It seems that restaurants are struggling to find any novel fad to gain recognition but this one has been baffled. People get together with friends for a Friday night dinner and they go to Brooklyn’s “Eat” restaurant where they are promptly told that they must eat their meal in silence. Could be a bit rough on a first date.
Continue reading “Shut Up And Eat: New York Restaurant Bars Conversation By Patrons”
Donald Eugene Miller Jr. is truly a dead man walking. He went to Judge Allan Davis at Hancock County Probate Court to inform the court that he was very much alive despite Davis’ ruling that he was deceased in 1994. He was surprised, however, when Davis said that there was nothing he could do. Miller was dead in the eyes of the law and that was the end of it . . . and him. It is not clear how Miller will rid himself of the first legally recognized status as an undead Zombie life form.
Forbes has a story on the ranking of law school on employment placement and salaries. I am happy to report that George Washington has placed within top ten schools. The dip in the legal market has affected applications at top schools but overall the impact is felt more severely at the lower ranked law schools. While legal education remains expensive, it remains a good investment for many students. The problem occurs at law schools with low bar passage rates and employment placement. We previously discussed how some of the lowest ranked schools report the highest levels of debt for students. There are some law schools which have dubious academic programs and even more dubious claims of placement. Frankly, some paring of law schools would be a benefit in this economic downturn as would more demanding certification standards by the American Bar Association.
Continue reading “GW Makes Top Ten Law Schools on Job Placement”
There is an interesting case out of France this week where four former members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church have been arrested and charged with torture, barbarism, and kidnapping of Antoinette, a 19-year-old Cameroonian. Their defense is novel: consent. Her former boyfriend, Eric Deron, who fashions himself to be something of a prophet, insisted that they were performing an exorcism by tying her to a mattress in a crucifixion position and kept her alive with small amounts of oil and water.
There is an interesting ruling out of the Sixth District Court of Appeal in California where a unanimous state appellate panel ruled that beating a child with a wooden spoon is not child abuse, even if it leaves bruises. The mother, Veronica Gonzalez, was reported for possible child abuse of her 12-year-old daughter. The daughter says that a friend “tricked” her into going to school officials about the beating. The case is Gonzalez v. Santa Clara County Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 2013 Cal. App. LEXIS 802.
This dog honestly appears to be grooving on the guitar.
Fayhan al-Ghamdi is a well-known television commentator in Saudi Arabia who, while not recognized as a cleric, commonly instructed people on good Muslim values and lifestyles. We discussed his case earlier when he was released from jail after paying “blood money” for the raping, torture, and killing of his five-year-old daughter. Now, he has been given just eight years in prison and 800 lashes for the unspeakable crime. Ghamdi’s second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes in Saudi Arabia, you can be sentenced to death for adultery, apostasy or blasphemy. However, raping, torturing, and killing a toddler is just a matter of some blood money and an eight year stint. A husband can never be executed for killing one of his children or a wife under religious Sharia law. Continue reading “Saudi Cleric Rapes, Tortures, and Kills Five-Year-Old Child . . . Pays “Blood Money” To Mother And Receives Eight Years In Jail”
Kuwait is reportedly developing a test that it says will be able to “detect” homosexuals to prevent their entry into that country and other Gulf nations. It is perfectly bizarre, but Kuwait believes that it is possible to have some type of anti-gay detection system. It is not clear what type of test it would be since, despite stereotypes, leaving a Barbra Streisand album in the middle of a rope snare on the floor of the terminal may not catch all gay men. (Indeed, as a Broadway show fan, I would be the first hanging upside down in the Kuwait airport clutching a copy of Funny Girl). I have long wondered where all of those phrenologists went after the collapse of their “science” in the detection of criminals from head shapes.
Praise Martin-Oguike, 20, once had one of the most inspiring stories of a young Nigerian raised by a pastor father and poet mother who went to college in the United States and achieved acclaim on the football field for Temple. That all came crashing down when a Temple business student accused him of rape. He was arrested, stripped of his scholarship, suspended from Temple, and denounced nationally as a football thug. The problem is that he appears entirely innocent. After emails were revealed from the woman indicating that she made up the allegations, all charges were dropped. However, prosecutors have not moved to arrest the woman whose name continues to be withheld in media stories as a presumed sex crime victim. His name of course was always public as a presumed sex criminal.
The officials at Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) appear to have added books as an imminent threat to safety. Agent John Dobson has reportedly been blocked by the ATF from publishing a book on Operation Fast and Furious. Dobson blew the whistle on the disastrous operation that led to the sale of 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, including one used to kill Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. The reason? The book would embarrass the ATF.
Continue reading “ATF Bars Agent’s Book On “Fast and Furious” Because It Would Lower Morale”
While the federal and state governments continue to cut programs for education, scientific research, and the environment, the Pentagon continues to spend wildly on items and them toss them out. We recently saw how they prefer to deliver bags of money to Karzai, buy Russian aircraft that Afghans can’t fly or maintain, or build huge buildings to be then torn down unused. Of course, no one is ever fired for constructing massive buildings that no one wants only to tear them down. After all, these are contracts going to powerful companies with friends in the government. Now, we buying huge planes at $50 million a pop only to roll them directly from the factories into mothballs because no one wants them. To make this even more incomprehensible, we are not even making the cargo planes. Like the Russian helicopters that the Afghans cannot fly, we are buying the cargo planes from Italy . . . and we are continuing to order more as we struggle to find places to dump them.
In a recent interview, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia holds forth on the usual subjects such as originalism and repeats his view that “if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stupid, but it is not unconstitutional.” However, the most interesting part of the New York Magazine piece came with Scalia’s discussion of the supernatural. Scalia warns that the Devil has become much more “wilier” and harder to spot in society. It appears in both constitutional text and spiritual life the devil is in the details.
We have been following the extraordinary case of the family terrorized by a gang of bikers in New York city. Alexian Lien, 33, was beaten and slashed in the attack which came after a long chase by the bikers. Previously, Christopher Cruz, 28. Cruz was charged with reckless endangerment, menacing, reckless driving and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17. A second suspect — Allen Edwards, 42, of Queens, was charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and menacing. He is believed to be the man seen on video below striking the Range Rover windows with his fists in the video below. The man with the chrome-colored helmet is reported to be Reginald Chance, 38, of Brooklyn. Another man, Robert Sims, 35, of Brooklyn has also been arrested. As many as five men appear to have beaten Lien, though the criminality would seem to extend to other bikers who trapped and pursued the family. It now appears that at least two off-duty police officers may have been present at the chase and/or beating of the family and did not immediately intervene or come forward.
We previously discussed a lawsuit against retailer Abercrombie & Fitch over a rule barring the wearing of religious headscarves in their business. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has handed down an important decision in favor of the store involving a woman in Tulsa Oklahoma who said that she was passed over for a job due to her religious dress. The federal government supported Samantha Elauf, 17, in her claim of discrimination, but the court ruled 3-0 against the arguments of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Continue reading “Abercrombie Wins Appeal Over Employee’s Right To Wear Headscarf”
The effort by Muslim countries to curtail free speech in the name of their religion continues. While the Obama Administration has sought to appease these countries in developing an international blasphemy standard, this case shows how even the more modern Islamic countries (as well as Western countries) are finding blasphemy to be a useful vehicle to control speech and silence critics. The latest attack comes from Qatar which has proposed a ban that would allow for the prosecution of people in other countries. That’s right, our allies are creating laws to allow them to prosecute people for insulting religion outside their own countries.