You might want to try the San Francisco County Jail’s San Bruno lockup, where authorities have installed 16 condom machines for the jail’s 750 prisoners.
The condom dispensers are the latest evolution in a safe-sex program that began in 1989, when health workers began distributing condoms to inmates as part of their counseling before they were released.
And although sex among inmates technically is illegal, the Sheriff’s Department went ahead and installed the 16 machines anyway – one for each jailhouse pod – paid for by a pair of small grants from UCSF and a Southern California nonprofit.
“It may be controversial,” Sheriff Michael Hennessey said, “but I think the larger health education message is important.”
As for the chance that all those machines will actually promote jailhouse sex?
The sex already takes place, says Kate Monico Klein, who is directing the program for the city’s Public Health Department. “If (providing condoms) saves one or two lives, it’s worth it,” she said.
A Citi Field security guard tries to tackle a young man carrying a Mexican flag who ran onto the field in the seventh inning of the New York Mets vs the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game at Citi Field in New York, Friday, July 30, 2010.
Two men carrying Mexican flags ran into the outfield during the seventh inning of the New York Mets’ game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night at Citi Field.
The men were apprehended by security fairly quickly without much incident.
Before the game, about 40 demonstrators across the street from the ballpark protested Arizona’s immigration law, chanting “Oppose racism!” and “Boycott Arizona!”
Others stationed closer to the subway exit handed out leaflets that requested Major League Baseball move next year’s All-Star game out of Phoenix.
“It’s not going to distract me. I’m here to play baseball,” Diamondbacks interim manager Kirk Gibson said after his team’s 9-6 victory over the Mets. “You have an opinion, I have an opinion. They have the right to say what they want, but it’s no distraction.”
Workmen painting white lines along the middle of a road found their path blocked by a dead badger – but decided to paint around it.
The unfortunate creature had been killed in a road accident more than a week earlier but council staff had failed to collect it.
As a result a team of line painters came across the roadkill in the centre of the highway as they daubed double white lines on an S-bend.
Road block: Workmen painted around a dead badger they spotted in the middle of a highway
Rather than clearing the obstruction they stopped around 1ft short of the creature, walked past it and then continued the lines on the other side.
The bizarre markings stunned motorists who use the A338 near Downton, on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border.
Businessman Kevin Maul was on his way home from work when he noticed the break in the lines.
Mr Maul said: ‘I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I saw this poor old badger who had been there over a week.
‘I’d seen him every day as I went by and wondered if he was going to be picked up.
‘Then on Friday I drove home to see his body between the lines – they had painted the road, but left a gap where he lay.’
Hampshire County Council is responsible for the line painting but New Forest District Council is responsible for clearing road kill.
The two failed to arrange the clearance before line painting began in Downton, near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Mel Kendal, the councillor responsible for the environment at Hampshire County Council, said the line painters did ‘what they thought was best’.
He said: ‘We would usually liaise with our colleagues at the district council who dispose of animal carcasses on the highways to ensure the badger was removed before the white line painting crew did this stretch of road.
‘This appears not to have happened in this case and the white line painting crew did what they thought was best until arrangements could be made to dispose of the carcass.
‘These arrangements have now been made and the gap in the white lines will be filled in, at no extra cost to the council tax payer.’
The badger has now been removed and line painting is due to be completed by council contractors Amey today.
There will be no extra cost to taxpayers because the company are paid a fixed rate for the job.
However, Amey said the line painting was the responsibility of sub-contractor Bellstan who were not ‘licensed or trained’ to remove road kill.
The manager said: ‘The line painting crew did not have the necessary licence to remove the carcass from the road. You have to be trained.
‘They painted up to the badger, moved around it and carried on painting the other side.
‘They called the office, who arranged for a licensed crew to go down and remove it.
‘The lines were due to be finished today but that has been held up by the wet weather.’
Opponents of Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law are calling for a boycott of the state’s products – including the popular Arizona Iced Tea.
The problem: Arizona Iced Tea is actually brewed in New York.
Online, misguided tea fans vowed to switch to Lipton or Snapple.
“Dear Arizona: If you don’t change your immigration policy, I will have to stop drinking your enjoyable brand of iced tea,” Twittered Jody Beth in Los Angeles.
“It is the drink of fascists,” wrote Travis Nichols in Chicago.
The company did not return messages asking if they planned to set the public straight.
Founded in Brooklyn in 1992, the firm was based in Queens before moving into a new $35 million headquarters in Nassau County last year.
The new state law allows cops to demand citizenship papers from anyone they think looks illegal.
Actual Arizona firms facing a boycott: Cold Stone Creamery, U-Haul and Best Western.
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“The new state law allows cops to demand citizenship papers from anyone they think looks illegal.”
Actually that’s false. SB 1070 doesn’t allow a cop to stop just anyone and demand papers.
