Colorado: In an attempt
to dissuade locals from driving around Fort Lupton with "15-inch speakers
and 1000-watt amps, blaring out music", this year Judge Paul Sacco has been
sentencing offenders to attend a weekly course at his unique Noise Aversion
Therapy Centre in City Hall, where they're forced to listen to music they
hate. This month he confided to reporters that his unusual approach to the
problem appears to be working. "The offenders are almost all young, so there
is a heavy dose of lounge music, bagpipes, plenty of John Denver songs and
some Navajo pipe music," he said. "A typical evening might begin with Wayne
Newton singing Danke Schoen, followed by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans
duetting on Happy Trails To You, and Tony Orlando and Dawn with Tie
A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree, and end with Roger Whittaker
singing I'm Going To Leave Old Durham Town. My own jazz compositions
are particularly unpopular, so they always get plenty of those as well. And
if they fall asleep, we pry their eyes open." Sacco's claims that his aversion
therapy works are backed up by offenders. "I'm not going to jam no more,"
17-year-old David Mascarenas told reporters after attending two sessions.
"I took my stereo out of my car already. I don't want to be hassled no more.
If you don't pay attention they cite you for contempt. They're playing Dean
Martin in there right now and it's not a pretty sight, man."
(Source: San Francisco Chronicle)
Brisbane: A prisoner grew marijuana
at a jail so he could raise money to appeal against a decision to refuse
him parole, Brisbane Supreme Court heard last month. The court was told that
Lawrence James Riley, 31, grew cannabis near a banana plantation at the Palen
Creek Correctional Centre, south of Brisbane, and also admitted selling the
marijuana to two other prisoners. Riley pleaded guilty to producing, supplying
and possessing drugs on various dates between June 1st and December 12th
last year. Justice Bob Douglas said Riley's actions had been "outrageous"
and reminded him that prisons were supposed to be for the rehabilitation
and punishment of offenders - not for adventures in alternative farming.
He sentenced Riley to an additional 15 months.
(Source: Courier-Mail, Brisbane)
Laidley: A public campaign which
attracted support from more than 800 residents has failed to persuade Laidley
Shire Council to allow a family to keep a 220kg pet pig called Babe in their
home. The Betheras family's "Babe petition" was unable to persuade councillors
to waive a local by-law which prohibits anyone in the small rural Shire keeping
a pig on a property of less than a hectare, or face a $1500 fine. Commenting
after the decision, Mayor Shirley Pitt said "Look, this pig is 220kg. That''s
a whole lot bigger than the one in the movies. I think a few people have
overlooked this. The law is the law."
(Source: Queensland Times, Ipswich)
Canberra: 75-year-old pensioner
Clifton Moss pleaded guilty to charges of arson and damaging Commonwealth
property this month, almost 7 years after the famous August 1992 incident
where he drove his 4WD through the doors of Parliament House. The ACT Magistrates
Court heard this month that Moss had driven his 4WD up to the doors of the
Federal Parliament on Sunday evening, July 11th and hurled two molotov cocktails
at the front doors before embarrassed security officials managed to arrest
him. The Court also heard that Moss had previously attacked the South Australian
Parliament building and the premises of radio stations 3AW in Melbourne and
2UE in Sydney, as well as the August 1992 ram-raid on the Federal Parliament.
Explaining his motives, Moss said that he had been fined $1600 and ordered
to pay $55,000 in damages for the 1992 incident, but had since noticed that
the organisers of the 1996 union protests - which caused far more damage
- had not been required to pay any compensation at all. Moss said he had
written to Prime Minister John Howard asking the Government to refund him
the $55,000 - and when he hadn't heard back a few weeks later, had decided
on a revenge attack. Commenting on Australian Federal Police security, Moss
said that he was "surprised" he'd been able to get as far as he did. "I thought
I might be lucky to just get off one molotov," he bragged to AFP officers.
"Two was a bonus - and I was going for my third when you stopped me. Crikey,
I'm 75."
(Source: The Australian)
Washington: A Maryland man was
indicted this month for stealing $8,662 in cash from the US federal
agency that prints it and stashing it behind tiles in two different men's
bathrooms - along with his ID badge. Darryl G. Lee, 40, was charged with
five counts of theft of government property after a carpenter doing routine
repairs in a men's room near a currency examination office found bills stuffed
behind a ceiling tile.
(Source: CNN)
Delaware: Wilmington police
caught a bank robbery suspect literally red-handed after he gave a friendly
wave to a passing police officer. The man had earlier robbed a bank and fled
on a bicycle, police said, abandoning it after a dye pack inserted with the
money exploded.
(Source: News Of The Weird)
New Jersey: Two men in New Jersey
were charged with theft this month for allegedly smuggling Viagra out of
a drug plant by shoving it down their pants. Police say the pair stole more
than $10,000 worth of the anti impotency drug from the plant by smuggling
it out in their underwear. "Yes, it's ironic," a spokesman said. "But if
we get a conviction they'll do hard time."
(Source: Associated Press)
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