From today's News of the Weird
http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html
In a March change of regulations, the Pentagon began saving money by reducing "combat-injury" benefits for all except those wounded while actually fighting, explaining that combat-"related" injuries were simply not worthy of full compensation. Thus, in examples offered by The Washington Post in November, Marine Cpl. James Dixon and Army Sgt. Lori Meshell were not entitled to full combat-injury coverage for their Iraq wounds (Dixon from a roadside bomb and a land mine, and Meshell while diving for cover during a mortar attack) because neither was actually fighting at the time. (Dixon, initially denied about $16,000 by the classification, recently won a hard-fought reversal, but Meshell, drawing $1,200 less per month because of the change, is still appealing.) [Washington Post, 11-25-08]
Also
London's Daily Mail reported (after an investigation under Britain's freedom of information act) that more than half of the local government councils responding admitted that they were using anti-terror laws and surveillance equipment to monitor such mundane activities as whether residents put their garbage out at the proper times for pickup. Said one prominent critic, "We are no longer living in what most would recognize as a free society." [Daily Mail, 11-1-08]
http://www.newsoftheweird.com/archive/index.html
In a March change of regulations, the Pentagon began saving money by reducing "combat-injury" benefits for all except those wounded while actually fighting, explaining that combat-"related" injuries were simply not worthy of full compensation. Thus, in examples offered by The Washington Post in November, Marine Cpl. James Dixon and Army Sgt. Lori Meshell were not entitled to full combat-injury coverage for their Iraq wounds (Dixon from a roadside bomb and a land mine, and Meshell while diving for cover during a mortar attack) because neither was actually fighting at the time. (Dixon, initially denied about $16,000 by the classification, recently won a hard-fought reversal, but Meshell, drawing $1,200 less per month because of the change, is still appealing.) [Washington Post, 11-25-08]
Also
London's Daily Mail reported (after an investigation under Britain's freedom of information act) that more than half of the local government councils responding admitted that they were using anti-terror laws and surveillance equipment to monitor such mundane activities as whether residents put their garbage out at the proper times for pickup. Said one prominent critic, "We are no longer living in what most would recognize as a free society." [Daily Mail, 11-1-08]
