do the right thing

A police officer pulls over a speeding car.

The officer says, I clocked you at 80 miles per hour, sir.

The driver says, Gee, officer I had it on cruise control at 60, perhaps your radar gun needs calibrating.

Not looking up from her knitting the wife says: Now don’t be silly dear, you know that this car doesn’t have cruise control.

As the officer writes out the ticket, the driver looks over at his wife and scowls, Can’t you please keep your mouth shut for once?

The wife smiles demurely and says, You should be thankful your radar detector went off when it did.

As the officer makes out the second ticket for the illegal radar detector unit, the man glowers at his wife and says through clenched teeth, Darn it, woman, can’t you keep your mouth shut?

The officer frowns and says, And I notice that you’re not wearing your seat belt, sir. That’s an automatic $75 fine.

The driver says, Yeah, well, you see officer, I had it on, but took it off when you pulled me over so that I could get my license out of my back pocket.

The wife says, Now, dear, you know very well that you didn’t have your seat belt on. You never wear your seat belt when you’re driving.

And as the police officer is writing out the third ticket the driver turns to his wife and barks, WHY DON’T YOU PLEASE SHUT UP ??

The officer looks over at the woman and asks, Does your husband always talk to you this way, Ma’am?

(love this part….)

Only when he’s been drinking.

BANGKOK, Feb 1 (Reuters) – An ice cream vendor was killed and his headless body left sitting on the bicycle seat of his cart in Thailand’s rebellious Muslim south on Thursday, police said.

The vendor, a 45-year-old Buddhist originally from the country’s north east, was shot three times in the back of his head while riding his cart into a Muslim village in Pattani, one of the three provinces hit by the violence, police said.

“They chopped his head off and walked away with it, leaving his body sitting on the ice cream bike’s seat,” a Pattani policeman told Reuters by telephone.

“Under current circumstances, he shouldn’t have ventured into such a village,” the policeman said.

The man was killed just hours before Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont flew to the region where 2,000 people have been killed in a three-year insurgency.

...

Thailand’s military-appointed government has embarked on a peace drive in the Malay-speaking region, an independent sultanate until the Buddhist-dominated Bangkok government annexed it a century ago. But the attacks have continued.

1^st February, 2007

France

A ban on smoking in public came into effect yesterday.
The country’s 15 million smokers are now prohibited from lighting up in workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other closed and covered public places.
More than 175,000 agents will enforce the ban, handing out fines of £45.00 for smokers and £90.00 for employers who look the other way.
In a year, the ban will be extended to cafes and restaurants.

Metro Newspaper 9th October, 2006

The mother of a baby girl who was frozen solid for more than two hours spoke yesterday of the moment she discovered the 13-month-old in a snowdrift wearing only a nappy.

Erika Nordby’s heart had stopped beating when her body temperature halved to 16ºC after she crawled out of a friend’s house in the middle of the night.

Her mother Leyla said: I woke up and looked everywhere and she was gone. I ran through the house screaming for her and she wasn’t there.

Ms Nordby, 26, found Erika lying face-down in the snow outside her home in Edmonton, Canada, with her hands curled underneath her tiny body.

I picked her up and she was frozen. It was the worst feeling ever. She was stiff in my arms, the mother said.
The youngster’s heart had stopped for about two hours and her toes were frozen together.

Ms Nordby said she wrapped Erika in a pink blanket and rocked her until an ambulance arrived, then watched as paramedics attempted to retrive her. They had trouble putting a breathing tube in her throat because her mouth was frozen shut.

All of sudden one of them said: We got a pulse. Let’s move her, Ms Nordby said.
When Erika first reached hospital, doctors said she was clinically dead due to the extreme cold – and held out little hope for her survival.
Yesterday, however, Erika was moved out of intensive care and was able to sit up in bed, surrounded by toys and cards from well-wishers around the world.

Metro Newspaper 1st March, 2001

I was world champion in starting something and not finishing it.
Yes, I know it’s a lack of discipline _:)

I’m doing much better now – how did I do it ?

