BARRE, Vt. — A Vermont mayor who agreed in fun to a jousting match with padded sticks and helmets ended up in the emergency room after he broke some ribs.
Sunday’s joust at a festival in Barre was a modern-day re-enactment of a fabled f…
Posts Tagged ‘Thomas’
Thomas Lipscomb: Fast Moves with A Moveable Feast
July 27th, 2009 |
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The “restored” version of A Moveable Feast goes right up there with “New Coke” as a bad conception.
Thomas Kochan: Bringing the Workforce into Health Care Reform!
July 24th, 2009 |
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As Congress debates the best way to invest a trillion dollars or so in health care reform it appears to be on the verge…
A certain age
July 24th, 2009 |
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The heat has brought out a new plague of mad, show-off, kamikaze-style boy cyclists. I have never been all that keen on cyclists, ever since the dog was mown down and I was nearly sliced in two on the pavement, but compared with this new lot, the old-style cycle maniac is Fotherington-Thomas.
The latest sort tend to come out on warm evenings and have a new type of bike – minimalist, no gears, no lights. Bare-chested, or with shirts billowing in the wind, they swirl and wheelie about, across red lights, the wrong way up one-way streets, along pavements – no bells, no helmets, no fluorescent jackets. None of that cissy stuff, just top-speed, miss-death-by-half-a-whisker freestyle riding.
“They’re all boys, aren’t they?” says my friend Olga breezily, “That’s what they do. Give them any sort of vehicle and they’ll try and kill themselves in it.” She rather admires them, because she’s a cyclist herself. I had a terrific row with her in the car last week, me driving along in the dark, a whirling mass of shadowy boy cyclists weaving and zipping round the cars and hovering in blind spots, while Olga applauded them and admitted shooting red lights, nipping up one-way streets and along pavements herself.
“I’ve got every right to do it,” said she saucily. “There are no proper cycle lanes and those one way systems are terrifying. You all drive much too fast. The only safe place for cyclists is on the pavement.”
I had a shout, but Olga didn’t give a stuff. Last week a crazed motorist cut her up, called her a lesbian, and drove on to the pavement, trying to kill her. And Fielding had to jump off his bike and hurl himself into a hedge just before a mad motorist crushed his bike to pulp, on purpose.
There’s no arguing with Olga and Fielding. To them, it’s clear cut: cyclists green and good, motorists bad. They know they’re right. But I know I’m right. This is another war with no solution in sight. Let’s hope there aren’t too many casualties.
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Thomas Frank: A Conservative Sellout? Quelle Surprise
July 22nd, 2009 |
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“David Keene is no conservative.” That is what I predict Mr. Keene’s brethren on the right will soon be saying about the longtime chairman of the American Conservative Union.
Thomas DeLorenzo: Can I get the same health care plan that Michael Steele has?
July 20th, 2009 |
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One man’s response to Michael Steele’s cries of socialism regarding the health care plan being discussed in Congress at this time. Dear Mr. Steele: I…
Chain mail by e-mail: Medieval battle records go online
July 20th, 2009 |
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The detailed service records of 250,000 medieval soldiers – including archers who served with Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt – have gone online.
The database of those who fought in the Hundred Years War reveals salaries, sickness records and who was knighted.
The full profiles of soldiers from 1369 to 1453 will allow researchers to piece together details of their lives.
Thomas, Lord Despencer is the youngest soldier on the database, whose career began when he was aged just 12 in 1385.
Elsewhere, the career of Thomas Gloucestre, who fought at Agincourt, can be traced over 43 years and includes campaigns in Prussia and Jerusalem.
‘Remarkable survival’
The website is the product of a research project by Professor Anne Curry of the University of Southampton and Dr Adrian Bell of the University of Reading.
Dr Bell said: "The service records survive because the English exchequer had a very modern obsession with wanting to be sure that the government’s money was being spent as intended.
"Therefore we have the remarkable survival of indentures for service detailing the forces to be raised, muster rolls showing this service and naming every soldier from duke to archer."
He said accounts from captains showing how funds were spent and entries detailing when the exchequer requested the payments can be found.
The free-to-use website, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, also shows which soldiers rode the furthest.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Grandmother brings war home
July 20th, 2009 |
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We must debate and define our objectives in the increasingly disastrous fight against the Taliban
A grandmother’s piercing cry as the coffin of her grandson moved in front of her sounded of more than the anguish of one family. It heralded, I believe, the end of the government’s current strategy in Afghanistan.
