Drunken Pumpkin

A High Court judge has approved damages payments totalling £750,000 for nearly 200 prisoners who were forced to stop taking drugs in jail.

The inmates, who were dependent either on heroin or the heroin substitute methadone, claimed they suffered “trespass” and clinical negligence by the Prison Service in being forced to endure “short, sharp” detoxification programmes resulting in “cold turkey” symptoms.

This amount translates to approximately US$7,480 per plaintiff.

This excerpt is from an article found at Telegraph.co.uk

After losing a hockey bet with Stephen Colbert, the mayor of Oshawa, John Gray, now must pay up by declaring his own birthday, March 20, to be “Stephen Colbert Day” in his city, just east of Toronto.

The text above is an excerpt from an article found on news.yahoo.com. The full article can be found here.

I exhibit a lot of restraint in only infrequently posting Stephen Colbert clips to the Drunken Pumpkin, but below are links to past Stephen Colbert posts:

Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert debate the War in Iraq
Have to love the Colbert Report

ORLANDO, Fla. — A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.

Claudia Mejia gave birth eight and a half months ago at Orlando Regional South Seminole. She was transported to Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando where her arms and legs were amputated. She was told she had streptococcus, a flesh eating bacteria, and toxic shock syndrome, but no further explanation was given.

The hospital, in a letter, wrote that if she wanted to find out exactly what happened, she would have to sue them.

ORMC said Mejia is requesting information on if there were other patients or someone on her floor with the streptococcus. They said, if they release that to her, that would be a violation of other patients’ rights.

The above is excerpted from the full article, which can be found at WFTV.com

…two undercover officers trespassed onto Singletary’s property. They then invited criminals onto his property to engage in criminal activity with them. Mr. Singletary, recognizing the trespassers as drug dealers, then properly demanded they leave. He brought a gun along to defend himself, not an unreasonable action, given the circumstances. For this, he was shot to death.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist visited Jacksonville yesterday , and when asked about Singletary’s death, referred to the “challenges” of keeping a community safe.

Full article can be found at Reason.com

There are 10 types of people in the world

Those who understand binary and those who don’t

I’m glad that Bush is taking notice of the lack of marksmanship in the U.S. Marksmanship used to be a point of pride in our country that we would take careful aim at our goals. Remember Sgt. York? Now we just go off willy-nilly and shoot at any old thing.

Jeff spent the day concerned with that affliction, lack of aim. Just look at the notice from the paper. Clearly, the best course of action would have been to remove the banister, but a little slip up, and off with his head. But that’s become so common that it only made it as a notice and not headline news, so to speak.

In contrast to the headless youth is the outhouse. Whoever used that privy had some pretty good aim. At least, until they made it out to the island, and then who knows what happens behind stone walls.

I really don’t know what’s up with the guy in the pink shirt. I can just imagine the photographer saying, “Just step on in a little closer. The encounter suits are just a precaution.” He was improving his aim. My guess is the pink shirt was an old boss.

Don’t forget to participate in our caption contest. The prize, which as of right now is still quite up for grabs, is a lovely Drunken Pumpkin t-shirt suitable for wearing to the least formal occassion or being cut up into lovely dish clothes.

Tune in tomorrow as Jeff improves his own aim and makes my life complicated with a bunch of completely disconnected images and stories. Probably about squirrels and hippos.