1. I often still need something to push me – time pressure for example.
2. I make constantly an up-to-date list, it keeps reminding me of what’s next.
3. I respect myself more now, so if I make a promise (to myself) – I’ll keep it.
4. Think well, and consider the consequences before you make a promise. (Don’t be shy to say that you need a day or so to think it over)
5. Don’t plan too many things. Think quality instead of quantity.
6. It might sound strange, but de-cluttering your place can help. If your work space is tidy, it is just more fun to work.

These are a few points that help me to finish what I start.

A gang which brought hundreds of young Malaysian women to be sex slaves in upmarket London brothels face jail

The multi-million-pound racket, which ran for two years, saw more than one woman a week sold into prostitution at Heathrow’s Terminal 3.

Many of the women, aged 18 to 24, were tricked into coming to Britain with the promise of jobs.

But they were met at the arrivals lounge by a gang member who seized their documents and drove them to a brothel where they were forced into prostitution the next day.

They had to have sex with more than 600 clients – businessmen paying £100 a time – over three months to win their freedom.

One victim believed she was going on a sightseeing trip to London with her new boyfriend who was in fact one of the gang’s couriers. He sold her for about £2,500 and returned home with the cash.

The network was run by a Vietnamese ringleader and his 25-year-old Malaysian wife who lived a lavish lifestyle and paid up to £10,000-a-month rent on each brothel.

The addresses included a penthouse in Avenue Road, the most prestigious area of St John’s Wood, a house with a swimming pool in Campden Hill Gardens, Notting Hill, and a Hyde Park townhouse, streets from Tony Blair’s £3.6 million Connaught Square property.

The Met’s Clubs and Vice Unit smashed the network after one victim tipped off police. Detectives rescued her from one of the brothels and launched a five month surveillance operation.

They discovered a sophisticated racket had been set up in Malaysia and the UK. Couriers would attract the victims, often through newspaper adverts for cleaners or maids, and buy return tickets for them.

When they arrived they were taken to a brothel and told they had to pay off a “debt-bond” of around £3,000.

All the money they earned from clients went to the bosses. They had to pay rent and were also fined half their day’s wages if they did not abide by strict house rules.

They were expected to work 12-hour days beginning at 6pm. With up to 20 of them in one brothel, many slept on the floor or the same beds they worked in.

They could only leave the house if escorted by a gang member and had to return by a certain time. They were also fined for taking a client’s mobile phone number or dating a customer.

On average the women would take three months to pay off their ‘debt’ – sleeping with around 50 clients a week – after which they would be sent back to Malaysia.

Thanh Hue Thi, 46, known as The Boss, ran the network with his 25-year-old wife Mee Yoke Pang. They lived at the Notting Hill house.

Hue Thi owned a fleet of cars and gambled away hundreds of thousands of pounds. Police said that over a six-week period he bet £30,000 at bookies on ‘anything that moved’.

During police surveillance, Hue Thi closed his Notting Hill and St John’s Wood brothels and moved the women to Hyde Park and another property in Birmingham.

Detectives believe he was looking to expand his empire when he was arrested in May. The network was smashed and 21 women rescued.

The Met organised for them to be taken to support centres where they were offered food, clothing, health advice and counselling.

All the women returned home where they have received further support.

Hue Thi pleaded guilty to controlling prostitution for gain and conspiracy to traffic women for the purposes of prostitution in to the UK. The same charges against Yoke Pang are to lie on file.

The No 2 in the network, Kenny Low, 50, a chef from Westminster, pleaded guilty to the same charges.

Kwok Leong Hoh, 26, and Godfrey Wong, 21, both from Birmingham, Choon Fong Loh, 64, of Bayswater and Leng Wah Loh, 39, of Berkhamstead, all pleaded guilty to controlling prostitution for gain.

The gang will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court.

The raids came under the umbrella of Operation Pentameter, a nationwide campaign launched to help women trafficked into the country.

