Coober Pedy: A man on trial
for drink-driving a camel told the court that it was all a mistake and
he'd simply jumped onto the beast when confronted by the arresting officer
to "lighten the mood". Alice Springs camel driver Ricky Hall, 36, told
Australia's Coober Pedy court in December that he was "frightened and terrified"
of Oodnadatta police station sergeant Garry Griffiths and had leapt aboard
a camel to simply ease the tension of the moment. The court nonetheless found
Hall guilty, noting that there were many ways to handle confrontation
without needing to ascend a camel.
(Source: The Australian)
Sunshine Coast: Police believe
they've tracked down two "well presented" men responsible for a series
of home-made bomb attacks on letterboxes, a telephone box
and a public toilet block in Nambour and Gympie in late November. In
the most recent incident, a booby-trapped toilet bowl came close to
killing a Sunshine Coast man when it exploded only seconds before he
went to enter a cubicle in a Nambour public toilet block. "He's lucky
he's not dead," police spokesman Det Snr-Sgt. Paul Schmidt said. "The whole
toilet pedestal went through the block's iron roof. If he'd been sitting
on it when it had gone off, he would've gone with it. As it is, he's
lucky he got away with some cuts to his legs. Honestly, these bombings
have really gone beyond a prank. When we catch the culprits they'll be charged
with unlawful wounding and wilful damage. They're lucky it's not murder."
(Source: Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
Canberra: ACT Supreme Court
judge Justice John Gallop was let off drink-driving and unlicensed driving
charges last month after pleading guilty to being twice over the legal
limit - without being fined or having his licence suspended. Justice
Gallop, 68, had been pulled over by police in Queanbeyan a few
days earlier, Queanbeyan Magistrates Court was told, where he admitted to
having drunk three glasses of white wine with a friend. Justice Gallop was
also charged with unlicensed driving since he had an ACT licence but was
living across the NSW border in Queanbeyan. Magistrate Robert Rabbidge dismissed
the charges, however, saying that he took into account "the judge's excellent
driving record and character".
(Source: The Canberra Times)
Texas: Convicted killer Martin
Gurule's Thanksgiving night escape from Ellis Prison Unit - the first
by a Texas death row inmate since 1934 - had all the elements of a B-grade
James Cagney film, authorities admitted. Gurule, 29, and six other inmates
did everything the old-fashioned way, putting stuffed dummies into their
bunks to dupe prison guards, dying their white clothing with felt-tip
pens, crawling through the prison roof late at night
and using a hacksaw blade to cut through a recreation yard fence. Although
the other six never made it out of the prison yard and are now suspected
of having been set up by the cunning killer as decoys, Gurule managed
to dodge gunfire from watchtower guards and successfully scale two perimeter
fences topped with razor wire by wrapping himself in cardboard, before
disappearing into a nearby pine forest. His bloated body was found
in the Trinity River about 2km downstream from Ellis Prison Unit the
next day, however: In a B-grade ending to an otherwise Oscar-winning
jailbreak, Gurule had apparently slipped and drowned while trying to swim
across.
(Source: Tribune Spotter:
Robbin
Trojanowski)
Brisbane: A "stupid" thief stole
an expensive camera and then left his name, address and phone number at a
neighbouring business, Brisbane District Court was told this month. The court
heard that Andre Rochus, 27, had been looking for work in the Seventeen
Mile Rocks area and went into an office block where he took a $1500 digital
camera, shortly before going to a nearby business where he put his name
down for work, leaving his full contact details. Rochus pleaded guilty to
charges of stealing a camera (and a bed from a furniture factory where
he had previously been employed) and was sentenced to 6 months' jail.
(Source: Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
Ontario: "My vomiting project
is a work of art," Jubal Brown declared to a supporters meeting at the Ontario
College of Art and Design. "It's not mere chundering - I am destroying
bourgeois art and liberating individuals from its banal, oppressive
representation." Brown, 22, who is currently under investigation by college
authorities and threatened with lawsuits by two art galleries, described
the thinking behind his current project: "I am protesting against the stale,
obedient, lifeless crusts hanging everywhere in museums by vomiting on them.
For the central part of my triptych I selected "Composition in Red,
White and Blue" by Piet Mondrian, hanging in the Museum of Modern Art in
New York. Before visiting the museum I feasted on blue food - blue Jello,
blue cake icing - then went in and vomited over the painting. The first
part of my triptych - vomiting over Raoul Duffy's "Harbour at le Havre"
in the Art Gallery in Ontario - was completed in May in front of
an invited audience. I haven't yet decided on the painting for Phase
III, but it will probably be something by Picasso. The greatest thing about
my art is that it doesn't get stale like the rest of the art in the gallery.
It only lasts a few minutes before the curator brings out the Kleenex
and takes it away. Them I am asked to leave, often rudely."
(Source: Toronto Globe & Mail)
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