A South Carolina man, Albert Perry, recently died and one of his relatives decided to submit a DNA sample to a company called Family Tree DNA to help detail their genealogical tree. The company however was confused because his Y-chromosome did not appear in his family tree. Later analysis by Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, found that Perry’s Y chromosome showed that his male lineage probably separated from all others about 338,000 years ago. Before Perry, all men could be traced to a genetic “Adam” who lived between 60,000 and 140,000 years ago. Now we have a man with a link that goes back almost 200,000 years earlier. Of course, that does not quite fit with creationists who believe the Earth is only 5000 to 6000 years old, but for the rest of humanity it is a pretty interesting discovery.
Month: March 2013
Dona Ana County in New Mexico has agreed to pay Stephen Slevin, 59, $15.5 million after it kept Slevin in solitary confinement for 22 months without a trial for a DUI arrest. The horrific case was made worse by years of litigation by the county, which refused to pay a court verdict that was originally $22 million. One of the most disturbing facts of this case however is that not a single county employee was fired over his grotesque treatment, which included the denial of necessary medical attention.
Continue reading “New Mexico Man Held 22 Months Without Trial Is Awarded $15.5 Million”
It appears some things do not stay in Vegas. State District Judge Eugenio S. Mathis, 58, of Las Vegas, N.M., has resigned from the bench after being accused of sextexting his wife from the bench as well as other alleged misconduct. He has also agreed never to hold a judicial position again.
Continue reading “New Mexico Judge Resigns Amid Allegations of Sextexting and Misconduct”
Attorney General Eric Holder this week held out the possibility that the President could kill an American citizens with a drone attack on U.S. soil without any criminal charge or trial. After Holder announced President Obama’s kill list policy, many apologists for the Administration insisted that the policy was limited to targets outside of the United States and was subject to a form of due process of the President’s own making. At the time, I wrote that these arguments were nothing but spin by the Administration and its supporters since the underlying claim of authority would have no such limitations. Holder now appears to have confirmed that even they do not believe in such limitations. This follows the release of a memo showing that Holder’s description of the policy at Northwestern University Law School was narrower than the actual policy described within the Administration.
The murder trial of George Zimmerman just got a bit more complicated after an attorney revealed in open court that the girlfriend of teenager Trayvon Martin, known as Witness 8, is believed to have lied about her whereabouts following his death. The girlfriend has supplied a key account that portrayed Zimmerman as the aggressor from a brief telephone call with Martin. However, Mark O’Mara revealed in court that she is believed to have lied in stating under oath that she did not go to Martin’s funeral because she was hospitalized. While that does not change the account of the telephone call, it would be a lie under oath that could be prosecuted and would chip away at her credibility, particularly with another witness saying that Martin was seen on top of Zimmerman shortly before the shooting.
Continue reading “Key Witness In Zimmerman Accused Of Lying Under Oath”
Schools in Beaver County, Pennsylvania were shutdown on the basis for a voicemail greeting in which a student sings the theme air of “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” That’s right, there appears little inquiry that is made between a call of a receptionists who misheard the lyrics of a song and a total police shutdown of a county.
We have yet another case of lunacy in our schools as part of the zero tolerance policy regarding guns. We have previously explored how teachers and school administrators are expelling or suspending students for everything from finger guns to stick figures. (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For a prior column, click here. Now, Josh Welch, 7, was suspended for two days because he nibbled on his strawberry tart and made it look like a gun. He picked up the fearsome Danish and said “bang, bang” and a teacher reported was irate.
We have been criticizing President Barack Obama for years over the failure of his Administration to prosecute officials responsible for torture as well as the intentional destruction of torture tapes at the CIA. Now a high-ranking United Nations official is joining the condemnation of Obama and his Administration. Ben Emmerson, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights, has condemned the failure to prosecute a single person for the official torture program implemented during the Bush years. The Obama Administration has thrown the books at those who leaked the information on our torture program but Obama himself promised the CIA after his election that CIA personnel would not be prosecuted despite our obligations under international treaty.
Continue reading “U.N. Investigator Criticizes Obama For Record On Torture”
There is an astonishing story coming from Pennsylvania where the wife of Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery appears to not only pull a salary as his chief judicial aide but has reportedly pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars in referral fees from law firms who appear before her husband. In just one such referral fee, Lise Rapaport, received $821,000.
Researchers at Brown University have developed an extraordinary new device: an implant that is the first wireless, implantable, rechargeable, long-term brain-computer interface. You can now be your own Johnny Mnemonic. Having tried out the implant on pigs and monkeys, the researchers are ready to use it in willing human subjects. For those of us who are fans of the cult classic “The President’s Analyst,” the Brown implant seems vaguely familiar.
Continue reading “Coming To A Brain Near You: Cerebrum Communicator”
It appears that something borrowed and something blue is often the same item in some marriages in China. Chinese police are dealing with a rather novel crime: people digging up corpses to be buried with dead bachelors. They are called “ghost marriages” and four men have been arrested in this bizarre criminal enterprise.
Continue reading “Four Funerals and a Wedding: Chinese Police Crackdown On “Ghost Weddings””
For Cathy Jordan it began as a banner day. A hearing was just held unveiling the “Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act,” legislation to legalize medical marijuana for people like Cathy Jordan who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s Disease and is wheelchair-bound. Hours after a news account of the hearing was published, officers raided her home with drawn guns and seized their marijuana plants used for her illness. The police from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office insist it was a coincidence.
Lech Wałęsa won the Noble Prize for fighting for Polish independence against the Soviet bloc, a move that ultimately helped bring down the wall dividing East from West. However, he seems to have rediscovered the comfort of a wall in his latest comments calling for homosexual members of parliament to be placed behind a wall to remind them that they are a minority and should adapt themselves to smaller things.”
Continue reading “Wałęsa’s Wall: Lech Wałęsa Calls For Gay Lawmakers To Sit Behind Wall”
There is an interesting torts lawsuit out of Houston where Layne Hardin, 44, is suing Obstetrical and Gynecological Associates, PA for allegedly giving two vials of his sperm to an ex-girfriend who proceeded to have his child. She is also suing the former boyfriend. The boy is now 2 years old. Hardin says that Tobie Devall has never let him see the boy while her lawyer says that he has never asked to see the boy.
Continue reading “Texas Man Sues Ex-Girlfriend and Clinic for Theft of Sperm Used To Produce Child”
Connecticut State Rep. Ernest Hewett, a five-term Democrat from New London, is desperately trying to explain a comment made to a high school girl during a hearing on the funding of youth programs. The girl had explained that one of the youth programs had cured her of her fear of snakes. Hewett then suggested that he had a snake under the desk for her to test herself on. Hewett insisted that the comment was entirely innocent and not sexual but he has been stripped of his leadership title. On his legislative site (which is still announcing his promotion to the leadership), Hewitt posts the defining quote of his career: “Never get so high that no one can touch you, never get so low that no one will want to touch you.” It appears that no one is touching Hewitt, or his snake, this week.