JustDuckie

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This Man Mastered The Art Of Animal Selfies | Bored Panda (http://www.boredpanda.com... http://static.boredpanda.... http://static.boredpanda.... )

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9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - [ 28 ] -

"Allan Dixon from Ireland, 29, has earned himself the title of a ‘real-life Dr. Dolittle’ because of his ability to ‘talk’ animals into posing for a selfie with him. The results are amazing. He seems to befriend any animal he meets! How does he do it? “The main aim is to make them know that they are safe being around you. Get up close as you can, but slowly,” said Dixon. Dixon also advises to turn off the flash and any sounds on the camera, as well as to approach wild animals with a camera already in hand so that it looks like a part of your body. “Once you’re in their presence for some time, they’ll usually come and check you out. There’s a fine line between curiosity and survival.” So far Dixon has taken selfies with 30 animal species while traveling the world, and his dream is to take one with a lion, though he fears it could be his last selfie ever." - JustDuckie - [ 1 ] -

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Singer’s shaming led to support for Tsai and DPP - Taipei Times (http://www.taipeitimes.co... )

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"The forced apology of a Taiwanese entertainer, who landed in hot water for displaying a Republic of China (ROC) flag on a TV show in South Korea, helped drum up votes for the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in Saturday’s presidential election, an academic said. The only Taiwanese member of the South Korean girl group TWICE, Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), 16, was apparently forced to apologize for waving an ROC flag on a South Korean TV show. The singer’s response to the incident had an impact on Taiwanese voters and might have added about 1 to 2 percentage points to Tsai’s vote total on Saturday, Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology research fellow Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌) said." - JustDuckie - -

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Coyote Stopped At Airport Security Checkpoint | Airwise News (http://news.airwise.com/s... )

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"A coyote ran inside a South Carolina airport baggage claim area on Tuesday but was caught at a security checkpoint before it could get into the terminals, officials said. No one was injured and no flights were delayed, said Kirk Lovell, assistant director of airports at Myrtle Beach, where the coyote was first spotted around 10 am local time. The coyote was removed from Myrtle Beach Airport by Horry County animal control, Lovell said." - JustDuckie - -

""It did not get through the security checkpoint, so the TSA is doing a fantastic job of stopping anybody without ID or boarding passes," he said." - JustDuckie - [ 1 ] -

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Scarf-wearing cheetah on the loose in snowy Canada (http://www.msn.com/en-us/... http://img-s-msn-com.akam... )

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"Canadian conservation officials and federal police were on the lookout Friday for a cheetah wearing a bright orange scarf and wandering through the snow-covered outback. The big African cat was spotted crossing a highway near Creston, British Columbia, on Thursday by a motorist who stopped to photograph it. "It was wearing an orange scarf or collar, suggesting it's a domesticated animal. So we don't believe it's a serious threat," British Columbia conservation officer Joe Caravetta told AFP." - JustDuckie - -

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Runaway reindeer causes mayhem in Nottingham after escaping from Christmas event | Daily Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.u... http://i.dailymail.co.uk/... )

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"Bjorn the reindeer took off from the Carlton Hill Tesco store in Nottingham after he was startled by a car's horn, leaving traffic chaos in his wake. The animal had been part of a Christmas event, alongside another reindeer called Thor and a Santa's sleigh, when he galloped off and narrowly missed a bus in the process. Thankfully a group ran after the spooked animal and caught him shortly afterwards." - JustDuckie - -

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Having formerly lived in that bit of Nottingham, I'm sort of impressed that he wasn't struck and killed. That's a fairly well trafficked road the Tesco is built off - Soup - [ 1 ] -

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Foursie: New Festive Onesie For Ponies To Keep Them Warm | Bored Panda (http://www.boredpanda.com... http://static.boredpanda.... )

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"Today, Ascot Racecourse unveiled a new festive ‘foursie’ – a seasonal onesie that was created for Shetland pony, Daffy, to help him keep warm this Christmas. “In winter I always worry about Daffy getting chilly as he likes to spend so much time out of his stable,” said owner Jackie Rowberry. “I love the fact that Ascot has created a special foursie for Daffy so that he can get into the Christmas spirit. He’s loved all the attention and is quite the envy among his stable buddies!”" - JustDuckie - -

