People are hoping to see less of Robert Moore, 48, but a court released the defendant who was arrested in Plymouth after “spraying urine to and fro into the flower beds while making noises like an elephant.” Despite his lawyer admitting that Moore has a “raging alcohol problem” and exposing himself of children, he was released and given another chance to tackle his drinking.
Category: International
There is rising concern in Zanzibar that it is poised to be the next the next country to fall to extreme Islamic rule. While long a favorite for tourists for its beaches and resorts, the Saudi-based Wahhabi movement has established hundreds of schools and programs with money from Saudi Arabia and Dubai. The result is rising criticism of what Suleiman Ali, director of Radio Al-Noor, called the outbreak of “social freedoms.”
Continue reading “Islamic Leaders Denounce Outbreak of “Social Freedoms” In Zanzibar”
I suppose the good news for the Church of Scientology is that Belgium is no longer calling it a cult. The bad news is that it has moved on to calling is a criminal organization in a comprehensive set of charges ranging from extortion to fraud to privacy breaches to the illegal practice of medicine. The charges follow years of investigation into labor contracts that led to raids on Church properties in 2008. In 2009, Scientology was convicted of fraud in Paris and fined almost $1 million.
For months, I have criticized the tax policies of France’s Socialist President Francois Hollande, particularly the confiscatory 75 percent tax rate for the wealthiest French. In addition to being in my view unfair, it is extremely bad economic policy. France’s Constitutional Council now appears to agree — at least on the equitable side. On Saturday, the Council rejected a 75 percent upper income tax rate on annual income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million) as an unfair treatment of different households. Popular figures like French actor Gerard Depardieu have opposed the tax and even left the country. The French experience should get some in the United States to dial down on our own over-heated rhetoric on economic policy. (Yes, I will now vent a bit on economic policy).
Continue reading “Liberté,Egalité, Fraternité: French Court Strikes Down 75 Percent Tax on Rich”
Submitted By: Mike Spindell. Guest Blogger
Mythology can be seen as the social glue of diverse groups. It is the accumulation of tales, beliefs, moral strictures and mores that gives a specific population a sense of homogeneity, allowing it to exist with synergy. This is true of nations, ethnic groups, religions and even political movements. One of the defining conditions in our nation is that we are one of the most diverse on this planet when it comes to religions and ethnicities. All of our original thirteen states came into existence via individual peculiarities of settlers, religious sects, slavery, climate and the spoils system of colonialism. About a third of the citizens of those thirteen colonies, of the nascent United States, chafed under foreign domination and engendered a rebellion against the British Empire’s exploitation. Among that fractional populace, there fortunately resided a group of the colonies wealthiest citizens and greatest minds. The rebellion succeeded and a decade later a government emerged created by the novelty of a Constitution delineating how it was to be run.
As improbable as the rebellion against the world’s greatest power might have seemed, the ongoing success of this enterprise is even more of an improbability. From the beginning most citizens saw themselves as attached more to their individual states, than to the Federal Government. The subsequent history of this country is well-known, but what I think often gets missed is that the history as we know it is mostly a creation of an American mythology, which has given consistency to this diverse enterprise and served to inculcate waves of immigrants into seeing themselves as part of America. While a nation’s mythology may serve it as “social glue” it can also contain within it seeds of social dysfunction. What follows is my take on the American Myth of the “Rugged Individualist” and why though it may have had initial utilitarian value; it has become cancerous within our country and may lead to the disintegration of America as we know it. Continue reading ““Rugged Individualism””
We have been following the growing protests over rapes in India this month. This includes a brutal gang rape on a city bus and an alleged rape of a victim by police officers. Now, a 17-year-old Indian girl who was gang-raped has committed suicide after she claimed that police pressured her to drop the case and marry one of her attackers.
Disgusting eating contests appear to be a certain fatal attraction these days. We recently discussed the death of a man who won a roach-eating contest. Now a Tunisian man, Dhaou Fatnassi, 20, has died in a raw egg eating contest. He won after eating 28 and then died.
