We have previously discussed drivers doing their makeup or reading while driving, including some captured on our own cellphones. However, a cyclist hit the jackpot n Aberdeen with this guy who is wearing earphones in both ears with his laptop open near his lap while reading his cellphone.
Month: February 2015
We have yet another example of the twisted view of women in the Saudi Kingdom and the equally twisted view of what appears to pass for an intellectual in Saudi Arabia. Saudi historian Saleh Al-Saadoon told the Saudi news show Rotana Khalijiyya that the reason women in the West drive is that they “don’t care if they are raped on the roadside.” It was particularly offensive from a Saudi academic in a country long accused of having a culture that excuses rape.
Jenifer Lynn Patterson, 24, is facing a serious charge this week after the North Carolina mother used her 4-year-old son to smuggle drugs to an inmate at Columbus Correctional Institution. The question is whether in addition to the charge of felony introduction of drugs into prison facility should be combined with a move to sever her parental custody of her two children.
We have previously discussed the problem in some countries like China where drivers routinely drive on sidewalks. Russia is also notorious for some horrendous drivers. One group however has started a campaign to confront drivers, leading to some tense confrontations on sidewalks as the videotape below indicates. It raises an interesting legal question of this type of citizen action. The line between citizen action and vigilantism can blur if it involves property damage, even though this is relatively slight. Indeed, there is admittedly a certain satisfaction in seeing these cars marked with a large sticker after such reckless conduct.
Continue reading “Video: Russians Confront Drivers Using Sidewalks To Avoid Traffic”
There is a fascinating lawsuit in California where Anna Marie Phillips has sued A California woman P.F. Chang’s China Bistro Inc. for charming a dollar extra for gluten-free food. Phillips says that gluten diets are necessary for people with celiac disease and thus the added charge violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Continue reading “P.F. Charges: Restaurant Chain Sued Over $1 Charge on Gluten-Free Dishes”
The video below shows an extraordinary car chase in east Los Angeles. The gunman ultimately carjacks another car and leaves a path of destruction in his path after police tried to stop him on suspected car theft. He is now looking at a long list of crimes that will make the original car theft look trivial in comparison. Police shot the man as he tried to carjack another vehicle.
Continue reading “Car Theft Suspect Racks Up A List of Wrecks and Criminal Charges in California”
The University of Michigan has spent $16,000 on a campaign to get students to use “inclusive language” and stop using certain words and phrases. Around campus, posters give examples of the now verboten words like “crazy,” “insane,” “retarded,” “gay,” “tranny,” “gypped,” “illegal alien,” “fag,” “ghetto” and “raghead.” In fairness to the school and students, there program is broader than just the listing of offensive terms and phrases. The campaign is also featured on Facebook.
Philadelphia police officers Sean McKnight and Kevin Robinson have been arrested and criminally charged after a videotape showed them pursuing Najee Rivera on a scooter. After they stop, the two officers get out and beat Rivera with their fists and batons. He was left with fractures in his orbital bones and lacerations.
Continue reading “Two Philadelphia Police Officers Charged In Beating of Unarmed Suspect”
Principal Jazmine Santiago is under funding over school spending this week but it is not the usual tension between added teachers versus greater school supplies. Santiago is accused to effectively using school funds in the struggling PS 260 in Flatbush to build her own private gym with a bench press, pull-up bar, treadmill, elliptical machine and thigh exerciser. While Santiago says that she shares the equipment with older students, the oldest students at the school is only 11 years old since they top out at 5th grade.
Continue reading “New York Principal at Struggling School Accused Of Building Private Gym”
By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“That no person whatsoever in this Jurisdiction shall joyn any persons together in Marriage but the Magistrate, or such other as the General Court, or Court of Assistants shall authorize in such places where no Magistrate is near.”
-Lauues and Libertyes of Massachusetts (1648) (Legal Classics Library Ed. 1982)
First Things is a highly regarded ecumenical journal on religion and society. Its editor, R.R. Reno, recently posted online a document entitled “The Marriage Pledge.” The pledge is a reaction to the expansion of same-sex marriage recognition across the country, a phenomenon which conflicts “with the Christian understanding of marriage between a man and a woman.” To protest these changes, Christian ministers who sign the pledge agree that they “will no longer serve as agents of the state in marriage” and “will no longer sign government provided marriage certificates.” As of this writing, the pledge has attracted over 400 signatories.
The Marriage Pledge is an unfortunate document, however, and more than a little ironic. It is ineffectual because it presumes a level of importance that the clergy does not have in the formation of lawful marriages, and it abandons religious believers in the process. Those who understand something of the history of marriage will correctly perceive the pledge as a form of witless moral witness.
Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor
There was a case argued two weeks ago that I’ll admit I paid no attention to when I created my roster of Cases to Watch in the OT14: Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project. A woman who teaches a course on social justice in urban areas asked if I knew anything about this case after it popped up on her Twitter feed. Her students were interested in the impact of the case and, as many of them had just taken my law and politics course and knew the ideologies of the Supreme Court bench, wanted to know more about it so they could make predictions about the outcome. As an educator and (self-described) specialist of Supreme Court activities, I did a deep dive into researching it in an effort to help with this teachable moment and immediately moved it into the top five cases to watch this term.
This is a case about a specific part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, that iconic piece of legislation signed one week after Dr. King was shot, called the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Continue reading “The Fair Housing Act: How fair is Fair?”
I took my usual hike on Billy Goat Trail at the break of dawn this morning and it was wonderful. While it reached over 60 degrees today in Northern Virginia, it was around 30 at dawn and a fair amount of ice. But the air was crisp and the stark winter beauty was spectacular.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In another example of bizarre and horrific treatments of children by relatives the Lincoln County Missouri Sheriff’s Office accuses a family of staging a frightening kidnapping of their six year old son because they believed he was being too friendly with strangers and needed to be taught a lesson.
Several felony charges later, the family is now being taught that lesson in the county jail.
Continue reading “Family Accused Of Kidnapping Boy To Teach Him Not To Talk To Strangers”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In a bizarre and depraved case of alleged child abuse, police in Carnation, Washington accuse Mary Miles of bringing her fourteen year old daughter to a truck stop in North Bend for the purpose of selling her daughter’s virginity to Miles’ boyfriend Bryan Murphy.
The two agreed on a child exploitation scheme where Miles is alleged to have entered Murphy’s truck with her daughter. Miles and he then engaged in a sex. When Murphy then grabbed the daughter’s leg she became extremely distressed and escaped the truck. She walked several miles to a middle school where she met with her seventeen year old sister who then called police.
Continue reading “Police Accuse Mother Of Attempting To “Sell” Daughter’s Virginity”
My family in Chicago has been walloped by snow so I thought that I would share the video below to offer some guidance at snow removal.
Continue reading “Now This Is Snow Removal . . . Canadian Style”