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Texts From Carmilla - The Toast (http://the-toast.net/2015... http://the-toast.net/wp-c... )

9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - [ 2 ] -

"well i remember specifically in my dream that nobody bit you" <-- LOL - Jennifer D. - [ 1 ] -

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Russian official suspected of stealing 30 miles of road - The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpos... )

9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - [ 6 ] -

"The official, identified as Alexander Protopopov, the acting deputy chief of the federal prison service, had presided over an alleged racket that involved the dismantling of a large segment of public highway. About 7,000 concrete slabs of paved road were carted off and sold to a private company in 2014 and 2015. The heist might have cost the Russian government about $80,000." - JustDuckie - -

3 other comments...

When I read this yesterday, I didn't register the sheer scale of the scam. Thirty miles! Wow. - bentley - [ 1 ] -

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Live shark found in Florida swimming pool | www.wftv.com (http://m.wftv.com/news/ne... http://media.cmgdigital.c... )

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"Florida Fish and Wildlife officers had to remove a 5-foot blacktip shark from a swimming pool at a condo complex in South Florida. The Sun Sentinel reported that the creature was discovered last week. A woman reportedly found the shark after two men ran out of the pool area. The shark was promptly removed from the pool and set free in the Intracoastal Waterway." - JustDuckie - -

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Or was it the result of a real-life sharknado? - bentley - [ 3 ] -

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Florida: Breasts bared, pork chops fly in BBQ brouhaha (http://offthebeat.blogs.t... )

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"Taylor had been drinking and the victim said she was “trying to fight people in the trailer park.” “What’s up bro,” she is quoted as yelling before threatening to cut the victim with a beer bottle. Taylor then lifted her shirt, unveiling her breasts to the victim and his three children. Earlier, Taylor was accused of toppling a barbecue grill and tossing pork chops on the lawn. The owner of the pork chops left before a deputy arrived." - JustDuckie - -

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o_O - John B. - -

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Taiwan Elects Its First Female President | TIME (http://time.com/4183442/c... http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk... )

9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - [ 5 ] -

"For now, Taiwan’s people can relish in a vibrant democratic process — it is the only one in the Chinese world — as well as the fact that they have elected the first female leader of an Asian democracy who is not following in the footsteps of a previous male relative. Tsai is a self-made woman for a self-made people." - JustDuckie - [ 2 ] -

\o/ - JustDuckie - -

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The Illegal, Underground Ballerinas of Iran | Broadly (https://broadly.vice.com/... https://broadly-images.vi... :*&output-quality=70)

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"Dance is illegal in Iran. Before the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the country poured funding into the arts, especially dance programs that combined elements of traditional dance with Western disciplines like ballet. After the Shah's government was overthrown, dance was declared sinful. The Iranian National Ballet Company was disbanded in 1979, shortly after all its foreign dancers fled the country. Their Iranian counterparts were left with three choices: Give up on their life's work and find another way to pay their rent; leave Iran and revive the company somewhere else (Les Ballets Persans is currently operating out of Stockholm), or stay in Iran and—through a combination of subterfuge, bribery, and outright defiance—keep dancing." - JustDuckie - -

"These days, classes are held in abandoned hospital basements, office blocks, or silently conducted in the teacher's homes. More often than not, a teacher counts out the beat for the dancers, rather than risk playing music and alerting the neighbours. Ada's old dance teacher, Azar*, reflects on the constant threat of police intervention. "At any time there is a chance that police will arrive and arrest all of us," she says. "I keep telling my students that I cannot guarantee their safety. However, I try to be very careful. I only accept students who have been referred by other students. I do not try to fill in all my hours by advertising, like some other teachers who give out business cards on the street."" - JustDuckie - -

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Places You Can No Longer Go: The London Necropolis Railway | Atlas Obscura (http://www.atlasobscura.c... http://assets.atlasobscur... )

9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - [ 3 ] -

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A Sampling of the Xibe Language - Video - NYTimes.com (http://www.nytimes.com/vi... )

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"He Wenjun, a teacher and Xibe language translator, sings a popular folk song, “Xiao Qiao Cried for Zhou Yu,” based on a tale from the Ming dynasty novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”" - JustDuckie - [ 1 ] -