Welcome to the United States -A Guide for New Immigrants – ISBN 978-0-16-078733-1
“As a permanent resident, you are expected to respect and be loyal to the United States and to obey our country’s laws. Being a permanent resident also means that you have new rights and responsibilities….Carry proof of your permanent resident status at all times.”
A shapely blonde in a lettuce-leaf bikini spoiled a proposal that could have restored trash service in the city’s neighborhood parks.
Colorado Springs and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals failed to flesh out a deal for the animal-rights group to pay to advertise on trash cans, which were pulled from nearly 140 neighborhood parks earlier this year as a cost-saving measure.
PETA proposed an ad featuring a bikini-clad blonde and the slogan, “Meat Trashes the Planet. Go Vegan. PETA.”
In Colorado Springs, the message — and the nearly naked bombshell — proved too hot to handle.
City spokeswoman Sue Skiffington-Blumberg said the trash cans are placed in public parks that cater to families and children.
“The verbiage promoting a specific agenda — ‘anti-beef’ — was not appropriate and the lettuce leaf bikini was not rated for general audiences,” she said in an e-mail.
Kristina Addington, a PETA spokeswoman, said the image in the ad is essential.
“It helps brings attention to the ad,” she said. “It’s a fun way to get people excited about going vegetarian.”
Addington said the offer to the city wasn’t a publicity stunt and that it still stands.
“We would absolutely put our ads on the trash cans if they took us up on this offer,” she said. “It’s a win-win. It helps us by promoting a vegetarian diet, but it’s definitely going to help the parks in Colorado Springs.”
The advertising proceeds would have allowed the city to restore trash service in at least some parks.
On March 15, Mayor Lionel Rivera sent Tracy Reiman, PETA’s executive vice president, a one-page letter thanking the group for its proposal, saying the city “would welcome your support and assistance with this budget issue.”
But the mayor told Reiman that PETA’s proposal didn’t meet the city’s rules.
“Your suggested trash can layout does not fit within the guidelines we have established for sponsorship in our Parks and Recreation Department,” he said. “That does not mean the door is closed. PETA would be welcome to help us with trash disposal in our parks and get commercial credit for doing so within the guidelines we presently have.”
Reiman e-mailed the mayor a response Friday.
“Thank you for your consideration of PETA’s offer to pay to place ads on trash cans in Colorado Springs’ public parks,” Reiman said.
She said the ad’s image and slogan are key to PETA’s message.
““If you should you decide to allow text and images on the trash cans in the future, please contact me so that we can move forward with the sponsorship. Thank you, and best of luck during these difficult economic times.”
Skiffington-Blumberg said it’s “disappointing we couldn’t find a win-win.”
“We have interest from other organizations and individuals that are willing to work with us for the greater good, so onward!” she said in an e-mail.
Under a new adoption program offered by the city, residents are doing trash duty at dozens of parks — without bikinis.
A HEAVILY intoxicated Pennsylvania man tried to resuscitate at dead possum lying along a highway, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Friday.
Donald Wolfe, 55, was spotted by a policeman attempting to breathe life back into the dead animal around 3pm local time Thursday in a remote area north of Pittsburgh.
State troopers arrested Wolfe along an isolated stretch of the highway and charged him with public drunkenness, the paper reported.
Trooper Jamie Levier said Wolfe was “extremely intoxicated” and “did have his mouth in the area of the animal’s mouth, I guess.”
Another witness observed Wolfe kneeling near the dead animal and gesturing as though he was conducting a seance.
Wolfe will face charges of public drunkeness before a district judge in Jefferson County at an unscheduled date.
Police listed “society” as the victim of the crime.
Two fighter pilots from Virginia Beach have been permanently grounded after flying too low over a packed Georgia Tech football game last year.
The aviators, both from Strike Fighter Squadron 136 at Oceana Naval Air Station and both Georgia Tech alum ni, were supposed to pass over Bobby Dodd Stadium in downtown Atlanta at 1,000 feet, the standard altitude for military flyovers.
Plans called for two jets to pass overhead after the conclusion of the national anthem, shortly before Georgia Tech took the field against Wake Forest on Nov. 7.
Instead, the two F/A-18 Super Hornets flew just a few hundred feet above the stadium.
The low-altitude pass may not have been intentional, but it seemed to thrill the crowd. Within hours of the game, various fans posted videos on the Internet of the jets screaming overhead.
“However much of my tax $$ went to that, I’d gladly give it again for the same purpose,” one fan wrote on a Georgia Tech sports blog two days after the flyover. “It was INCREDIBLE.”
According to documents obtained by The Virginian-Pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Condon and Lt. Cmdr. Marc Fryman reported the breach immediately after landing. The Navy quickly convened an evaluation board to consider whether they should continue flying.
The board found that they chose to fly using barometric altitude measurements (feet above sea level) instead of radar altitude measurements (feet above ground level) but failed to adjust their low-altitude warning systems accordingly.
By the time the alarm sounded, the pilots didn’t have enough time to correct the mistake.
