Half of convicted sex attackers, violent criminals and burglars are avoiding prison despite government pledges to end "soft" sentences, official figures have revealed.

More than 65,000 serious criminals walked free despite being convicted of a range of offences including rape, sexual assault, manslaughter, grievous bodily harm and robbery.

Just 53 per cent of convicted paedophiles who abused children under the age of 13 were jailed in 2012, while half of drug dealers also escaped jail. Overall, just one in four criminals were sent to prison when lesser sentences were taken into account.

The figures are likely to embarrass the Conservatives. Chris Grayling, the justice secretary who has positioned himself as a Tory traditionalist on law and order in contrast to Ken Clarke, his more liberal predecessor.

A family were given a scary start to 2014 when they found a snake hiding inside their toilet.


The reptile had managed to slither into the Exwick home before being discovered tucked-away under the rim by a woman on New Year's Day.

Police were shocked to see the animal inside the lavatory when they responded to an "urban myth" report of a snake in a toilet.

Officers managed to extract the reptile before taking it away to a "place of safety".

Samantha Edworthy of Tiny Boas in Heavitree, said husband Jason was "surprised" to receive a call from Devon and Cornwall Police about the creature on January 1.

"Why the snake was in the toilet, I'll never know," she said. "The police ring us frequently about snakes they've found in garden sheds or elsewhere, but it's the first time we've ever heard of one in a toilet."

It is understood the woman who reported finding the snake was initially not believed by the rest of her family.

They reportedly called the police as a "last resort" after being refused help by the RSPCA.

The Gipper's warm "morning in America" worldview was directly shaped by his reading of occult thinker Manly P. Hall

Ronald Reagan often spoke of America's divine purpose and of a mysterious plan behind the nation's founding. "You can call it mysticism if you want to," he told the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1974, "but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage." These were remarks to which Reagan often returned. He repeated them almost verbatim as president before a television audience of millions for the Statue of Liberty centenary on July 4, 1986.

When touching on such themes, Reagan echoed the work, and sometimes the phrasing, of occult scholar Manly P. Hall.

From the dawn of Hall's career in the early 1920s until his death in 1990, the Los Angeles teacher wrote about America's "secret destiny." The United States, in Hall's view, was a society that had been planned and founded by secret esoteric orders to spread enlightenment and liberty to the world.

In 1928, Hall attained underground fame when, at the remarkably young age of twenty-seven, he published "The Secret Teachings of All Ages," a massive codex to the mystical and esoteric philosophies of antiquity. Exploring subjects from Native American mythology to Pythagorean mathematics to the geometry of ancient Egypt, this encyclopedia arcana remains the unparalleled guidebook to ancient symbols and esoteric thought. "The Secret Teachings" won the admiration of figures ranging from General John Pershing to Elvis Presley. Novelist Dan Brown cites it as a key source.

After publishing his "Great Book," Hall spent the rest of his life lecturing and writing within the walls of his Egypto-art deco campus, the Philosophical Research Society, in L.A.'s Griffith Park neighborhood. Hall called the place a "mystery school" in the mold of Pythagoras's ancient academy.

George W. Bush
George W. Bush Presidential Center
PO Box 560887
Dallas, Texas, 57356

Dear Mr. Bush:

A few days ago I received a personalized letter from your Presidential Center which included a solicitation card for donations that actually provided words for my reply. They included "I'm honored to help tell the story of the Bush Presidency" and "I'm thrilled that the Bush Institute is advancing timeless principles and practical solutions to the challenges facing our world." (Below were categories of "tax-deductible contributions" starting with $25 and going upward.)

Did you mean the "timeless principles" that drove you and Mr. Cheney to invade the country of Iraq which, contrary to your fabrications, deceptions and cover-ups, never threatened the United States? Nor could Iraq [under its dictator and his dilapidated military] threaten its far more powerful neighbors, even if the Iraqi regime wanted to do so.

Today, Iraq remains a country (roughly the size and population of Texas) you destroyed, a country where over a million Iraqis, including many children and infants (remember Fallujah?) lost their lives, millions more were sickened or injured, and millions more were forced to become refugees, including most of the Iraqi Christians. Iraq is a country rife with sectarian strife that your prolonged invasion provoked into what is now open warfare. Iraq is a country where al-Qaeda is spreading with explosions taking 20, 30, 40, 50 or 60 lives per day. Just this week, it was reported that the U.S. has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq's air force to be used against encampments of "the country's branch of al-Qaeda." There was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before your invasion. Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were mortal enemies.

Translated by SOTT.net

An investigation will be opened by Florent Boura, the local state prosecutor who has seen the video footage of the offending scene. Jean-Pierre Door, the local mayor, hopes for strict sanctions

Jean-Pierre Door, the (UMP party) deputy mayor of Montargis in the Loiret department in north-central France, discovered a horrific video of youths committing a 'quenelle' * in front of his town hall yesterday morning. He was absolutely disgusted.

Posted on Youtube on December 29th, it depicts nine youths openly, on the steps of the city hall, before showing their support for the humorist Dieudonné, making the gesture of 'la quenelle' repeatedly, while their spokesman violently attacks the great President of the Republic. All the while, in the background, "Le Chant des Partisans" plays.

A fine of 45,000 euros for insulting the President of the Republic

Jean-Pierre Door sent the video to the police so that they can begin their investigations. An investigation will also be opened by Florent Boura, the state prosecutor of Montargis. He believes that the video contains objectionable features, including an insult to the President of the Republic. The penalty is a fine of € 45,000. The prosecutor also mentioned incitement to racial hatred: "The fact that this crime was performed in the city of Montargis is not an aggravating factor but for a different analysis."