"The female bird is busy brooding / And she can’t find the male bird in her sight. / What I hate about you, my beloved, is that / We had been happy together like the dragon and phoenix / And we didn’t expect we would part. / What I hate about you, my beloved, is that / Without you, gold, silver and gems do not matter anymore. / What I really hate about you, my beloved, is that / The ships on Yangtze river are now in ruins / And the earth under my feet starts to collapse while the lightning flashes above me. / What I really hate about you, my beloved, is that / When you were here you would make an army with just one horse and shield." - JustDuckie - [ 2 ] -

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Proctor's Ledge in Salem confirmed as witch execution site - Local News - Salem News (http://www.salemnews.com/... http://bloximages.chicago... http://bloximages.chicago... )

9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - [ 4 ] -

"Nearly 325 years after 19 people accused of witchcraft were hanged in this city, a group of scholars has finally confirmed the place where they met their fate: Proctor’s Ledge. The Gallows Hill Project, a group of seven scholars, says they were able to definitively identify the location after five years of research, using court records, maps, ground-penetrating radar and aerial photographs. Now the city intends to mark the location with a memorial, according to Mayor Kim Driscoll." - JustDuckie - -

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That's been one theory I've seen, but I can't remember if it's held up to scrutiny - Jennifer D. - -

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Manchu, Former Empire’s Language, Hangs On at China’s Edge - The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/20... http://graphics8.nytimes.... )

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"In the decades after the revolution in 1911 that drove the Qing from power after nearly 300 years, Mandarin Chinese vanquished the Manchu language, even in its former stronghold in the forested northeast. But the isolation of the Xibe in this parched, far-flung region near the Kazakh border helped keep the language alive, even if its existence was largely forgotten until the 1940s. For scholars of Manchu, especially those eager to translate the mounds of Qing dynasty documents that fill archives across China, the discovery of so many living Manchu speakers has been a godsend. “Imagine if you studied the classics and went to Rome, spoke Latin and found that people there understood you,” said Mark C. Elliott, a Manchu expert at Harvard University who said he remembered his first encounter, in 2009, with an older Xibe man on the streets of Qapqal County. “I asked the guy in Manchu where the old city wall was, and he didn’t blink. It was a wonderful encounter, one that I’ll never forget.”" - JustDuckie - [ 1 ] -

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Woman Attacked on Australian Creek Bank by Leaping Crocodile - The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/ap... )

9 years ago from Bookmarklet - Comment - Hide - - - [ 1 ]

""The victim was attacked by a crocodile as it launched 2 meters (6 feet, 7 inches) out of the water and grabbed her from behind," Carstairs said." - JustDuckie - -

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Leaping? :o - Halil - -

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Plate ‘BMW-8888’ fetches NT$890,000 - Taipei Times (http://www.taipeitimes.co... )

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"The car license plate “BMW-8888” yesterday sold for NT$890,000 (US$26,377) at an auction at the Taipei Motor Vehicles Office, the Directorate-General of Highways said. However, the sale fell short of the agency’s expectations, as it had thought such a unique license plate would fetch at least NT$1 million. The auction ended before noon yesterday after 71 rounds of online bidding which began on Tuesday morning. With an abbreviation that is the same as the German luxury car brand and the No. 8888, which is considered a lucky number by many Taiwanese as the No. 8 in Mandarin sounds similar to the word for prosperity." - JustDuckie - -

"Agency records show that license plate “8888-88,” which was auctioned in 2011, attracted the highest ever bid of NT$3.589 million." - JustDuckie - -

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Reductress » New Web App Stops Women From Using Words in Emails (http://reductress.com/pos... )

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"If you find that, as a woman, you struggle to communicate via email, you’re not alone. Women make tiny language faux pas every day, which can lead to lower respect from colleagues and other problems in their work lives, and a Denver MBA student is working to change that: The JustSorry browser extension offers women a chance to make sure the language in their emails is fully nonexistent. “Every time I sent an email, I’d look back on it later and realize how hesitant it sounded, but also that it had words in it,” JustSorry creator Brenda Hartman tells us. “I was afraid that my words sent a certain message about my internalized inferiority as a woman, so I created this plugin to keep that compulsive word-typing behavior in check.”" - JustDuckie - -