Continue reading “Tunisian Man Dies After Winning Contest By Eating 28 Raw Eggs”
You can often tell why the Chinese government has kept a tight lid on tort actions in the country. These shoppers got an unexpected interactive experience with sharks in an aquarium in a Shanghai shopping center.
As the government deals with ongoing scandal and protests over the gang rape of a student in New Delhi, another woman has come forward with an equally horrific account: she was allegedly raped by the police inspector after she went to report a rape. Maan Singh, a senior sub inspector (SSI) posted at Akbarpur police station in Ambedkar Nagar has now been arrested.
Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah. Continue reading “Merry Christmas!!!”
Women in Swaziland can now be arrested for wearing mini-skirts or cropped tops because they are responsible for provoking their own rapes. The government has announced that it will now enforce an 1889 law banning “immoral” dressing. Of course, the same week an Iowa court held that employers could fire attractive women who may be too great a temptation for them.
Continue reading “Swaziland Declares Women Who Wear Mini-Skirts Are Responsible For Their Own Rapes”
A Saudi court has ordered the editor of a Saudi Arabian website to be tried for apostasy, and possibly executed, due to his criticism of the role of religion in the Saudi Kingdom. Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, was arrested in June and originally charged with insulting Islam. The court has now upgraded the charge to apostasy.
Continue reading “Saudi Editor Faces Death Penalty For Apostasy Due To Writings About Religion”
Life under Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to return to the old Soviet standards this month after a Chechen newspaper was closed following an embarrassing comment by the editor-in-chief in the presence of the Russia strongman. Worse yet, people actually laughed when Belkis Dudayeva, the editor-in-chief of Kadyrov’s Path, asked a question that began with “Thank God that Chechnya has now become a region of peace and prosperity…”
Continue reading “Newspaper Closed After Editor Asks Putin An Embarrassing Question”
We have previously discussed the disturbing fondness of some Russians for the memory of Josef Stalin — one of history’s greatest tyrants. Villagers in Georgia have taken that hero worship a step further by storing a statue commemorating Josef Stalin in his (appropriately named) birth town of Gori and are planning a monument to the dictator. Activities celebrating the “happier times” under Stalin ignore the hundreds of thousands of Russians, particularly intelligentsia, killed under this orders and the millions lost due to this policies. Gori however appears happy to have its favorite son in the tyrant’s chair. The story this month truly filled me with disgust and it was particularly poignant that these Georgians would use the Christmas season to honor one of history’s mass murderers.
Continue reading “Georgians Resurrect Stalin Statue To Remember “Happier Times””
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
I don’t know about you but I was certainly happy that I woke up this morning. For a few years now there has been great speculation that the world was going to end yesterday. As I fell asleep about 1:00pm last night it was with knowing that in Mexico it was three hours earlier and so that the dread prediction of the world’s end by the Mayan Calendar still may have been possible. The whole idea was a blatant misrepresentation of Mayan belief and hoax-like, yet that didn’t prevent many from making this non-story into yet another way to frighten people. Frightening people with made-up nonsense seems to be a human trait and certainly has been exploited throughout history for one sort of gain or another.
Fear not though, because just as the collective We has just bitten one bullet, another comes along to frighten us once again with disaster and that “disaster” will occur on December 31, 2012, as we come to the end of another turmoil ridden year in societal intercourse. I’m writing, of course, about the “Looming Fiscal Cliff” that has been so very prominent in what our mainstream media calls “news and commentary” and our leaders of both parties call governance. My opinion and that of many others with far more economic expertise than myself, is that the “Fiscal Cliff” is a mere “bogeyman”, used by those politicians on the Right and the Left as leverage to accomplish their particular political agendas.
Since one of the interests of this blog is the Constitution and the consequent Rule of Law that should be its’ result, this comes within our purview because serious issues of national interest are being driven by false mythology grown to myth like proportion. Let’s look at what is behind this mythology and its propaganda. Continue reading ““The Fiscal Cliff” an Example of Myth and Propaganda”