Jeff Mizanskey, 61, is a poster child for one well- known criticism of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws - that nonviolent marijuana users (and small-time sellers) may wind up doing decades of hard time and in fact more time than some sociopathic offenders serve for heinous offenses. Mizanskey is 20 years into a life sentence with no possibility of parole for several violations of Missouri's "prior and persistent drug offender" law, and his only chance for freedom is a clemency plea now under consideration by Gov. Jay Nixon (and still opposed by Mizanskey's prosecutor).
Unconventional Food Prep: Leaked photographs taken by an undercover health and safety officer at China's Tongcheng Rice Noodle Factory in Dongguan city in June show workers in street clothes casually walking back and forth atop piles of vermicelli noodles about to be packaged for shipment to stores. Some workers were even seen lounging or sleeping on the mountains of noodles. (In 1992, News of the Weird noted that health officials in South Dennis, Massachusetts, had closed the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant for various violations, including the restaurant's habit of draining water from cabbage by putting it in cloth laundry bags, placing the bags between pieces of plywood in the parking lot and driving over them with a van.)
Unclear on the Concept: Werner Purkhart, who has been running a "silent disco" in Salzburg, Austria, for four years, was denied renewal of his business permit in July, supposedly because his parties were too loud. At a silent disco, each dancer wears headphones to hear radio-transmitted music; to those without headphones, the roomful of swaying, swinging dancers is eerily quiet. Salzburg Mayor Heinz Schaden said it was still too loud. "The noise ... is keeping (the neighbors) up."
"The Chinese fondness for napping in odd places is a well-documented phenomenon, one that's spawned a popular website and even a book," wrote The Wall Street Journal in a July dispatch. In a recent photo essay, a Getty Images photographer captured a series of shots of customers catching 40 winks in various furniture departments of IKEA stores, which officially does "not see it as a problem," according to a spokesman.
Moscow Times reported the arrest of "Tomas" in Moscow in March for allegedly stealing a mobile phone, noting that he was referred to adult court even though family members claim he is only 13.