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Finding the Keys for the Right Ballet Steps - The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/20... http://static01.nyt.com/i... )

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"At a rehearsal of “Sonatine” in December, Mr. Grant calmly played through the score as two dancers practiced the steps. Every few bars, he was stopped by the ballet mistress so that she could correct a transition or adjust a shape. Each time, as if reading her mind, he knew exactly where to pick up the next phrase. He seemed to have as firm a grasp of the choreography as the dancers. Here and there, his score was marked with notes in pencil: “Man hops to side,” “Woman enters,” “Man turns.” The final bars of each section were copied and taped to the previous page, to avoid awkward pauses for page turns. In one thorny passage, the music and steps seemed out of sync. The dancer was having trouble getting the timing right; there always seemed to be one step too many, or not enough. “You’re moving against the music here,” Mr. Grant explained. “The music is in four, and you’re in three.” To illustrate, he slowed down, accentuating the patterns as the dancer counted to herself. The tightness in her face dissolved. The next time around, she got it." - JustDuckie - [ 1 ] -

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I'm going to have to read the article tomorrow, but just these excerpts... It was lovely. Thanks. - bentley - [ 2 ] -

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Wildlife: Another Oregon wolf moves to California | Summit County Citizens Voice (http://summitcountyvoice.... https://summitvoice.files... )

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"This week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported that yet another wolf — a three-year old male — appears to be “exhibiting dispersal behavior” in Modoc County.The latest report comes after the agency said a small pack, including two adults and five wolf pups, has set up a territory in Siskiyou County. The Modoc County wolf left his birthpack in northeastern Oregon in April, was in southwestern Oregon by December and recently crossed the border into California, according to wildlife conservation advocates. “California is clearly wolf country because they keep coming here from Oregon. This is a great moment to celebrate,” said Amaroq Weiss, West Coast wolf organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Perhaps they are following a scent trail from other wolves that have come here the past couple years but, whatever the reason, it makes it all the more necessary to ensure they have the protections needed to thrive once they get here.”" - JustDuckie - -

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Scottish man arrested for calling Kyrgyz sausage 'penis' - UPI.com (http://www.upi.com/Odd_Ne... http://cdnph.upi.com/sv/b... )

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"Michael McFeat of Abernethy was arrested Sunday at Manas International Airport under the country's race hate laws after a Dec. 31 Facebook post showed his coworkers from the Kumtor gold mine lining up for chuchuk horse meat sausages. "The Kyrgyz people queuing out of the door for there special delicacy the horses penis!!!" he wrote. McFeat deleted the post and replaced it with an apology Saturday, after locals complained his joke disrespectful." - JustDuckie - -

1 other comments...

Abernethy makes great Scottish biscuits! I miss biscuits! :( .... As to this story, people have joked about Turkish Cypriot food, someone even made an offensive comment in my feed once when I posted a photo of a traditional delicacy. I was upset initially, but could also understand why they said it, everything looks different when seeing it first time, but I just shrugged it off as I loved the food I was eating! - Halil - [ 1 ] -

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Disappearance of 5 Tied to Publisher Prompts Broader Worries in Hong Kong - The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/20... http://static01.nyt.com/i... )

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"The cases, which all appear to be related, have given rise to myriad theories. Mighty Current has written, published and marketed books highly critical of Chinese politicians, covering topics such as the sex lives of top leaders and corruption. The titles are banned in the mainland, where the news media and the publishing industry are tightly controlled by the governing Communist Party. But in Hong Kong, where a broad range of civil liberties was guaranteed to last a half-century by the agreement that paved the way for Britain to return its former crown colony to China in 1997, publishing such books is not only legal but it is also a thriving business catering to visitors from the mainland. While there is no proof that the five were spirited away by the Chinese authorities, the nature of the books they sold has led many to suspect that the continuing crackdown on civil society in mainland China is spreading into Hong Kong and has prompted the Chinese authorities to illegally apprehend Mr. Lee, a native of the city. “It is very concerning for most Hong Kong people because this sort of stuff is just not supposed to happen in Hong Kong,” Dennis Kwok, a prominent lawyer and a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, said by telephone. “If it is confirmed that officials are involved, that would make the case even worse.”" - JustDuckie - -

