Australia has called Japan to account for its openly fraudulent claims of scientific research as an exception to the moratorium on whaling. Australia accused Japan in the International Court of Justice in The Hague of commercial whaling in using the claim of research to kill hundreds of whales every year in the Southern Ocean.
Continue reading “Australia Confronts Japan On Whaling In Historic Hague Case”
U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee has issued a sweeping victory for the Obama Administration and its contractors in seeking to bar any recourse for people injured or killed in U.S. camps or prisons like Abu Ghraib. Lee dismissed a lawsuit detailing well-supported accounts of abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison — holding that the injured parties could not use U.S. courts to seek judicial review and relief for the abuse. He closed the door to the U.S. judicial system to four Iraqi plaintiffs under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) as well as one plaintiff who was deemed as barred under Iraqi law.
Matthew (6:24) says that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” but we have recently seen ministers who seem focused on the latter than the former in their personal matters like St. Louis Pastor Alois Bell who scratched out a 18 percent tip for a large party and wrote in a “0” next to “I give God 10% why do you get 18.” The waitress was later fired from Applebee’s after Bell complained about her going public with the slight. Rev. Bell was widely ridiculed as a craven hypocrite. However, she could apparently open a new ministry of the “Good Work of Mammon” Church with Australian Rev. Terry McAuliffe, of St Paul’s Anglican Church. A couple, Clyde and Lesley Bevan, own the Friends Restaurant and dropped a $6500 gold and diamond bracelet in the carpark. It was missing for months. They were delighted when a new “friend” called to report that he picked up the bracelet until he told them that he wanted half the value if they wanted it back. Rev. McAuliffe insists that it is just a case of mammon from heaven: “I have been given a gift fallen from the sky.”
Amnesty International has issued a statement criticizing the Obama Administration’s prosecution of Edward Snowden. While the media has largely yielded to demands from the White House not to call Snowden a “whistleblower,” Amnesty International views him in this light and specifically objects to the use of the Espionage Act by the Obama Administration in this case. I discuss the charges against Snowden in a column today in USA Today.
Continue reading “Amnesty International Denounces Obama Administration’s Prosecution Of Snowden”
Below is my column today in USA Today on the criminal complaint against Edward Snowden. I have been criticizing the charge under the Espionage Act as abusive and a mistake by the Administration. President Barack Obama has been criticized for years for his use of the controversial 1917 Act. He is responsible for six of the nine total indictments ever brought under the Act. More than all presidents before him and putting Richard Nixon to shame. He has used the act against sources for journalists and only recently was criticized for the attacks on the free press under his Administration. I do not question the basis for prosecution of Snowden for the disclosure of classified information or any theft of such documents. However, the effort to put him away for life does raise an interesting contrast with prior cases, which is the subject of today’s column (slightly expanded from the print version).
Continue reading “AMERICA’S ANIMAL FARM: SNOWDEN AND THE SQUEALER”
Canine contraband is the newest crime wave in Beijing. China is cracking down on large dogs under a new law in classic Chinese authoritarian form: Police bearing nets and metal snares are roaming the streets in search of Labradors, Dalmatians and collies and other sizable dogs.
Continue reading “Canine Contraband: China’s Crackdown On Large Dogs Gets Ugly”
Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe) Guest Blogger
It was 69 years ago today. 7:27PM, Paris, France. The B-17G serial number 42-102552 was shot down by flak over Paris. Some of the crew managed to get out of the destroyed plane, some did not. Kirby Cowan, whom I wrote about here, was the only one of the crew captured by the Gestapo. He was one of the 168 allied airmen who ended up in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp instead of a POW camp.
This story is not really about Kirby Cowan, as much as it is about the 6600 American service members who died per MONTH, during WWII (about 220 a day). No one who was not alive then has any idea of the magnitude of the losses. 40,000 airmen were killed in combat theaters and another 18,000 wounded. Young men who climbed into thin aluminum coffins and flew into the stratosphere–and into history.
