an important part of the Ascot Raceday experience.
“Gentlemen should wear a jacket and tie, smart trousers or smart jeans, no trainers. There will be an announcement on the day allowing jackets to be removed, should the weather be hot. Ladies should dress for a smart occasion; hats are encouraged but not compulsory. Children should be dressed smartly.”
There is no formal dress code in the course’s cheaper grandstand enclosure, although the rules state “bare chests are not permitted at any time”.
Last week the racecourse also announced that fascinators and short skirts would be banned for women attending the annual Royal Ascot meeting.

Don’t Mess With Moose!!