'We did not seek advice from the force's diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.'

Did not seek the advice of the diversity adviser about... Seriously. Put a picture of a yorkshire pig wearing a police hat. Or to put the controversy in plainer terms, piss off. We're expected to observe "Muslim sensitivity" while they ignore that of others? Go piss up a rope.

Muslim outrage at police advert featuring cute puppy sitting in policeman's hat | Mail Online

City officials in charge of the airport declared it a "gun-free zone" when a law allowing people to carry guns on public transit and other places took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.

Does anyone else think it's a bad idea that if people can just stroll into airports loaded for bear it's a bad idea?

Lawsuit filed over Atlanta airport barring guns - Yahoo! News

More evidence that sex offender hysteria motivates corrupt legislators to produce policy that is fucking stupid.

The facts are pretty darned sad. Barely more than a child himself at 19, Bradshaw was charged with statutory rape for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Fine. That’s punishable. I’d prefer it had been kept out of the criminal justice system (see here for more) but its punishable. He gets 5 years.

After he gets out he gives an invalid address. For that, too, he pleads guilty and is sentenced to time served. When released he moves in with his sister but can’t live there because Georgia’s draconian sex offender law won’t let him live within 1,000 feet of a recreation center!

He moves in with an aunt but can’t stay there because the home is within 1,000 feet of the First Baptist Church! Growing desperate, he finds a family friend but this time inadvertently transposes the street address!

Now the cops move in. Bradshaw is arrested because he hadn’t moved into the friend’s single-wide trailer within the legally required 72 hours — and lied and said he did! His mandatory sentence for this infraction is life in prison.

A Georgia lawyer in this thread says that many of these people end up being homeless because they cannot find a place to live that complies with the law, and then they end up getting arrested for being homeless.

Fortunately we have elected representatives who are capable of forming logical thoughts:

Sen. President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) said the law is clear.

"I wish it hadn't happened, but there are consequences for people's actions," said Johnson, a chief sponsor of the offender law. "What would have happened if he had given the wrong address and had lived in a place and was harming a child next door? The law is trying to protect children. Justice has to be blind to motive."

1. Eric Johnson recommended these particular consequences. He has to defend why they are appropriate, and not refer to them as if they are beyond his control!
2. This person is not a pedophile.
3. This is not an attempt to protect children. Strict statutory rape laws are designed to attack teenagers for having sex out of wedlock. In this case coupled with a hysteria driven over broad sex offender registration rule intended as marketing fodder for political campaigns.
4. No, justice does not have to be blind to motive! There is a difference between malice murder and involuntary manslaughter. If you don't understand that you shouldn't be writing laws.

Georgia Supreme Court considers proportionality in sex offender case

In his latest effort to help the environment, the prince has converted his 38-year-old Aston Martin to run on fuel made from surplus English wine.

I'm not drunk, but my car is.

Prince Charles converts his beloved Aston Martin to a green machine... run on English wine | Mail Online

“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.

The upshot? We've covertly invaded Iran. Oops part deux.

Annals of National Security: Preparing the Battlefield

Newsweek is set to publish a highly embarrassing report on Sen. John McCain, revealing that the McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default, The Huffington Post has learned.

Oops!

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek To Report - Politics on The Huffington Post

Senate Democrats accuse Republicans of adopting intransigence as a strategy to produce a "do-nothing" Congress. Senate Republicans acknowledge using delay tactics but say they are reacting to a heavy-handed Democratic majority that has denied them a voice on the Senate floor.

Let's clarify a few things here. First, when Republicans controlled Congress, Democratic bills and amendments were flat blocked. They never reached the floor, and once in a while something so egregious would come up that the 60 vote rule would become invoked in the Senate. What have we seen since then? Everything gets blocked, filibustered, or bogged down in nowhere by the Republicans. Denying them a voice? Get real. Better yet, get out so things can actually get done.

Watch some of the Republican campaign commercials going up. They're talking about themselves as "bi-partisan," "uniters," anything except what they are, road blocks that serve no purpose except to stop anything that may come up. Hell they voted against Mother's Day. Don't need 'em, don't want 'em.

Political Maneuvers Delay Bill After Bill in Senate - washingtonpost.com

The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its ban on handguns in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation's capital.

The legal action follows a similar lawsuit against the city of Chicago over its handgun ban, filed within hours of Thursday's high court ruling.null

That didn't take long. But without the additional rifle ban present in the DC law, I'll be surprised if these work out.

NRA sues to overturn S.F. gun ban in city housing - Yahoo! News

International perfume maker Mahender Sabhnani, 51, was sentenced to 3 1/3 years and fined $12,500. He was convicted in December on a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude and harboring aliens.

I'm not even sure what to say... Well yes I am. You're in New York City and you can't find a couple of people who want to be slaves? WTF? I blame this on not bothering to pick up ANY of the local rags with personals in the back. Now they go to jail for being morons.

2nd NY millionaire gets prison in slavery case - Yahoo! News

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

With all respect due to Senator Canute, they don't buy floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes or plagues of locusts either, but that doesn't stop any of them from showing up.

Some things in life at free, some of them, like anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea and James "Canute" Inhofe, are things we don't want .

NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'