The grandmother’s cry, which was carried on the news broadcast two weeks ago, has done more than all the groups campaigning against the British strategy in what Neville Chamberlain would have called a “faraway country”. The intensity and drama of the pain has made the bringing back of soldiers’ bodies a media and hence a political event of real significance.
What began as a politically thought-out campaign to overthrow a Taliban government has become a war that dictates the politics. Putting the politics back into the war is urgent.
Tony Blair managed, as usual, to confuse the issue. A new government that did not support or give cover to al-Qaida was required. The Taliban government was overthrown by invading forces.
This key issue of a non-supporting al-Qaida government was wrapped up in the most daring of liberal agendas. The war was also being fought for the equality of women; although that is a goal that is yet to be fully achieved in our own country.
The Taliban-enforced inequality is symbolically represented by the burka. But what can those soliders make of this kind of campaign when we allow such symbols to reign in some areas of our own country?
The most urgent task is to give our troops the very best equipment, including helicopters, pilots and more troops, but this must only be a holding operation.
Politics must now come to the fore. How much longer can we go on supporting a corrupt government that cannot even deliver order? Sooner rather than later we need to talk to the Taliban.
There is a huge difference between our wish to impose a western-type democracy of Afghanistan and of the political tradition of that country being able to respond positively. The one objective on which we should have majored is a Taliban that would attack al-Qaida as effectively as they have been fighting us.
We owe it to those Afghans who have supported us to take some time in letting them know that a change in policy might be on the way. They must be given the chance to make their own deals long before we cut and run.
Those chilling pictures of the South Vietnamese struggling to get on the last helicopters leaving Saigon are a reminder of how a withdrawal should not be accomplished.
Those who criticise this idea argue that the front line in fighting al-Qaida is clearly drawn in Afghanistan. I agree with them. The debate, however, has to be how we defend that line.
How many more coffins will have to come home before the political class realise that our strategy is losing this very war?
The chief of staff should argue rigorously for resources. But it should be the politicians who dictate the politics of the wars. At the moment the two sides are playing out each other’s role.
In another context the poet RS Thomas wrote of nailing our doubts to an untenanted cross. That single piercing cry of pain from one grandmother has ensured that a growing concern about the war is now being nailed to that cross. It cannot be long before British politics responds to the sounds that nailing.
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Kristen Bell Appeals To Fans To Lobby For “Veronica Mars†Movie
July 20th, 2009 |
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Kristen Bell is calling on fans to voice their support for a big screen adaptation of her shortlived TV series Veronica Mars.
The actress starred as a student-turned-private investigator for the cult series, which was dropped after three seasons when UPN and The WB merged to become The CW Network in 2006.
Over the weekend, Kristen [...]
Rising Unemployment Accelerates Foreclosure Crisis
July 16th, 2009 |
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WASHINGTON — Relentlessly rising unemployment is triggering more home foreclosures, threatening the Obama administration’s efforts to end the housing crisis and diminishing hopes the economy will rebound with vigor.
In past recessions, …
Franken’s First Time Around: Comedian-Turned-Senator Questioned “Clarence Thomas” In 1991 SNL Sketch (VIDEO)
July 16th, 2009 |
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This isn’t Al Franken’s first Supreme Court confirmation hearing. In 1991 he appeared in an opening sketch on “Saturday Night Live” that mocked Clarence Thomas’s hearing and those involved. It featured Tim Meadows as Thomas and Dana Carvey, Ph…
Eric Deggans: For this wise African American, Sotomayor hearings reveal the heart of race conflict in America
July 14th, 2009 |
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Never have I wanted more to throw a brick through the screen of my television. Watching Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sit stoically through a…
Michael Likosky: A Fashion Foreign Policy
July 13th, 2009 |
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On the campaign trail, President Obama made a well-received promise to put more value on American labor when negotiating trade deals. He spoke of revisiting…
Stephen Kaus: Fighting Sotomayor, Republicans Falsely Advance Fire Fighter Ricci as the White Man’s Rosa Parks
July 12th, 2009 |
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On Ricci, Sotomayor is in line with four of the nine current members of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is not she who is starting a race war.
How would you prosecute the PM?
