Postcards
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Entering and breaking? Paralyzed inmate Torrance Johnson filed a lawsuit against the Spartanburg County (S.C.) Jail because guards failed to stop him when he was doing backflips off a desk in his cell. Yup, he landed on his neck.
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Freedom of speech, but only on the move. In October, a federal judge issued an injunction against the enforcement of a Los Angeles ordinance that prohibits parked cars from displaying “For Sale” signs. According to Reuters, city officials argued that the 1970s ordinance is intended to preserve aesthetics and traffic flow. However, they could not explain how a sign in a parked car is more dangerous than a sign in a moving car or how the signs differ from vehicles displaying commercial ads.
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If it isn’t broken … According to the Detroit News, Detroit’s firehouses do not have a central system of flashing alarms or bells to notify stations when 911 calls come in. Rather, each firehouse is equipped with a dot-matrix printer. At each station, a lead weight rests on the printer’s paper feed and is tied to a switch that activates a bell on the wall. When the 911 operator sends a message to the firehouse computer, the “print” function automatically engages, moving the paper feed up, dislodging the lead weight and triggering the bell. Detroit Fire Commissioner Charles Wilson told the News that there are no plans to replace the 15-year-old system because it seems to work pretty well.
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We think you ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown won a temporary restraining order that keeps Elvis at least 30 feet from him. The mayor had been confronted by a tuxedo-clad Elvis, a.k.a. Anthony Kneer, in his office, at a hotel banquet and during dinner at a Chinatown restaurant. According to the Associated Press, on Jan. 31, the Elvis impersonator allegedly told security officers in Brown’s office, “I made it through the front doors without being detected. I could have been armed. What do you think of that?”