The Roselle (Ill.) police released this picture from a drunk driving arrest this week. The driver failed to stop after hitting a tree. Instead, the car was pulled over about 11:10 p.m. traveling the wrong way with a 15-foot-tree lodged in the front grille of the Lincoln.
Category: Bizarre
There is a troubling case out of New York where U.S. District Judge Mae D’Agostino of Albany threw out a lawsuit alleging the denial of free speech after the government banned a food truck from a vendor program because its name was an Italian slur. The slur is “dago.” It appeared on the food truck “Wandering Dago” owned by Andrew Loguidice and Brandon Snooks. I am half Sicilian and I may share that heritage with Judge D’Agostino. However, while we may both view the slur in the same way, we may see free speech protections differently. Judge D’Agostino wrote a comprehensive and interesting opinion that carefully looked at the governing precedent over forums and free speech. Moreover, it is important to note that Judge D’agostina was applying cases that she felt compelled this result as a lower court judge. She ultimately found no protection for barring a truck based on the sensibilities of others. The case is Wandering Dago, Inc. v. Destito, 1:13-cv-1053 (MAD/DJS), UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26046.
We have been discussing the crackdown on speech deemed offensive or insulting to anyone or any group on U.S. campuses. The latest example can be found at Bowdoin, one of the country’s oldest and leading colleges. Two student government members are facing calls for punishment and impeachment for attending a party where some people wore tiny sombreros.
Continue reading “Bowdoin Students Facing Impeachment For Attending Party With Sombreros”
There is a controversy in Alabama after prosecutors cut a plea agreement with an Alabama state trooper Samuel H. McHenry II, 36, who was accused of raping a woman and forcing her to perform oral sex after a bogus arrest in December 2015. For the crime, McHenry was allowed to plead to a simple misdemeanor for sexual misconduct and only six months in jail. [Warning: graphic content below]
As China continues its crackdown on dissidents and journalists and lawyers, it appears to be slipping back into its old habits from the cultural revolution. Chinese censors have issued new regulations banning all depictions of gay people on television. Other depictions banned as “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content include content showing extramarital affairs, one night stands and underage relationships as illegal on screen. The new censorship regulation also extends to “smoking, drinking, adultery, sexually suggestive clothing, even reincarnation.”
In an unbelievable development, news reports have revealed that an unnamed police officer found a knife on the estate where O.J. Simpson lived at the time of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Sources say that the knife appeared to have possible blood residue. Here is the truly incredible part: the officer, who was off-duty at the time, kept the knife as a souvenir and later sought to confirm the case number for a proper framing of the knife. There still may be more to this story and we have not heard from the officer. However, unless the officer clearly knew that this knife was not involved in the crime or other crime, the failure to disclose the potential evidence is startling. There is no indication that the officer has been arrested for the removal of the possible evidence. While it could prove to unrelated to the murders, the officer clearly thought that it might be key evidence.
Continue reading “Report: Police Officer Removed Knife From OJ Estate And Kept It As Souvenir”
The videotape below has shocked many people both inside and outside of Baltimore. A Baltimore school police officer is shown slapping and kicking a teenage youth while a second officer watches. The video raises the suitability of either officer to serve in the department as well as the question of potential criminal charges of assault.
Continue reading “Video: Baltimore Police Officer Slaps and Kicks 16-Year-Old Student”
Egypt’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to expel Tawfik Okasha from the legislature for the apparently unforgivable sin of inviting the Israeli ambassador in Cairo for dinner. The picture of him meeting with the ambassador took that opposition into a full rage. Now remember that Egypt has full diplomatic relations with Israel, but Okasha’s merely having dinner with the ambassador resulted in a vote of 465 out of 490 legislators supporting this expulsion.
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The Women’s Protection Act, passed by Pakistan’s largest province of Punjab last week, would seem the type of law that no civilized person could contest. It offers legal protection to women from sexual abuse and violence while calling for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line and the establishment of women’s shelters. However, the Council of Islamic Ideology, a powerful Pakistani religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam, has now declared that criminalizing violence against women is “un-Islamic.”
We have another case of a professor who was put under scrutiny for her postings on social media. Joy Karega, an assistant professor of “rhetoric and composition” at Oberlin College posted bizarre claims on Facebook blaming Jews and Israel for 9/11 as well as ISIS. The college however has decided that such postings are protected and it is correct in doing so. However, once again, there is a concern over how colleges treat such controversies depending on the views and conclusions of the academics or students.
Continue reading “Oberlin Professor Retained Despite Controversial Facebook Postings”
Sharissa Turk, 25, is dead. If you do not recognize the name, your kids might. Turk was the “blue drug fairy” in a YouTube video that went viral entitled “My World Is Blue.” The video was made by Staten Island’s White Trash Clan and produced by Turk’s one-time fiancé Incite DaRiot.
Continue reading ““Blue Drug Fairy” From Viral YouTube Video Found Dead From Reported Overdose”
We have been discussing the use of criminal charges against children for pranks and threats in recent years, including a story this week involving twelve year old girls in Florida. In Fairfax, Virginia (where I live and my kids attend public school) a 12-year-old is being charged with making threats against her school using emoji. The girl sent an Instagram post in December that said, in part: “Killing [gun emoji] meet me in the library Tuesday [gun emoji] [knife emoji] [bomb emoji].” Once again, the case raises the question of whether such matters need to be criminalized rather than address through stern but internal punishment.
There is a disturbing case out of Snaresbrook Crown Court in England where an Islamic studies tutor raped his 14-year-old pupil and left her pregnant. Mohammed Islam, 31, reportedly started molesting the schoolgirl in 2010 when she was just nine while teaching her the Koran. He has been sentenced to 19 years.
Ok, this would seem a straightforward case. A student at in Union, South Carolina, steals his teacher’s phone and then accesses her private photographs. He finds semi-nude pictures that she took for her husband for Valentine’s Day and shared them with other students. Result? Union County schools superintendent David Eubanks (left) and his colleagues demanded her resignation. I can certainly understand why teacher Leigh Anne Arthur might be a tad confused.
Continue reading “Student Steals Teacher’s Phone and Posts Semi-Nude Private Pictures . . . School Demands Resignation of Teacher”
Just when you thought you could not get more depressed about the state of humanity. Uganda officials are dealing with a rash of mutilations and murders of children. The reason is chilling. Some Ugandans believe that mutilating and murdering children can bring you good luck. With the recent Ugandan elections, people appear to have tried to rig the outcome through child ritualistic murder. Makes you feel a little better about the current crop of candidates in our elections. Ritualistic child murder is perhaps the only thing that they have not accused each other of.