Two-year jail sentence for former neighbour who held a grudge against pet owner A man who kidnapped a bank director’s dog and demanded a ransom of £500, in revenge for her failure to help secure him a loan, has been jailed for two years. Gabriel Radzikowski, 29, was furious that his former neighbour Sara Lilly, 48, was unable to use her position as a regional director at a high-street bank to help him get a loan. He broke into the back garden of her home in Bath and stole her Yorkshire terrier, Bilbo Baggins. He later phoned her using a false name, claimed he had found the pet and demanded £500 for its safe return. But Lilly recognised his voice and called the police. Radzikowski dumped Bilbo in a freezing pond but a passer-by spotted the dog and plucked it to safety. Sentencing Radzikowski at Bristol crown court, Judge Michael Longman told him: “Your motive was financial and to get your own back. It was planned, calculated and cruel. You did not feel the slightest regret or remorse for your actions.” The court was told that Radzikowski had lived in the flat above Lilly’s but was forced to move out because he could not afford the rent. During their time as neighbours he asked her to secure him a bank loan that he had an “unreasonable expectation” of being granted. In December last year Lilly found her dog was missing. As she searched, she received a phone call from Radzikowski who pretended to be someone called Martin. He said he had found her dog and would only return it if she provided a £500 reward. She phoned the police and then received a call from a walker who had rescued the dog after spotting it bobbing in a small area of open water in an otherwise frozen pond. Lilly told the court that she was particularly upset because she was so close to her dog. She said: “I don’t have children so he is my child really in a certain way. He is my pet and I love him.” During his trial Radzikowski alleged that Lilly had tried to frame him because he had once turned down her offer to pay him £100 if he spent the night with her. Sentencing him, Judge Longman described his claims as scurrilous, adding: “You pleaded not guilty despite strong evidence and made scurrilous claims against Sara Lilly which took her aback in court. “You befriended Sara Lilly when you lived in her building. She was friendly and welcoming and you formed unreasonable expectations of how she could help you get a loan. When she couldn’t help you, you sought to take it out on her.” Radzikowski was sentenced to 12 months for blackmail and 12 months for intimidation, to be served consecutively. Crime Animals Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Cornwall council discussing imposing tax on visitors, saying it could raise £26m a year and improve county Cornish hoteliers, bed and breakfast owners and visitors have reacted angrily to an idea that a £1-a-night tax could be levied on tourists to the county. Cornwall council is discussing imposing the tax on visitors, arguing that it could raise £26m a year and help improve the county for both tourists and residents. However, many who work in the tourism industry have expressed concern that the measure would prompt some visitors to stay away. Andy Hannan, the mayor of Newquay in north Cornwall, was among those who said he was shocked at the idea. “I’m amazed, flabbergasted. This tax will put us at a disadvantage,” he said. “The fear is it will just disappear into the Cornwall council pot.” Kevin Oliver, the chairman of Cornwall Federation of Small Businesses, said: “I think it would be detrimental to the county’s economy. If you introduce a tourist tax, you turn people away from Cornwall – and why would anybody want to do that? It’s just a nonsense.” Gill Jenkins, who runs a B&B in Bodmin, said she feared a tax would act as a deterrent to would-be visitors. Julian Peck, a hotelier in Looe, south Cornwall, said a multi-million pound industry would be risked for the sake of “a quid”. He also pointed out that while £1 a night did not sound like much, it equated to more than £50 for a family of four staying for a fortnight. People who often holiday in Cornwall expressed distaste about the idea, some claiming they would never visit a part of the UK that effectively charged them for the privilege. Tom Flanagan, Cornwall council’s corporate director for the environment, planning and economy, raised the idea at a meeting of the communities and local government select committee. He argued that it could help mitigate the impact of central government cuts on areas such as public transport. However, he admitted that collecting the tax would be difficult. Cornwall council said it was one of a “range of ideas” being looked at. A spokesperson explained: “The suggestion to raise money to improve the local infrastructure in Cornwall by introducing a charge for tourists is not formal council policy at this time. “It is one of a range of ideas which are being considered by the council, and has not yet been discussed by councillors.” Cornwall United Kingdom Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media Eleven more days until Keith Olbermann is back on the air at Current TV. What It Means to Be “Hannitized” : Keith offers a phrase for when Sean Hannity scrubs truth from current events so you can view them the way Fox News wants you to.