Corinna Ferguson talks Zasta through the rare, and costly, route of bringing private prosecutions against breaches of criminal law
Zasta asks:
Although there has always been a right to bring private prosecutions for breaches of the criminal law – indeed before 1879 there was no public prosecutor so it was the only way that anyone came before the criminal courts – it is a rarely-used procedure. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the police and prosecuting authorities have a duty to investigate and prosecute breaches of the criminal law, and they should only refuse to do so if they consider there is insufficient evidence or it is not in the public interest to prosecute. Second, private prosecutions are expensive to bring and entail a risk of being ordered to pay the defendant’s costs. Third, it will often be difficult for a private individual to gather sufficient evidence t o meet the high standards of proof which apply in criminal cases. Finally, the Crown Prosecution Service has the power to take over any private prosecution and thereafter to continue or discontinue it.
The first port of call for anyone who believes that a crime has been committed is to refer the matter to the police and/or the director of public prosecutions. This is what Mark Thomas was intending to do after Gordon Brown failed to obtain authorisation for what Thomas thought might amount to a “demonstration” in Parliament Square. However the question of whether all of the elements of an offence are present, or whether it is the public interest to prosecute may be highly contentious, and it is extremely difficult to challenge a decision of the DPP not to prosecute. So a private prosecution may be the only option for someone determined to see the matter in court and willing to take the financial risk.
The procedure was famously used in the Jerry Springer: The Opera blasphemy case that Anna Fairclough talked about in last week’s clinic. The prosecution was unsuccessful but the court did not question the right of a private individual, to bring the case in principle. Another well-known example of a private prosecution followed the Marchioness disaster in 1989. The high court upheld the right of the widower of one of the 51 victims to bring a prosecution for manslaughter against the owner and four employees of the dredger which had sunk the Marchioness pleasure boat. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that the prosecution should not be allowed because the CPS had already considered the matter and decided to bring charges only for “failing to keep a proper lookout”.
A private prosecution is commenced by requesting a summons from the magistrates’ court. A summons will only be issued if the magistrates are satisfied that (1) the allegation is of an offence known to the law, (2) the essential ingredients of the offence appear to be present, (3) the offence alleged is not brought too late, (4) the court has jurisdiction, and (5) the informant has the necessary authority. Further, some types of proceedings require the consent of a judge or the attorney general, including prosecutions for criminal libel against anyone responsible for the publication of a newspaper, prosecutions for incitement to racial hatred and prosecutions for assisting suicide.
The tests a Crown prosecutor must apply in deciding whether to pursue a prosecution (ie whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction and whether prosecution is in the public interest) do not apply to a private prosecutor. In practice, however, if the tests are not met the case is unlikely to get very far. This is because of the power given to the CPS to take over a case in order to put a stop to it. The CPS guidance says that a private prosecution “should be taken over and stopped if, upon review of the case papers, either the evidential sufficiency stage or the public interest stage of the full code test is not met”. The courts have pointed out that if the CPS apply precisely the same test when deciding whether to discontinue a case as they do when deciding whether to start proceedings in the first place then the right of private prosecution would be undermined. The fact that the CPS would not have brought the proceedings itself should not preclude a private prosecution going ahead.
The CPS guidance also states that it may be necessary to stop a private prosecution even where the evidential and public interest tests are met, if there is “a particular need to do so, such as where the prosecution is likely to damage the interests of justice”. One of the examples given is “cases where it can be said that the prosecution is vexatious… or malicious”. A private prosecution which is politically motivated, for example, may well be cut off for this reason.
So, in principle, it is possible for a member of the public to prosecute a public figure for an offence under SOCPA or indeed for fraud. However, even assuming that the difficulties outlined above can be overcome there are two further practical problems. First, a private prosecutor does not have any of the powers of the police to seize evidence or question suspects, and he or she has no right of access to statements, evidence, or other documents held by the CPS. Putting together sufficient evidence to amount to a “case to answer” on the basis of publicly available material will often be tricky. Second, the court may make an order that a party pay costs that have been incurred as a result of an unnecessary or improper act or omission. If it considers that the prosecution was completely misconceived and the defendant incurred costs as a result then there may be a substantial bill to pay.
Finally, all you Guardian-reading monarchists will be pleased to be reminded that the monarch is immune from being sued or prosecuted in the courts. So the Queen can demonstrate in Parliament Square without prior authorisation to her heart’s content.
Do you have a civil liberties or human rights question for the Liberty lawyers? Post it in our Liberty Clinic open thread.