Cyberspace Romance leads to Swordplay

You know how it is... you're online making sweet, sweet love to your virtual girlfriend when another fellow traveler along the information superhighway (remember that?) spots her too. So you fall to squabbling and calling each other names and it's all nice and safe because just like you're not going to get an awkward social disease from the virtual love of your life it's just as difficult for you to come to real blows with your rival.

Unless you live in China, arrange to meet in person and then get jumped by the guy. And 20 of his friends. With swords:

Zhao happened to be at Fu's home with other friends when the online chat took place, the police said. Fu and his friends thought Jin was trying to make trouble, so they summoned more than 20 friends by online messenger or phone to go to the meeting with Jin. When Jin and his two friends arrived at the palace, he was attacked by more than 10 young men who hacked him with swords. They fled after Jin fell to the ground. The Oriental TV Station said tonight Jin was now in a stable condition, but he might have some disability in the future as his lung has been punctured.

The Internets would probably be a much quieter place if all flame wars were settled in such an old fashioned way...

Police nab 5 over sword attack - Shanghai Daily (via Shanghaiist)

They didn't even knock...

It's still rare for the British police to go in heavy as the above quote from an onlooker proves after he saw armed police do their thing in yesterday's kidnap rescue:

Armed police have rescued a 10-year-old boy who was kidnapped from his family home and held captive for 35 hours. A ransom demand was made after an armed gang snatched the boy in Walthamstow, east London, on Thursday morning. Witnesses described hearing six shots and a flash grenade during a raid to free the boy from a flat in Great Peter Street, Victoria, on Friday night.

Witness Kevin Jacob watched the whole thing and seems quite bemused at the spectacle of 25 officers waiting to storm the flat:

They didn't even knock, they used a flash grenade, it went bang and the whole place lit up. Once they gained entry and had the door open, they grabbed the little boy and whisked him into the van.

American onlookers were also amused; when asked what his response would have been, Colonial Marine Cpl. Dwayne Hicks (retired) was heard to say that he would have taken off and nuked the flat from orbit as "it was the only way to be sure".

Kidnap boy rescued in armed raid: BBC News

Drink, drive, play

If you fancy getting plastered behind the wheel of a moving vehicle then there are worse places to give it a go than Taiwan. Now normally I'd be saying that the last thing you want to do is break the law where they have such an interesting version of the death penalty:

Before taking these last steps, the inmate ties a few thousand-dollar bills to his shackles. Tradition says that this money, and the shackles of the executed prisoner, will bring good luck to his fellow inmates on death row. The shackles are therefore very popular among the rest of the inmates, who believe that the restraints of their former prison mate will help them win an appeal, offering a chance to escape death...

After the meal, a forensic scientist will provide the option of an anesthetic. When the inmate passes out completely, guards position the prisoner on the ground, face down, and shoot him directly in the heart. An exception may be made, however, if the inmate is an organ donor, in which case the guards won't shoot for the heart.

After the shots have been fired, the law enforcement officials present wait a few minutes to make sure the inmate is dead. If the person is still alive, at that point the guards must fire a second shot.

Sometimes, inmates may struggle after being shot; some have even regained consciousness and stared at the guards. If that happens, the prosecutors immediately assign another group of guards to continue the execution. This is because execution ground tradition says that the ghost of an executed prisoner will follow the man who shot him if he has looked the man in the eye before dying.

Three or more armed guards usually carry out an execution. The warden will give the guards a couple hundred NT dollars in red envelops as lucky money. Traditionally, whoever receives the money must spend it all before he walks home that day, or he will suffer bad luck...

Nothing so complicated for DUI though. Those convicted face only a lengthy game of mah jong with the elderly:

...playing the popular Chinese tile game taught offenders to love older people. "Offenders first dismissed the duty as wasting time but they soon discovered they were respected and drew satisfaction from helping."

So everyone's happy - the drunks don't have to go to jail, the elderly have less time to complain about their relatives not coming to see them and more importantly no one gets shot.

Following a prisoner's final steps - Taipei Times

Drink-drivers face fine - or a game of mah jong - Guardian Unlimited

Stop touching me, don't touch me, quit touching me, stop touching me...

...and we all know what's the end result of that game: you get touched.

Macro results: another embassy gets torched, and a bazillion European newspapers reprint the very cartoon that started the torch fest in the first place. Which cartoon, you ask? To not be bothered with google, we up and made it most convenient for y'all:



Oh, and look at that! We just posted the damned thing all over again. Just imagine all the fun we'd lose out on if everyone had just declared "bygones" in the first place.