Continue reading …VIDEO: Bozell Slams NY Times, WaPo for Deputizing Readers to Comb Through Palin E-mails
June 10, 2011 No Comment“I've never seen the news media do this, and it is beyond reproachful for them to have done this,” NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained on the June 10 “Fox & Friends” regarding the New York Times and Washington Post calling for readers to volunteer to help them comb through the archive of Sarah Palin's official gubernatorial e-mail correspondence. For the full segment, click the play button on the embed below the page break “This is [the mainstream media] participating in a character assassination campaign” and shows “exactly how much the media despise Sarah Palin and to what ends they'll go to have her knocked out of this [presidential] race,” the Media Research Center founder argued, adding that it was unimaginable that they'd go to the same lengths to vet a Democratic presidential candidate like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. Later in the segment, anchor, Bozell commented on CNN's Piers Morgan recently comparing the Tea Party to Hitler's Nazis and Mussolini's black shirts: Fifty-eight percent of Americans identify themselves with the Tea Party. Way to go, CNN, now you know why you're in last place.
Continue reading …Stately homes, cream teas … and an indie band: countryside opens up to crossover culture
June 10, 2011 No Comment
Guillemots members are among the exhibitors at National Trust’s Nunnington Hall, one of the UK’s most unlikely cutting-edge galleries Two miles from the nearest B road, one of the UK’s leading indie rock band members pauses, hammer in hand, below a 17th-century roof beam, and admits: “I’m scared.” “I mean, can I really put nails into the walls of a National Trust house dating back hundreds of years?” asks Aristazabal Hawkes of Guillemots, the band that has taken over the ancient manor’s top floor. Busy with his own staple gun and a tough stretch of Yorkshire oak, the manager of Nunnington Hall, Simon Lee, replies: “Sure. Bryan Adams did, and Mary McCartney. Why not Guillemots as well?” It’s an exchange that highlights the extraordinary growth of one of the country’s most unlikely cutting-edge galleries, spread across miles of stately home and cream tea country on the edge of the North York Moors. Not just Nunnington, but an entire, delectable slice of North Yorkshire countryside has joined the contemporary circuit for critics, collectors and anyone interested in “crossover culture” – musicians who paint, artists who sing, sculptors who write and many more. “It’s an exploration of the nature of creativity,” says Lee, one of a string of arts commissioners who are bringing well-known names from across the world to nooks such as Nunnington and the former home of Lawrence Sterne, nearby Shandy Hall. The curator there, Patrick Wildgust, hosts New York poets, South American intellectuals and European artists at the world’s first Centre for Non-Linear Narrative, inspired by Sterne’s erratic masterpiece Tristram Shandy. “There seems to be something restless about creativity,” says Fyfe Dangerfield, founder of Guillemots, which has been nominated for Mercury and Brit awards. He is equally busy with tape and glue as the band’s exhibition goes up in a corridor and two rooms at Nunnington. “Some people argue that it can be narrow – a well-developed ear, for instance, may mean less visual awareness. But we find that music, doodling, taking photographs and making films all play a part in what Guillemots wants to do.” A noted classical music composer as well as Guillemots’ lead singer, Dangerfield was talent-spotted for his drawings by Lee. After increasing Nunnington’s annual visitor numbers to 65,000 with photograph shows by Adams and McCartney, as well as Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood and Andy Summers of the Police, Lee was surfing Guillemots’ website and clicked on their gallery of artwork. “I thought: this is good stuff and very much in our line of discovering other creative sides to people known for one talent,” says Lee. “To put it crudely, if you cut off a guitarist’s hand, what are the odds that they would find another medium to express themselves?” Guillemots members were initially fazed by the invitation. “I thought it might be a wind-up,” said Dangerfield, “but then I suggested extending it to the whole of the band, and it’s fascinating what’s come out.” Hawkes is exhibiting family photographs and collages of concert wristbands, backstage passes and the like; MC Lord Magrão screens a 10-minute film noir; and the fourth band member, Greig Stewart, who says his closest public brush with art was being hugged by Damien Hirst at a drunken Groucho Club bash, has clay sculpture and wall-hangings. Visitors to the hall keep dropping in on the hanging sessions; with one demanding the “disgusting music” to Magrão’s film be switched off, but others intrigued by the crossover theme. Retired teachers Judy and Eric Murphy from Sheffield chimed with Dangerfield’s ‘restless notion’, saying: “We’ve always liked Guillemots and got their first album, but this looks as though it’s going to tell us a whole lot more about them.” The exhibition runs from 14 June to the end of July, after which Lee will Polyfilla and revarnish his attics while planning Nunnington’s next contribution to the wider countryside gallery programme. “There’s no problem getting busy or famous people to come here,” he said, “because it’s one of the loveliest parts of England. And they appreciate being asked. If anyone says, ‘Who do they think they are?’ or ‘It’s all rubbish’, the answer is that we invited them; they didn’t push to come.” The National Trust Indie Guillemots Art Cultural trips Martin Wainwright guardian.co.uk
