Category: Crime

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Zombie’s cucumber in a witch’s garden

[Better photos are over at Flickr.] Don’t be tempted to brew up a tea from this powerful drug, which is impossible to dose: the amount which renders you raving is not very differnt from the fatal dose.

Acorrding to Wikipedia (also here) ingesting datura, a plant in the nightshade family, also known as zombie’s cucumber, devil’s trumpet, and jimson weed, occasions wakeful dreaming. Hallucinations caused by anticholinergics can create fully realistic three-dimensional objects that blend in perfectly with the tripper’s view of the world. Consciousness falls in and out, and for days, the affected person may converse with the non-existent.

Tropane alkaloids are some of the few substances which cause true hallucinations which cannot be distinguished from reality, unlike the visual distortions of LSD. This frequently results in dangerous and erratic behavior; in 2003, a German man cut off his penis and tongue with garden shears whilst under the influence of datura tea. Continue reading “Zombie’s cucumber in a witch’s garden”

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A whacky new court for Yarra: the Neighbourhood Justice Centre

I don’t mean to sound unduly sceptical, but this is pretty out-of-left-field, and it’s happening here in the ‘wood at a cost of $23.7 million over four years. I will keep an open minded eye on it, since out-of-left-field is not something you find in the court system very often, and there seems to be an excellent idea that offenders might give back to the offended community by scrubbing graffiti off railway stations. This huge building (pictured), once remodelled, will house one Magistrate and “an interdisciplinary team” who will hear both civil and criminal matters, and will be chosen with input from a residents’ representative council nominations for which are presently being sought. Continue reading “A whacky new court for Yarra: the Neighbourhood Justice Centre”

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Abbotsford: 6th most burgled Melbourne suburb

Now this is truly bizarre. I cannot understand why this article on Melbourne suburbs’ burglary rates appeared in Adelaide’s Advertiser. But what it says is not good. One in 17 Abbotsford residences is burgled each year, the most burgled suburb is next-door Collingwood, and we’re almost 3 times more likely than the average Melburnian to have our stuff nicked (some hooligan took our back door off its hinges and rested it up against the back wall of our house 6 months ago):

Continue reading “Abbotsford: 6th most burgled Melbourne suburb”