Okay this might get a bit confusing but there is an interesting legal issue here. Wales hooker Scott Baldwin missed playing for the Ospreys after he was bitten on the hand by a lion. The result was that the Cheetahs won the match. What is interesting is that Baldwin’s injury was due to utter stupidity after the reached into a lion’s cage in South Africa to pet the lion. That’s right, a grown man reached into a lion’s cage to pet a lion. The question is when a professional team can penalize a player for injuries due to simple stupidity.
Continue reading “Lion Bites Osprey To The Delight Of Cheetahs”
Category: Bizarre
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In our criminal justice system, appellants tend to fall into three categories: Those who ultimately prevail in their arguments; those who are unable to convince justices of their case’s merits; and those who fall off a cliff and strike every sharp rock on their way to the bottom. Steven Canha apparently suffered the fate of the last category.
After extensive appeals, one of which was to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Canha lost what could be his final personal restraint petition before Washington’s courts of appeals and now the state’s Supreme Court halted the years long contention for his release from prison.
Mr. Canha argues, in short, for a resentencing based on Washington’s determinate sentencing grid by reason of incompatibility of foreign laws to Washington’s and argues for removal of prior convictions to reduce his prison term. But being probably the most unfortunate man in recent memory, a unanimous Court determined applicability of prior violations based largely upon obsolete laws (effective at the time) and time/date dictated ultimately how long his imprisonment occurred.
I am still basking in the glory of my Chicago Cubs clinching the Central Division title this week (a division title by a returning World Series champion that has not happened in over a decade). I have been invited by a friend to attend the first game against the Nationals next Friday in Washington. I will be sitting near home plate in the seats of my friend (who I have promised one of my kidneys in return). It appears however that I will have to refrain from advising the Cubs on throws. I was surprised to read this week that a Yankees fan was ejected for yelling information on the expected location of the pitches to the Rays’ catcher, Wilson Ramos. Yankees’ Gary Sanchez was at bat. This is the first that I have heard of fans being barred from predicting throws as opposed to the disgraceful practice of the Boston Red Sox in using Apple watches to improperly communicate throw info to their batters.
Continue reading “Baseball Fan Thrown Out Of Game For Calling Throws”
We have previously discussed protests against literature and philosophy courses due to their reliance on white male authors from ancient Greece to the Enlightenment. The latest such protest is occurring at Reed College where students called “Reedies Against Racism” are protesting a required humanities class that explores founding works from ancient Greece and Rome. Requiring freshman to read such works is being denounced as “really harmful.” I have long been an advocate of the core curriculum and Western Civilization works (a love for these works that began as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago which helped establish the core curriculum or great works model).
We have previously discussed the meltdown at the University of Missouri-Columbia where applications have plummeted since the controversial responses to race protests on campus, including the decision to terminate a journalism professor who encouraged students to “muscle” a student journalist. The result has been the shutting down of whole dormitories. Now the university has hit upon a new idea to raise revenue. It has effectively become a hotel and has been renting out rooms in vacant dormitories for $120 a night for football games.
Rachel Myrick may not have had the ideal dining experience but she may have the good lawsuit against the Longhorn Steakhouse in Fredericksburg Virginia after being bitten by a highly venomous copperhead snake while walking into the restauraunt.
Continue reading “Longhorn Snakehouse: Virginia Woman Bitten By Venomous Copperhead In Restaurant”
Saudi Sheikh Saad al-Hajari has reportedly come out strongly against the movement to allow women in the Kingdom to drive. Sheikh Saad al-Hajari said that the ban should remain because women possess a “lack of intellect” compared to men. He explained that they have only half the brainpower of males.
Continue reading “Saudi Cleric Declares That Women Lack the Intelligence To Drive”
We will be suspending blogging today due to the end of the world as predicted by Christian writer David Meade. While Meade is reportedly now hedging his bets on whether we may survive on September 23rd, I have already told my classes that they may disregard the remainder of the term syllabus. I know that the end may come as something of a bummer for many. However, as stated in Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, “if life seems jolly rotten, there is something you’ve forgotten.” There are ten good reasons to welcome the apocalypse.
Continue reading “Notice: Programming Interruption On Saturday For End Of World”
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has shocked the world with his blood-soaked reign including his orders to police to murder drug suspects and his bragging about his own murders. Thousands of suspected drug dealers have been killed under Duterte. Duterte has mocked those who object to the extrajudicial murders, including teenagers found dead. Now Duterte is telling police to kill his son (who has been implicated in drugs and corruption) is he is found to be involved in the drug trade.
We have been discussing how discrimination and speech regulation have become acceptable in the cause of diversity or equality for many activists. The latest example was seen at the premiere of a new documentary about comedians called “Building the Room.” The director is Sharaz Higgins who implemented “justice pricing” which originally planned to charge cis white men $20 and everyone else $10. After an outcry, he dropped the “privilege price” to $15. He and his colleagues obviously missed the point. The problem was not the price but the discrimination. To make matters worse, Higgins did interviews under a false name, Sid Mohammed, to avoid being attacked for his discriminatory policy.
Johnson & Johnson heiress Jazz Johnson-Merton is unlikely to be on the PETA holiday card list. The 36-year-old heiress shocked onlookers at theHampton Classic Horse Show when she kicked her horse Joe Cool after she was thrown during an exhibition. She is the author of the tongue-in-cheek “Social Climber’s Bible” which will now likely be followed by the “Social Exile’s Bible.”
Ryan Flores, 30, is reportedly planning a tort action against Cregg Jerri, 58, for stabbing him in a California Starbuck. Such a battery lawsuit would make perfect sense after being stabbed 17 times. The problem is that he was stabbed in the course of an armed robbery and Jerri was credited as the hero who ran forward to protect the staff from the gun-touting Flores. The filing would presumably not contest the right to use the privilege of self-defense but argue that Jerri somehow exceeded that authority.
White supremacist Dylann Roof says that he has something of a problem on his hands: he has court-appointed counsel who happen to be Jewish and Indian. He has asked the court to replace Alexandra Yates and Sapna Mirchandani in his appeal of his death sentence for the massacre of nine people in the Emmanuel AME Church during a Bible study in 2015. Roof appears to believe that the right of counsel includes the right to white counsel. It doesn’t. The court should not be a vehicle for racial or religious discrimination to cater to the wishes of a homicidal fanatic. More importantly, that is the view of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Sometimes being a supporter of free speech can be really really really hard. A leading expert of “comparative jurisprudence” and Sunni cleric at al-Azhar University, Dr. Sabri Abdel Raouf, has been placed under review by his university (and ordered by the state media regulator to stay off the air) after dispensing some rather chilling advice on Sharia law and Islamic values. Abdel Raouf had told viewers that it is is permissible under Islamic law for a husband to have sex with his dead wife in what is called “goodbye intercourse.” The action taken by the university and the government highlights the curious line drawn over the discussion of Islam in Egypt. Moreover, it is a rather bizarre example of the debate that we are having in this country over the right of academics to engage in free (and controversial) speech outside of their schools. In this case, both the university and the government have moved to prevent anyone from airing these views as an insult to Islam.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been channeling his best Marie Antoinette this month in responding to widespread and growing hunger in the country. Maduro went on the news to told citizens to eat rabbits. The problem is that Venezuelans have been putting bows on the rabbits and adopting them as pets rather than eating them.