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Up to 5,000 troops and dozens of tanks reportedly massed near Turkish border as revolt against regime enters decisive phase Syrian forces equipped with dozens of tanks were reportedly massed outside a near-deserted town near the Turkish border as the revolt against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad entered a potentially decisive phase. Human rights campaigners and people who have been in the vicinity of Jisr al-Shughour said there had been shooting near the town on Friday, where there has been shelling in recent days. Witnesses have claimed up to 5,000 troops are involved, which appeared to confirm reports on Syrian state TV that the regime has started a new military operation on the town where a mass defection of troops to rebels has also been credibly reported. Damascus has admitted 120 officers and security personnel based in the town were killed by “armed groups”. Information about events on the ground remained patchy, since most foreign journalists are banned and there are heavy restrictions on local media, but previous Fridays have seen increased violence across Syria as protesters and forces loyal to Assad have clashed. Jisr al-Shughour usually has a population of 41,000 but thousands of people have fled to nearby villages and across the border into southern Turkey, where the authorities are offering humanitarian assistance. They have been reluctant to let most people speak to waiting media, although some refugees making their way independently have managed to give their accounts of the latest crackdown on the national uprising which began three months ago and is said by human rights groups to have cost at least 13,000 lives. The government says 500 members of the security forces have been killed. Nadim Houry from Human Rights Watch, which is monitoring the situation from Beirut, told the Guardian: “We managed to get through to someone in a town not far from Jisr al-Shughour and they reported hearing gunshots in a town called Sermaniyyeh. That seems to confirm what Syrian state TV indicated earlier today that the army has started its ‘military operation’ on Jisr al-Shughour. “Based on what’s happened over the last three months we are very worried that we are going to see yet again a large number of killings of protesters.” Houry said: “Based on various testimonies there have been some defections, what we don’t know is the scale of these defections. In Egypt and Tunisia, the decision of the army to stop shooting at protesters or to refuse orders was key to convincing the regime that it was time to go [but] we have to wait and see what’s going to happen in Syria. Things are playing out differently there, the loyalty of the officers in Syria remains clearly with the regime.” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had close ties to Assad, on Thursday criticised the crackdown. Interviewed on Turkey’s ATV television, he said some images coming out of Syria were “unpalatable” and suggested Turkey could support a UN security council decision against Syria. “They are not acting in a humane manner. This is savagery,” he said. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Middle East Refugees Martin Chulov Matthew Weaver James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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Prime minister takes responsibility for public anger over NHS bill but brushes off claims he is making a ‘mess’ of reforms David Cameron has claimed that the listening exercise the government was forced to undertake to salvage the NHS bill was a “strong” thing for the government to do. Earlier this week, the prime minister announced that key elements of health secretary Andrew Lansley’s original blueprint were being abandoned following the two-month listening exercise on the health and social care bill launched in April. The announcement came amid mounting criticism of the coalition’s controversial NHS reforms. The U-turn on elements of the bill prompted Labour leader Ed Miliband on Wednesday to accuse Cameron of making a “complete mess” of health and justice reforms. Miliband launched the attack after reports the government had also ditched plans to introduce a 50% prison sentence discount for early guilty pleas after holding talks with Ken Clarke, the justice secretary, on Tuesday. In an appearance on ITV’s This Morning on Friday, Cameron sought to cast the NHS rethink as a sign of political strength rather than weakness. He said “a number of doctors and nurses are coming back on board”, adding that openness to change is “not weak, it’s sensible”. “In fact, I think it’s strong,” he said. Appearing relaxed on the show, the prime minister said he took responsibility for the two policy areas that have provoked a public outcry – health and sentencing policy. “I knew exactly what was in our health plans when they were announced and exactly what was in our criminal justice consultation paper when we launched it,” Cameron said. “It’s as much my responsibility as it was Andrew Lansley’s or Kenneth Clarke’s. We are a team, we play as a team, and that’s absolutely the way I run my government.” Cameron stressed Clarke’s plans were out to consultation. But he appeared to confirm reports that the 50% sentence reduction idea had been dropped by saying he wanted rapists and murderers and those who commit violence to go to prison “for a very, very long time”. He said: “We are going to make sure the right people are being sent to prison for the right amount of time and make sure we reform.” Asked if Clarke got a yellow card for his comments about giving rapists a 50% sentence reduction if they admitted to the crime, Cameron said many things in the consultation paper that were “extremely good” would be taken forward, including “tougher community punishments”. He rejected the idea that prisons were holiday camps – “They are tough, and they should be tough” – but he indicated that criminals working in the community to make amends for their crimes would form part of his plans for the “big society”. Cameron said it was appalling that people were going to prison, at a cost of £45,000 a year for each place, only for half of them to re-offend again within the first year of release. “Magistrates will be happier punishing people in the community if they really felt they were scrubbing graffiti off walls and cleaning up the streets and making amends for the dreadful things they have done,” he said. Asked why those who commit crimes were not part of the “big society” plans, Cameron told co-host Eammon Holmes, “They will be”, before adding that it would take time to deliver. Cameron fielded questions on NHS pay, welfare reforms, overseas aid and the economy. He said the government’s plans to “rebalance” the economy was making progress but that “it is going to be choppy”. “There will be good months and bad months,” he said. “People will judge this government at the end of our parliamentary term in 2015. People will be able to make a judgement – did they do the right thing in terms of dealing with the deficit? We are taking difficult decisions, unpopular decisions, but I would rather take the right decisions now and actually see the economy grow in the long term than try and be popular now and do the wrong thing.” He added: “It’s very easy in politics just to think of tomorrow and what the papers will say and not think of the long term. In my job you have got to think, ‘Is what I am doing going to help the country in the long term?’” David Cameron NHS Health Prisons and probation UK criminal justice Liberal-Conservative coalition Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Teh stoopid, it hurts : During his address for the Iowa Family Leader, Cain spent much of his time denouncing President Obama’s “failure of leadership,” and said the tipping point in his decision to run for president came when Obama signed legislation overhauling and reforming the health care system. Like fellow presidential candidate Mitt Romney , Cain seemed especially concerned with the length of the bill. After claiming that the administration had not read the bill, Cain promised the audience that as President, he would never sign pieces of legislation that are longer than three pages. CAIN: Engage the people. Don’t try to pass a 2,700 page bill — and even they didn’t read it! You and I didn’t have time to read it. We’re too busy trying to live — send our kids to school. That’s why I am only going to allow small bills — three pages. You’ll have time to read that one over the dinner table. What does Herman Cain, President Cain talking about in this particular bill? ::facepalm:: While the audience (of undoubtedly tea party enthusiasts) was receptive to this dumbed down notion, let’s just review some of the bills that would have been rejected by Cain for simply having too many words: Under this bright-line rule, Cain wouldn’t have signed such landmark pieces of legislation as the Civil Rights Act , the Social Security Act , or the PATRIOT Act . In fact, he wouldn’t have even been able to sign the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which ran 114 and 18 pages , respectively. Let’s not forget the GI Bill, the establishment of the National Park Service and pretty much every single Authorization for Appropriations. By the way, Politico actually bothered to look and found that Republicans are equally as responsible for long bills as Democrats . Nevertheless, all of them would have been tossed out of Herman Cain’s Oval Office for requiring the leader of the free world the inconvenience of reading longer than it takes him to use the toilet.