Evening Standard, 3rd November 2006

A violent mob drove a terrified family from the estate where they had lived for only four days

During one 30-minute attack, more than 20 people threw bottles, stones and sticks at the couple and their children, who were having a barbecue on their front lawn.

The family, who fled the civil war in Angola in 2000, were told: “Back off you black b…...., you don’t belong here.”

Yesterday, nine men and a woman, aged between 19 and 34, were jailed for a total of 23 years after pleading guilty to violent disorder.

John Topham, prosecuting, said residents on the predominantly-white Seacroft estate, in Leeds, had been hostile to the black family since they arrived last August.

Three days after moving into Hawkshead Crescent, French-speaking Alvaro Vintem, his partner Maura Adriano and their three children found a window smashed in the early hours of the morning.

Hours later, after the family returned home from a visit to friends, they discovered their front door had been broken down, more windows were smashed and their TV had been stolen.

Mr Topham said: “On August 5 last year, white residents were seen to be gathering outside the house and picking up stones and bottles, stowing them in a nearby garden.

“Children and women were terrified and crying. At one point a young boy was seen to be standing in the garden saying: ‘Please don’t let them kill me.’”

Leeds Crown Court was shown footage of the attack, filmed by a guest at the barbecue. It clearly showed some of the defendants shouting racist abuse as others attacked the family’s car with sticks.

The family were told to “Get home you bunch of ….ing n…...”, and, “Back off you black b…...., you don’t belong here”.

At least seven residents on the video have still not been identified.

Judge Peter Hunt told the defendants, who denied the incident had been racially motivated: “What is depressingly striking is the seething aggression demonstrated.

“You have pleaded guilty to terrifying those persons in an act of deliberate and despicable aggression.

“This family will have been scarred emotionally for many months, if not years, to come.”

David Holdsworth, whom the judge described as “appearing like a man possessed”, was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Leanne Montgomery, 19, will spend three years in a young offenders’ institution, while Andrew Boylan, 25, Liam Bellwood, 20, Patrick Burns, 34, Jonathan Wilson, 19, Wayne Purchase, 31, and Wayne Lorimer, 21, were all given two-and-a-half years. Wilson will serve his sentence in a young offenders’ institution.

Darren Kaye, 19, and Glynn Milburn, 33, were both ordered to serve 12 months, which Kaye will spend in a young offenders’ institution.

Leanne Fransisco, a guest at the barbecue, said: ‘It’s great. They will now think twice before intimidating or bullying anyone else.

“I’m sure the family involved will be relieved that justice has been done.”

Mr Vintem, 31, said: “I think these people got what they deserved. I hope we can put it behind us. As a family we are now trying to forget.”

Daily Mirror, 26th May 2007

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothing but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

by Johnny Nash

posted by brighteyes on May 10, 2007

At an airport I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her plane’s departure and standing near the door, he said to his daughter, “I love you, I wish you enough.”

She said, “Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Daddy.” They kissed good-bye and she left.

He walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?” “Yes, I have,” I replied.

Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me. So I knew what this man was experiencing.

“Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?” I asked.

“I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral, ” he said.

“When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough.’ May I ask what that means?”

He began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.” He paused for a moment and looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more.

“When we said ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them,” he continued and then turning toward me he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

“I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. I wish enough “Hello’s” to get you through the final “Good-bye.”

He then began to sob and walked away.

I found this little, true story at Help Others

Thank you for the link Mrymerry

Life is browsing around and a never ending sorting. Do remember the good experiences, forget the bad ones. I want to put some information together which has enriched me rather than wasted my time.

The older I get, the more aware I become of how to spend my time more wisely.
And I wished I’d have known earlier, how precious life really is.
Waste your youth was my motto. How wrong I was ! ... How wrong !

And don’t take life so serious.
It generates worries up to overload. Don’t fulfill all of the mentally sick people’s expectations (found throughout the society) just to satisfy them – don’t do it.
Only healthy people can contribute something valueable to your life.
So don’t be together with the wrong people :)