Archive for 2016
February 7, 2016
HE SHOULD HAVE CLAIMED HE WAS MUSLIM AND ALL CHARGES WOULD HAVE BEEN DROPPED AND THE COMPLAINT COVERED UP: Commuter who walked past actress at Waterloo station cleared of ‘bizarre’ sex assault claim: Mark Pearson may not even have made physical contact with woman in her 60s on busy concourse – but CPS approved sex assault charge.
A commuter has been cleared of sexually assaulting a well-known actress after a jury rejected claims the crime could have taken place in a brief half-second contact in a busy railway station.
Mark Pearson, a 51-year-old artist and picture framer, was accused of brushing against the actress, who cannot be named for legal reasons, in a mass of train passengers at London’s Waterloo station.
CCTV footage showed Mr Pearson, who was a complete stranger to the alleged victim, did not break his stride as he walked past the woman, who was heading to a rehearsal.
The defendant, who said he had endured a year-long “Kafkaesque nightmare” as a result of the complaint, blamed the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for forcing him to endure “mental torture” as a result of the charge.
A jury at Blackfriars Crown Court took 90 minutes to clear Mr Pearson of the charge of “sexual assault by penetration”, the Mail on Sunday newspaper said. . . .
There were no witnesses, no forensic evidence and the actress failed to pick out Mr Pearson in an identity parade of video images following the alleged incident in December 2014.
The actress was wearing a coat and jacket and a thin dress over “training pants” following a yoga class, the jury heard.
Mr Pearson, who was traced by police from his Oyster travel card records, told the newspaper: “‘One of the many frightening aspects is that this could have happened to anyone.
“For me, half a second turned into a year of hell. I feel I have undergone a form of mental torture sanctioned by the state.
The proper response to this is tar and feathers.
OF COURSE NOT. WOMEN HAVE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS; MEN HAVE REPRODUCTIVE RESPONSIBILITIES. Will Reproductive Rights Advocates Stand Up for Men?
YOU WILL ONLY EXPRESS ACCEPTABLE SENTIMENTS, CITIZEN! Twitter, CNN, and Reuters don’t want to read your opinions about race, immigration, or Islam.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM AND SEGREGATION? “Sixty-two years after Brown v. Board of Education, New York City still has one of the most ethnically segregated school systems in the nation.”
A NON-FAN’S GUIDE TO SUPER BOWL 50. (BECAUSE: NACHOS.) “I’m not saying a roll of Mentos could provide better analysis than Phil Simms of CBS. I’m not saying it—however, I am typing it in a magazine and placing it on a long banner pulled by a biplane. Listen for yourself: When someone makes a great play, Simms will say: ‘Whoa, that’s a great play!’ He is the perfect analyst for football viewers who can’t figure out how to face their television screen. (To be fair, that does account for roughly 40 per cent of Cleveland Browns fans.)”
Ouch.
FROM JOEL KOTKIN: Happy Super Bowl Super Subsidy Sunday.
ROGER SIMON IN NEW HAMPSHIRE: Cruz Cruises in Americana Setting.
STANDING UP AGAINST sexist attacks on Bernie Sanders.
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R.I.P. DAN HICKS. And this song goes out to Jeb Bush.
SHOULD DANGEROUS SPORTS BE BANNED?
Curiously, they seem to be the one thing that California doesn’t want to ban.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Chicago Is Falling Apart.
If only there was something different the city could be doing; a change it could make. But what?
FASTER, PLEASE: In New Anti-Aging Strategy, Clearing Out Old Cells Increases Lifespan Of Mice By 25 Percent. “The results, reported today in Nature, outline a possible new tactic for treating diseases including glaucoma, arthritis, and heart disease, and potentially extending human life, according to lead author Jan van Deursen, a molecular biologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. . . . Nathaniel David, CEO of the startup, says the company has identified drugs able to kill senescent cells in lab animals and would try to develop drugs for age-related disease and eventually hopes to create treatments to postpone aging. This study isn’t the first to make mice live longer, although it does appear to be the first time the effect was achieved by targeting senescent cells.”
Quercetin can do that, though in much bigger doses than the one I take. Bill Quick experimented with that, but I can’t find any updates on how it went. Bill, if you read this, please post a report in the comments.
UPDATE: Bill responds in the comments.
PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: Carly Fiorina Unleashes Tweet Smackdown on New Hampshire #GOPDebate.
OUT: BERNIEBROS. IN: HILLARYCRONES: Old Women Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright Scold Young Women Backing Bernie Sanders.
WELL, THIS SUCKS: Whooping Cough Booster Shot May Offer Only Short-Term Protection. “The rapidly fading effectiveness of the pertussis booster vaccine may help explain recent widespread outbreaks of whooping cough. The United States stopped using a whole-cell pertussis vaccine in the 1990s and began using an acellular version called DTaP. Five vaccinations are given during childhood, and a booster vaccine, called the Tdap, is given to adolescents and adults. Researchers looked at 1,207 pertussis cases among children who had had the acellular vaccine in childhood. The study, in Pediatrics, found that when these children got the Tdap booster, it was 69 percent effective after the first year, then dropped to less than 9 percent two to three years later.” Not mentioned in this story — the option of going back to the old vaccine. Why not? It seems to have worked better.
BIPARTISAN CONSENSUS:
● Football Is Coming Back to Los Angeles, But Should Taxpayers Be Cheering?
—Headline, Reason last month.
● Your City Will Never Get Rich Hosting the Super Bowl.
—Headline, Mother Jones, last week.
Buried lede: far left Mother Jones magazine suddenly finds something (other than defense) it doesn’t want government to spend money on.
Speaking of cities not getting rich, our waitress and the manager of our (ordinarily crowded) local San Jose restaurant were complaining last night that the place was dead all week, because San Francisco so heavily promoted itself as “Super Bowl City,” despite the game being held 40 miles south in Santa Clara. How did the city of San Jose’s marketing team drop the ball (pardon the pun) when it’s so much closer to the stadium?