"Since Mr. Gui and his colleagues have been publishing books, he has taken on Mao Zedong’s sex life and suspected corruption on the part of the former Communist Party chairman Jiang Zemin, and he put out a number of books about President Xi Jinping. The titles have included “Overseas Mistresses of the Chinese Communist Party,” “Secrets of Wives of Chinese Communist Party Officials” and “Women of the Shanghai Gang,” according to Mr. Bei. The books are sold by the thousands at Hong Kong’s airport and other locations around the city, including the company’s own store in the Causeway Bay neighborhood. They can defy credulity but are often taken as truth by mainland customers, who must return to a closed intellectual environment where open discussion of politics is replaced by rumors, giving the books added influence because any discussion of them — even rebuttals — is censored. “If this happened in the U.S. and there was a book about Obama and lovers, people could come out and say that was nonsense,” Mr. Bei said." - JustDuckie - -

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Xinjiang Seethes Under Chinese Crackdown - The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/20... http://static01.nyt.com/i... )

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"Here in Kashgar, the fabled Silk Road outpost near China’s border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, officials have banned mosques from broadcasting the call to prayer, forcing muezzins to shout out the invocation five times a day from rooftops across the city. The new rule is an addition to longstanding policies that prohibit after-school religious classes and children under 18 from entering mosques. (The installation of video cameras on mosque doorways in recent months makes such rules hard to ignore.) Southeast of Kashgar, shopkeepers in the city of Hotan seethed over a government decision to outlaw two dozen names considered too Muslim, forcing parents to rename their children or be unable to register them for school, according to local residents and the police. To the north in Turpan, a fertile oasis famed for its grapes, a vineyard owner complained about new restrictions that bar Uighur migrant laborers from traveling there for the harvest, leaving tons of fruit to wither on the vines. And farther north in Ghulja, an ethnically diverse city near the Kazakh border with a history of tensions, a pair of unemployed college graduates fumed about a crackdown prohibiting young men from wearing beards and women from veiling their faces. Those who ignore the rules are sometimes jailed, residents said." - JustDuckie - -

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People are four times as likely to order dessert when their waiter is overweight. - Seriously, Science? (http://blogs.discovermaga... http://blogs.discovermaga... )

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“Does the weight of a server have an influence on how much food diners order in the high-involvement environment of a restaurant? If people are paying for a full meal, this has implications for consumers, restaurants, and public health. To investigate this, 497 interactions between diners and servers were observed in 60 different full-service restaurants. Diners ordered significantly more items when served by heavy wait staff with high body mass indexes (BMI; p < .001) compared with wait staff with low body mass indexes. Specifically, they were four times as likely to order desserts (p < .01), and they ordered 17.65% more alcoholic drinks (p < .01). These findings provide valuable evidence in recent lawsuits against weight discrimination, and it suggests to consumers who decide what they will and will not order at a restaurant—such as a salad appetizer, no dessert, and one drink—than to decide when the waiter arrives.” - JustDuckie - -

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MND files complaint over cosplayers at McDonald’s - Taipei Times (http://www.taipeitimes.co... )

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"The Ministry of National Defense on Saturday filed a complaint against a McDonald’s restaurant in Tainan’s Sinying District (新營) for dressing its employees in military uniforms on New Year’s Eve. Numerous McDonald’s branches around the nation dressed their cashiers in various costumes, such as nurses, as the Taoist God of Wealth or as the Jade Emperor, but the ministry said that the Sinying McDonald’s “went too far” having its cashiers wear army colonel uniforms. The restaurant’s use of military uniforms without ministry approval violated Article 7-3 of the Armed Forces Uniform Act (陸海空軍服制條例), and Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of China (中華民國刑法), which forbid wearing “the uniform or badge or make use of the official title of a public official” in public without authorization, the ministry said in a news release. The McDonald’s branch could face NT$15,000 (US$453) in accumulated fines under the Criminal Code’s Article 159, because violators are punishable by up to NT$500, the ministry said, adding that Tainan’s military police had “collected evidence” for legal action to be pursued by its legal affairs department." - JustDuckie - -

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