Daily Brickbat

Absurd news bites, served fresh every day.

Charles Oliver | November 30, 1999

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They'll Pry This Keg From My Cold Dead Fingers (2/21)
The Alabama Senate has passed as bill, pushed by the Alabama Wholesale Beer Association, that would effectively ban private keg parties. Not to worry, the state House of Representatives probably won't pass it. But it may pass a competing bill that would require retailers to maintain written records of everyone who buys a beer keg and to charge a $1 processing fee that retailers would split with the state. The sponsors of both bills say they are aimed at reducing drinking by people under 21.

Crime and Punishment (2/20)
Russian media have been warned not to publish anything that could be offensive to members of any religion or they could lose their licenses. The warning follows the start of an investigation of a Volgograd newspaper that printed a cartoon showing Jesus, Mohammad, Moses and Buddha watching two groups squaring off. A caption beneath the cartoon read "We did not teach them to do that."

London Watching (2/17)
Staring in March, the British government says it will be able to track the movements of all vehicles on the road and record where they have been over the past several years. That's when a new central database will start operations. That database takes images from thousands of traffic cameras, which are being converted to automatically record license plate numbers of cars. The database will record when each image, some 35 million a day, was recorded along with the precise location of the vehicle. The images will be stored for two years, but the government is already talking about extending the storage time up to five years.

Where the Boys Aren't (2/16)
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has filed suit against the Body Central fitness club. The agency claims the club's women only policy discriminates against men. The agency has previously ruled that the Santa Rosa club violated state law. Under an administrative settlement, the club agreed to, among other measures, eliminate all advertising that portrayed the club as for women only. The new suit says the club violated that agreement.

Fuhrer Furor (2/15)
A thief got an extra two months in prison when Austrian police discovered his telephone voice-mail message contained the phrase "sieg heil." The man got a year in prison for theft and receiving stolen property and two more months for violating an Austrian law banning Nazi propaganda.

Be Seeing You (2/14)
A British court sentenced two men to jail for using government-operated street cameras to spy on a woman in her home. Mark Summerton got four months in prison and Kevin Judge got two months for training the camera on the woman's flat. Images of the woman, including her without her clothes on, were shown on a large monitor of a control room operated by the Sefton Council in Merseyside. Team leader Vincent Broadrick received 200 hours of community service for misconduct in public office in connection to the surveillance.

Swedish Censorship Team (2/13)
The Swedish government took steps that led to the shut down of a Web site that posted a cartoon of Islam founder Muhammad. SD-Kuriren, the newspaper of the Swedish Democrats political party, printed the cartoon to protest censorship and asked readers to send in their own cartoons. But Levonline, which hosts the newspaper's Web site, subsequently took down the site after discussions with the foreign ministry and police. Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds called the cartoons a "provocation." The SD-Kuriren site is still available from a backup server.

Taxman in the Sky (2/10)
The British government has advised tax collectors to use satellite photographs to monitor homes for additions or modifications that can boost the value of the property, and the taxes owners must pay. "Aerial photographs are particularly effective in rural areas where improvements are hard to see from the road," according to a manual for tax inspectors.

Risks of Smoking (2/9)
Three French newspapers have been fined between $950 and $1,180 for publishing photographs of Formula One drivers. The photos weren't obscene. They didn't invade the privacy of the drivers or violate any copyrights. But they did show the drivers in their overalls, adorned with logos from tobacco companies. And a French court ruled that violated French laws forbidding tobacco advertising.

Stop All That Jazz (2/8)
New British entertainment laws require almost all live performers, from circuses to bands to street musicians to traditional Punch and Judy shows, to obtain a public entertainment license before performing before paying audiences. David Locke, who owns a London restaurant that featured jazz, has stopped musical performances, saying the expense of getting a license is too much. According to the Guardian, circuses are also getting hit hard because they must now get a license in every venue they perform in, a process owners say is not only expensive but too time consuming.

State Eye for the Homophobe Guy (2/7)
Christian Vanneste will have to pay a 3,000 euro fine and another 3,000 euros in damages to three gay rights organizations after a French court found him guilty of making homophobic statements. Vanneste, a member of Parliament, said that "heterosexuality is morally superior to homosexuality" and "homosexual behavior endangers the survival of humanity." Vanneste says he will appeal the verdict.

Final Wishes (2/6)
Maniam Moorthy became a national hero in Malaysia as a member of the first Malaysian expedition to conquer Mount Everest almost 10 years ago. He was a Hindu then. In an interview two months before his death, he told TV reporters about his preparations a Hindu festival. And his family says he was a Hindu when he died. So why, despite their wishes, was he buried as a Muslim? A Shariah court in Malaysia ruled he had converted. His family was not allowed to testify at the trial because they were not Muslims, and Malaysian civil courts refused to overrule the Islamic court.

Gangs of New Jersey (2/3)
Paterson, New Jersey, cops knocked in Michelle Clancy's door at 5:50 a.m. one morning. They shouted "rudely" at her before realizing they had burst into the wrong home. Then they forced her and four family members, including her 13-year-old daughter, to stand outside in the cold while they raided the right building. Clancy says they had to wait 20 minutes. The police department says it was only 10. "Even when you are in your own home you can be held hostage like that," said Clancy. The police department promises to pay for any damages to the Clancy home, but officials don't seem very apologetic. "These things do happen," said Lt. Anthony Traina.

Getting Hosed (2/2)
The ads promised a shower that feels like a tropical waterfall, and they showerheads delivered on the promise. That's why the city of Seattle is seeking federal sanctions against the manufacturer. Federal law requires that shower heads not exceed flow rates of 2.5 gallons of water a minute. But the five models tested by Seattle Public Utilities had flow rates of 7.62 to 13 gallons per minute. "This has the potential to significantly undermine all our efforts to encourage and achieve water conservation," said Al Dietermann, a conservation official with the utility.