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Immigration rights activists plan court challenge to state law requiring public schools to check students’ status The Republican governor Robert Bentley has signed a crackdown on illegal immigration into Alabama law, with both supporters and critics considering the measures to be the toughest in the country. The crackdown will require public schools to determine the immigration status of students – an aspect not covered in an Arizona law that has been at the forefront of attempts by several US states to crack down on illegal immigrants. Under the Alabama law, police must detain someone they suspect of being in the country illegally if the person cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason. It also will be a crime to knowingly transport or harbour someone who is in the country illegally. The law imposes penalties on businesses that knowingly employ someone without legal resident status, and business licences could be suspended or revoked. The law – due to come into effect on 1 September – requires businesses to use a database called E-Verify to confirm the immigration status of new employees. “We have a real problem with illegal immigration in this country,” Bentley said after signing the law on Thursday. “I campaigned for the toughest immigration laws, and I’m proud of the legislature for working tirelessly to create the strongest immigration bill in the country.” Immigration rights advocates are vowing to challenge the law in court, after having sued to block similar measures in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. The US justice department also sued over Arizona’s law. The courts blocked the implementation of a provision allowing Arizona police to check the immigration status of people there . But the US supreme court recently endorsed a separate Arizona law requiring employers to use E-Verify . The court also ruled that Arizona could suspend or revoke business licences of companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Alabama’s law is unique in requiring public schools to determine, by review of birth certificates or sworn affidavits, the legal residency status of students. “We fear that it will, in effect, ban the student through fear and harassment,” Shay Farley, the legal director of Alabama Appleseed, a non-profit policy and legal advocacy organisation, said. Farley said there was concern about the increased financial burden on schools for collecting the information. “We definitely believe this is the nation’s toughest immigration law,” Jared Shepherd, a law fellow with the Alabama American Civil Liberties Union, said. The Alabama bill passed the state House of Representatives and Senate by large margins before landing on Bentley’s desk. Republicans took majority control of both chambers last year for the first time in 136 years. Civil and immigrant rights groups mounted a campaign against the measure, urging voters to contact the governor and ask him to veto the bill. Some pointed to concerns in Georgia, where farmers have complained that tough new curbs on immigration are creating a shortage of seasonal workers before they even come into effect. But Gene Armstrong, the mayor of Allgood, Alabama, a small community in which the Hispanic population has grown to almost 50%, said: “We managed in the past without illegal immigrants to pick the tomatoes here, and I haven’t heard anyone say that if we sent them all home nobody would be left to do that work. “When you have 9% unemployment, I think that some people who might not have wanted those jobs previously might reconsider.” Several states have enacted immigration restrictions, even though the US government considers it to be a federal issue. Alabama US immigration United States guardian.co.uk
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