Washington, D.C. is number one! No it is not number one in educational scores or safe streets. We have been found to be the worst drivers in America. The good news is that car crash fatalities are at the lowest level they’ve been since 1949. Yet, in looking at an average more than 32,000 every year, Washington drivers stood out for their lack of competency on the roads. The safest? Sioux Falls, S.D. Sure it’s safe but who goes to Sioux Falls? Everyone comes here just to see the cars crash.
Month: August 2012
Ivana Samardzic, 20, is one lucky lady that her trip to Cancun was not shorten to a trip to the can. The Wisconsin juror was supposed to be deliberating a verdict in a felony shooting case when she simply left for the airport to go on vacation, calling the clerk from the airport to say that she left her vote in the jury room and did not want to lose out on the family trip. To the surprise of many, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge JD Watts (shown here) did not jail her for contempt but simply let the 11 member jury decide the case and fined Samardzic $300. The case that Samardzic abandoned involved a wonderfully named defendant, Spartacus Outlaw, who was accused in a felony shooting case.
Continue reading “Wisconsin Juror Fined Just $300 After Abandoning Deliberations To Party In Cancun”
Judge Vincent Sgueglia of the Tioga County Family and Surrogate’s Courts has been censure in a bizarre case after he took a loaded .38-caliber Smith and Wesson that discharged in his chambers. There is no rule preventing judges from packing heat in chambers in New York but the state Commission on Judicial Conduct declared that Sgueglia, 70, should not have approved his own concealed-carry permit.
Continue reading “New York Judge Censured After Accidental Discharge Of Weapon In Chambers”
Taliban militia in Afghanistan objected to a mixed-gender dance party in a Southern province this week as unIslamic. Rather than turning off the music, the militia (which controls the area) beheaded 17 people at the party to defend the faith against immorality. (A Taliban official is shown here in one of its favorite past times of beating women into submission).
Continue reading “Taliban Behead 17 People Found Dancing At Party In Afghanistan”
There is a terribly tragic story out of Quebec where Maria Pantazopoulos, 30, was drowned during a photo shoot near the Dorwin Falls in Rawdon. Pantazopoulos was in her wedding dress and posing by dipping her toes in the water. The newlywed realtor was wearing a long wedding dress that became saturated and she was pulled into the current. The weight of the dress pulled Pantazopoulos down quickly into the water.
Nagla Wafa, 39, an Egyptian wedding planner and designer, had a simple business dispute with a partner over a cashed check and a joint business venture. The partner says that she cashed a check and reneged on opening a restaurant. It is the type of thing that is standard fare for courts around the world. However, this is Saudi Arabia and the partner was a princess in the Royal family. Wafa was arrested without charge and held for months. She was then belated charged with fraud and sentenced to 500 lashes and five years in prison in a case that has drawn rightful condemnation in Egypt. She is shown here with her two sons.
There is a bizarre story out of Montana this week where Randy Lee Tenley, 44, reportedly wanted to make people think he was the Sasquatch by dressing in a military “Ghillie suit” (used by snipers) like the one shown right and walked along a highway at night. The drivers apparently had trouble seeing Tenley, let alone a Sasquatch, in the camouflage and ran over Tenley twice, killing him. (The photo on left is one of the best known Sasquatch shots).
This video captures the little discussed vegan canine element in our society.
Judge Elia Cornejo Lopez has been accused by Texas lawyer Nat C. Perez of a rather unique form of abuse: cookie coercion. Perez has filed an unusual motion for recusal that lists, among other complaints, Lopez’s alleged pressure on Perez to buy her daughter’s girl scout cookies. He suggests that a couple boxes of “Thanks-a-lot” would go a long way with Lopez and that he refusal meant he could not “Tag-a-long” in cases. . . but he did get a judicial “Shoutout”
Continue reading “Thanks-A-Lot: Texas Attorney Accuses Judge of Pressuring Him To Buy Girl Scout Cookie”
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has struck down the graphic warning images on cigarette packages in an important opinion on corporate speech rights. I have been a long critic of the images on both constitutional and policy grounds. Previously the Sixth Circuit rejected the same free speech claims.
Continue reading “Graphic Cigarette Labels Struck Down By D.C. Circuit”
Reports now indicate that all nine wounded bystanders in the recent shooting near the Empire State building were shot not by the gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, 58, (left) but by police officers.
Continue reading “All Nine Wounded in New York Were Shot By NYPD Officers”
You may recall how recently an array of high ranking Israeli officials in the Netanyahu government, including National Security Council head Ya’akov Amidror and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, briefed ultra-Orthodox rabbi and Shas leader Ovadia Yosef on the proposed war with Iran in the hopes of receiving his blessing. Both the war (which Netanyahu reportedly wants before the U.S. presidential election) and the need to get nod from a religious leader were criticized, including by some of us who noted the extreme views of Yosef. Now, Yosef has called upon Jews to pray for the death of Iranians and the destruction of the nation of Iran. Now we have spiritual leaders is both countries calling on God to annihilate whole countries as examples of divine and moral justice.
Continue reading “Leading Israeli Rabbi Calls For The Death of Iranians and Destruction of Iran”
New York Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges, 65, thought that he had resigned from the bench in Onondaga County in April after allegations that he sexually abuse with 5-year-old deaf niece. However, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct decided to retroactively remove him from the bench and bar him from ever holding a judicial office again in the state of New York despite that fact that the incident occurred 40 years ago and before he become an attorney. It presents an interesting case on the reach of judicial ethics for judges.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
According to Huffington Post, the following 2010 interview that Michael D. Higgins, the current president of Ireland, did with Boston conservative radio talk show host Michael Graham went viral recently.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Judith Jarvis Thomson, professor emeritus at MIT, provides some interesting thought experiments in her article entitled In Defense of Abortion. Thomson acknowledges the problem of determining the particular moment during gestation when a fetus becomes a human being, so she starts by granting that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. From there, the argument usually goes that, since every person has a right to life, a fetus has a right to life. The fetus’s right to life supersedes the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body.