Brickbats
In Cardiff, Wales, local officials are under fire for building a bicycle lane just eight feet long. The local council spent £2,000 on the lane, which it insists will encourage "green" transportation.
Fred Carwile has sold back issues of High Times on eBay for years, so he was alarmed when he recently found all his current listings had been deleted. According to Carwile, eBay spokesmen told him they'd pulled all listings of the marijuana-oriented magazine at the request of the federal government.
Four Atlanta women were standing on the sidewalk talking about funeral plans for a friend when a police officer ordered them to move. One of the women asked the officer why. "Because I said so," replied the cop, who then handcuffed her and hauled her off to jail for disorderly conduct.
Five people, including two members of the New York Police Department, have been charged with stealing about $1 million in perfume from a warehouse. The cops allegedly entered the warehouse holding their guns and badges and identified themselves as police officers. They then held 11 employees at gunpoint while the perfume was stolen.
Officials at Blackminster Middle School in England have apologized to parents for staging a mock shooting on campus. Students had watched in horror as a gunman appeared to shoot one of their teachers on the playground. They found out only later that it was a role-playing game organized by the teachers to show students how to collect facts and analyze evidence.
Bob Dylan has canceled a tour of the Far East after censors in China blocked him from playing Beijing and Shanghai. Promoters say Chinese officials were wary of Dylan's iconic status among '60s protesters.
If New Mexico State Police officers fail to write 100 tickets and make three DWI arrests each month, they face possible sanctions, including loss of overtime privileges. Chief Faron Segotta says it's a "minimum performance standard," not a quota.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives seized 30 Airsoft pellet guns Brad Martin had purchased from Taiwan to sell in his Ohio store. The ATF claims the guns can be converted into machine guns, a claim that Martin and other dealers say is absurd.
For years the student newspaper at University High School in Spokane Valley, Washington, has asked students a question and printed their answers. In one recent issue, the question was "If you could be famous for anything, what would you be famous for?" Many of the answers were jokes, including "Dropping a nuke on the Middle East," "Being JFK's assassin," "Leader of the KKK," and "Killing the president with a trident." School officials confiscated and destroyed almost every copy of the paper, and they are investigating the students who gave those answers. You know, just in case one of them did kill JFK.
Charles Oliver