Although the pilots “inexplicably failed to recognize” how low they were flying, the board concluded, their lapse was neither intentional nor malicious. It recommended putting both pilots on probation, an outcome endorsed and forwarded up multiple levels of the chain of command.
But the final authority on the matter, Rear Adm. R.J. O’Hanlon, commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic, disputed the conclusion that Condon, the lead pilot, had unintentionally flown that low.
“The arguments written by prior endorsers that LCDR Condon’s actions were an honest mistake are not persuasive,” O’Hanlon wrote. “He is a senior, very experienced department head who placed his aircraft and wingman in a very dangerous position.”
O’Hanlon also had tough words for Fryman. Despite a spotless record, O’Hanlon wrote, Fryman’s complacent response to the altitude transgression and lack of situational awareness were “unforgiveable in my view.”
Lt. Cmdr. Phil Rosi, a spokesman for the Norfolk-based Commander Naval Air Force Atlantic, said the Navy would not confirm the pilots’ names. The field naval aviator evaluation board process is administrative, Rosi said, one of naval aviation’s internal checks and balances, and carries with it an expectation of privacy.
“I can confirm that this incident happened,” Rosi said, and because minimum established guidelines were violated, the Navy took appropriate action to handle it.
O’Hanlon’s decision was not disciplinary, and he recommended that both men be retained and shifted to a different specialty. He described both as motivated and dedicated naval officers.
The report also noted that it was only Condon’s second flyover – and his first as the pilot of the lead jet.
TRAVEL agents in Britain are offering stag parties a pub crawl and a visit to a strip club, followed by a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The tours include a pub crawl of 300 bars and restaurants around Krakow in Poland and end with a visit to a strip club.
The package, organised by British companies Last Night of Freedom and Chillisauce, also include paintballing, white-water rafting and firing a Kalashnikov on a shooting range.
Holocaust groups are outraged, with one group saying the tour conjured up “a horrible impression of lap dancers” at the Nazi death camp.
But Paul Luke, content manager at Last Night of Freedom, said dropping visitors to the most depressing place on earth into a massively fun weekend is “life-affirming”.
“People have told us they have had the best night out ever after they have been there, because it almost makes you think, ‘To hell with that, we have seen the worst humanity had to show’ and then gone out on a major night on the tiles with strippers and booze,” Mr Luke told The Times.
“Although it makes some people cringe at the notion of these two things colliding, it is something that is very moving and extremely sobering. Then again, it does fuel a fabulous night out.”
Krakow authorities said groups were turning up at the camps with T-shirts emblazoned with the names of their tours, such as “Warsaw, Krakow, Auschwitz – 2009.”
The Polish town has also been forced to ban stag parties in kilts because men were frequently exposing themselves.
The Kennedy Airport air traffic controller who brought his son to work and let him direct several planes let a second child do the same thing the next day, officials said Wednesday.
An initial investigation by the Federal Aviation Authority revealed that the unidentified controller’s second child gave directions to two separate planes on Feb. 17.
The revelations emerged a day after the controller and his supervisor were suspended over the Feb. 16 incident.
On that day, the controller’s young son made a total of five transmissions to pilots operating four separate aircrafts.
“JetBlue 171 cleared for takeoff,” the boy says in his first call.
His dad then gave more detailed instructions to the pilot and said: “This is what you get, guys, when the kids are out of school.”
The pilots were amused. But the stunt infuriated regulators.
“This lapse in judgment not only violated FAA’s own policies, but common sense standards for professional conduct,” FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said Wednesday.
“These kinds of distractions are totally unacceptable.”
The union that represents air traffic controllers also criticized the controller’s judgement.
In a recording that has been confirmed as genuine by the Federal Aviation Administration, the child makes five transmissions – with the pilots in each case all responding enthusiastically to him, MyFox National reports.
AN investigation is under way after a child was heard giving instructions to a pilot from the air-traffic control tower at one of America’s busiest airports, reports say.
One conversation between the tower at JFK Airport in New York and a pilot goes as follows:
JFK TOWER: Jet Blue 171 contact departure.
PILOT: Over to departure jet blue 171, awesome job.
The child appears to be supervised, with a controller explaining the reason for the young voice to the pilot.
JFK TOWER: That’s what you get guys when the kids are out of school. (laugh)
The airport is the sixth busiest in the country with thousands of planes taking off and landing every day.
The control tower is a highly secure area and the FAA says only licensed controllers are supposed to communicate with planes.
“I have never ever heard a small kid in the tower giving instructions for an airplane to take off or cross a runway or any kind of instructions,” Jim Baker, a retired chief pilot at Delta airlines, told FOX25.
The FAA said: “Pending the outcome of our investigation, the employees involved in this incident are not controlling air traffic.
“This behavior is not acceptable and does not demonstrate the kind of professionalism expected from all FAA employees.”
The union that represents air traffic controllers said: “We do not condone this type of behavior in any way, and it is not indicative of the highest professional standards that controllers set for themselves and exceed each and every day in the advancement of aviation safety.”
