Tennessee music teacher Daniel Torroll, 56, was arrested Thursday after being allegedly seen engaging in sex acts with a child-like doll near an elementary school. His statements to police and press are a good example of how half a defense is sometimes worse than no defense at all.
Author: jonathanturley
We have seen the gradual dependence of the United States on China, which holds a huge amount of our debt. The result has been foreign policies designed to appease the Chinese government, including near silence on human rights abuses by that country. Now, academia has its own scandal of kowtowing to the Chinese, which have become equally dominant in research and education. Schools like Georgetown and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have said virtually nothing after their faculty were barred from entering China or flying on Chinese airlines due to objections to their writings. They are called the “Xinjiang 13” and their virtual abandonment by leading universities shows how academic freedom values have been sacrificed to maintain our dependence on Chinese funding.
As our leaders continue to spend billions in three unpopular wars, our cities and states continue to move closer and closer to a state of nature. This week, the state of Illinois will stop paying to bury the dead. Funeral directors have been sent a letter that they will have to find something to do with indigent dead people.
Continue reading “[Do Not] Bring Out Your Dead: Illinois Announces It Can No Longer Pay For Burials”
Texas Governor Rick Perry appears to be out doing his opponents who have made the curtailment or actual elimination of the EPA a major part of the Republican presidential election (here and here). While Newt Gingrich wants to disband the EPA, Perry has brought in the big guns and announced that he actually prays to God to seek divine intervention in curtailing pollution laws.
Continue reading “Perry Prays For Pollution? Perry Tells CBN That He Asks God To Intervene With The EPA”
Call me a skeptic. For years, the world has been fed a constant stream of images of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin engaged in what may be the longest running mid-life crisis in history. Putin has been shown as a race car driver, great white hunter, jet pilot, oceanologist, martial artist and other action hero outfits. Each appearance has been accompanied by some fawning account of his aides on how he is superhuman. Now, Putin’s macho action series has turned to scuba diving. While only having dived three times, Putin was shown at an ancient Greek Black sea site and . . . you guessed it . . . he “discovered” two sixth century urns under the water. What is really amazing is that the urn were less than seven feet from the surface, together, and just lying exposed for thousands of years waiting for Putin. It was almost like someone put them there and directed Putin who was only in the water for a brief time when he added world-class archeologist to this action hero box.
Continue reading “Now Putin The Archeologist: Russian Strongman “Discovers” Ancient Jars At Ancient Site”
Robert Vietze, 18, of South Warren Vt. caused a commotion on a JetBlue flight from Portland to New York yesterday when he urinated on a sleeping 11-year-old girl. What is interesting about this case is the charge: indecent exposure rather than assault or other more serious charge.
Continue reading “Oregon Man Arrested For Urinating On Sleeping 11-Year-Old Girl on JetBlue Flight”
Criminal charges have been formally dropped against New York news cameraman Phil Datz who was arrested at a crime scene last month. The video of the clearly abusive arrest was placed on YouTube (below) and shows an officer threatening and then arresting Datz. This is part of a continuing trend of officers arresting citizens and reporters for filming them in public — acts found to be unconstitutional but remain clearly tolerated (if not encouraged) in some jurisdictions.
Continue reading “Datz A Wrap: Suffolk Drops Charges Against Cameraman After Abusive Arrest”
There is an interesting story in Kentucky about a series of generous tax breaks given to a Bible-themed amusement park, Ark Encounter. The creationist museum is evolving into a heavily subsidized endeavor despite the absence of any independent study to support its projected profits and employment figures.
Now this could make for an interesting challenge. Brian Pollard was arrested for DUI in an accident that led to the death of Peggy Williamson. He received only four days in jail after pleading guilty. When the family cried foul, District Judge Rebecca Phelps and prosecutors insisted that they had no idea someone died. They are now moving to charge him again — after he was sentenced on the crime for DUI.
Continue reading “Kentucky Man Kills Woman in DUI — and Receives Four Days In Jail”
Here is today’s column in the Los Angeles Times on the announcement that the House Page Program would be shutdown. After almost 200 years of loyal service, the pages deserve better and many former pages are asking the leadership to meet with us to consider alternatives.
Ready for a 12 minute flight from New York to Los Angeles? Well, those daring guys at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are about to launch Falcon HTV-2 — an arrow-shaped aircraft that will travel 20 times the speed of sound today.
Continue reading “DARPA To Launch Falcon To Reach Speed Of 13,000 MPH”
Remember the worldwide violence over a cartoon showing Muhammad with a bomb in his turban? Well, Afghan President Hamid Karzai met recently the country’s religious leaders to ask them to kindly ask militants to stop hiding bombs in turbans and other religious garments. It is a curious appeal since one would have thought the clerics could go a little further and say that hiding bombs in terrorist acts anywhere is immoral.
In our effort to be full service, I am posting a new governmental position for any of our contributions looking for gainful (baneful?) employment. I saw an interesting item on Reddit for a position with the Department of Transportation of “Associate Administrator for Administration” at the Department of Transportation. Now that is a bureaucrats dream — administering the administrators.
Continue reading “DOT Seeks An “Associate Administrator For Administration””
The United Stats Olympic Committee has issued a formal letter stating its intent to sue the “Redneck Olympics” over the use of the word “Olympic.” The Committee insists that it owns the word Olympic — despite the fact that it refers to an ancient sporting event from Greece that preceded both the United States and copyright/trademark laws. (It turns out that this early depiction of the Greek Olympics had been long misinterpreted as a race. It is actually early Greek lawyers serving an organizer with a complaint over the use of the word Olympic in 776 BC).
Continue reading “United States Olympic Committee Threatens To Sue The Redneck Olympics”
Honestly, what would we do on this blog without those hilarious guys in Iran. In their latest standup routine, the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast issued a statement to the British government to show greater restraint in dealing with protesters in London and other cities. That’s right, the government that has killed, beaten, and raped protesters is publicly calling out England on its efforts to stop the rioting and looting in London.
Continue reading “Iran Calls For Investigation of England’s Treatment of Protesters and Calls For Dialogue With Rioters”