Hundreds of armed vigilantes stormed a Mexican town and arrested federal police in the latest bloody battle between residents, criminal gangs, and the police locals say are in league with the gang members.

Around 600 members of local 'autodefensas', or self-defence groups, stormed Paracuaro in the troubled Michoacan state yesterday in an attempt to seize control of the town back from the feared Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar) drug cartel.

The battle was the latest in a long-running war between the drugs gang in Mexico's south-west and local residents who say state and federal police are not protecting them.

Lawsuit would seem to suggest least sympathetic boss, ever

A general store fired a manager who needed time off work to recover from the shock of having to call police to find an employee's newborn twins, dead, the manager claims in court. Teresa Anderson sued Casey's General Stores and Casey's Marketing Company, in Federal Court. They are the only parties to the complaint.

Anderson claims in the lawsuit that her employee, nonparty Jackie Burkle, looked obviously pregnant in the winter of 2011-12, but denied it. Burkle was charged and arrested for two counts of murder in the first degree of her two baby girls, Anderson says in the lawsuit. Burkle pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced in August 2012 to 50 years in prison, according to the Ames (Iowa) Tribune.

Anderson says in the lawsuit that Burkle called in sick in the early morning of Jan. 7, 2012, and that, believing Ms. Burkle was likely going into labor, Anderson went to work to cover her shift and pleaded with her to let her take her to the doctor. Burkle refused, Anderson says. The lawsuit continues: "Believing something was wrong, plaintiff called the police chief and asked him to come to the store for a cup of coffee." Plaintiff showed Chief Pote surveillance video of Ms. Burkle. At approximately 1:00 p.m. a police officer started looking through Casey's Dumpsters."

The next day, on January 8, 2012, she learned that the 'baby' she suspected Ms. Burkle was pregnant with was actually twins and that they were dead.

What advice would you give to a retired Air Force Colonel that has three graduate degrees and that cannot even find work as a janitor? 59-year-old Robert Freniere once served as a special assistant to General Stanley McChrystal, and he has spent extensive time in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But now this man who once had an office in the heart of the Pentagon cannot find anyone who will hire him. In addition to his story, in this article you will also hear about several other middle-aged professionals that cannot find work in this economy either.

Despite what the Obama administration and the mainstream media are telling you, the truth is that there has been no employment recovery in this country. What you are about to read is absolutely heartbreaking, but it represents the reality of what is really going on out there in the streets of America today.

A lot of unemployed Americans believe that they cannot find work because they don't have enough "education" or enough "experience". Well, the truth is that there are a whole lot of people out there like Freniere that have lots of both and still can't even get hired as a janitor...

After a 30-year military career in which he earned three graduate degrees, rose to the rank of colonel, and served as an aide to Pentagon brass, Robert Freniere can guess what people might say when they learn he's unemployed and lives out of his van:

Why doesn't this guy get a job as a janitor?

Freniere answers his own question: "Well, I've tried that."

Freniere, 59, says that his plea for help, to a janitor he once praised when the man was mopping the floors of his Washington office, went unfulfilled. So have dozens of job applications, he says, the ones he has filled out six hours a day, day after day, on public library computers.

So Freniere, a man who braved multiple combat zones and was hailed as "a leading light" by an admiral, is now fighting a new battle: homelessness.

You can read the rest of that article right here. This just shows how badly the private sector in the United States is failing. Someone with Freniere's education and experience should be able to find work easily if our economy truly was healthy.

American vessel the Polar Star, the US Coast Guard's only active heavy polar icebreaker, is heading to the Antarctic to rescue over 120 crewmembers aboard Russian and Chinese ships trapped in heavy sea ice.

According to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's Rescue Coordination Centre (AMSA), it should take the Polar Star about seven days to reach Commonwealth Bay, depending on weather conditions.

The 122-meter US icebreaker canceled its planned stop in Sydney after it received a request Friday from Australia, Russia and China to help the Russian and Chinese ships, who fear they may be unable to free themselves from the ice.

According to an AMSA spokeswoman, the US ship has greater icebreaking capacity than the Russian and Chinese vessels.

"It can break ice over six meters thick, while those vessels can break 1-meter ice," she told Australian Associated Press on Sunday.

Recent misconduct investigations of deputies of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department included rape, smuggling heroin into jail, stealing money from a narcotics arrest and misuse of a department helicopter, an oversight report details.

The Office of Independent Review's new report on misconduct investigations pertaining to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) outlined administrative discipline cases resolved through Sept. 30, 2013. The Office of Independent Review (OIR) is a civilian oversight body charged with monitoring LASD's internal investigations.

Privacy laws do not allow the identities of deputies involved in the summarized misconduct, nor does it include dates of any infractions.

Recently enacted LASD reforms have not made much of a difference on the amount of misconduct, except for excessive use of force in jails, said OIR head Mike Gennaco.

"Unfortunately, the cases are probably the same as far as level of egregiousness," he said Thursday, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.

"With regard to jail cases, I know that force is going down, at least in the downtown jails," Gennaco added. "The fact that there are cameras make it easier to decide whether the conduct was in or out of policy."

Assistant Sheriff Todd Rogers responded with concern over the results of the report, saying the LASD does what it can to avoid such behavior while patrolling the entirety of Los Angeles County.