Also shot down that day at 7:24 PM, three minutes before Horn’s Hornets, was the B-17G #42-975432 flown by Second Lieutenant George Martin. That plane was also special because Staff Sgt. Carl E. Carlson was a member of the crew. SSgt. Carlson was the father of one of our own Turley blog commenters, Darrel Carlson.
Continue reading “More on Kirby Cowan and those who died and were wounded on 22 June 1944”
As President Obama starts our intervention into yet another war in Syria and members call for even greater intervention, we have another measure of how costly our war in Afghanistan has been. Stars and Stripes is reporting that the U.S. will abandon or destroy $7 billion in equipment rather than ship it home under the tight schedule for withdrawal. Once again, history will record the insanity of both President Bush and President Obama in spending hundreds of billions on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while cutting key educational, environmental, and scientific programs needed in this country. Members who rail against support for things like NPR will not even take note of $7 billion in equipment going up in smoke in Afghanistan. In the perfect metaphor, the billions of dollars of scrap metal will be turned into Afghan pennies.
Simon Parkes appears to be pressing the flesh with all the wrong people. The city council member and married father of three from Whitby Town Council has gone public with an account of a long affair with aliens, particularly an alien named the “Cat Queen” with whom he has had a child. He also claims that his “real mother” is a 9-foot green alien with eight fingers. The Labor politician has also reported the less surprising news that his wife is rather put out by the whole thing. He did raise a novel extraterrestrial defense to extramarital affairs. Continue reading “The Extraterrestrial Extramarital Defense: English Politician Announces Affair With Green Alien “Cat Queen” . . . Wife Reportedly “Not Happy””
George Bush was rightfully denounced for his Administration’s false statements to both the public and the United Nations on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — the rationale for our invasion of that country. There was little apparent concern from Bush or his aides over the veracity or proof of their assertions as opposed to the desired outcome. The same mentality is in open display with President Obama this month as he and his aides continue to increase the claims of “successes” from the warrantless surveillance programs as public opposition grows. In this case, the increasing claims are being made in a war on privacy, including an effort to redefine privacy in a new surveillance-friendly image. We are now up to over 50 “potential plots” and Obama is sounding distinctly Bush-like in statements today about how these programs “saved lives.” The public, which learned this month that it was openly lied to about the programs in earlier hearings, is expected to accept these assurances on faith alone.
This is one of those stories that can put some in a difficult position. On one hand, it seems like progress that a hateful Islamic Cleric was sentenced for destroying a Bible in light of the litany of prosecutions of people for insulting Islam. However, in the end, it is simply the same denial of free exercise and free speech under blasphemy laws. Whether it is a Koran or a Bible, the act (as hateful and obnoxious that it is) remains an exercise of free speech and should be protected as a basic human right.
Continue reading “Egypt Sentences Cleric To 11 Years For Burning Bible”
This week President Barack Obama ordered the intervention into yet another war after Syria crossed his “red line” by using chemical weapons against its own people. However, over in Egypt, denying civil liberties and free speech appears no barrier to U.S. aid. In the very same week as using human rights to justify another intervention, the Obama Administration quietly approved $1.3 billion in annual US military aid to Egypt. Both Israel and Egypt continue to receive billions in such aid every year despite the reduction or termination of basic environmental, educational, and other programs in the United States.
A passenger reportedly on a China Air flight looked out and got a rare glimpse into the attitude of Chinese freight handlers. What is remarkable is that this guy was averaging less than a 30 percent hit ratio — often throwing three boxes without any making it on the conveyor belt at Guangzhou Airport.
While Senators could not be troubled to go to a simple briefing on the NSA warrantless surveillance program and some like South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham shrugged off the importance of privacy, the same Senators are demanding the intervention into yet another war in the Middle East. It does not matter that we have major educational and environmental programs being cut for lack of funding. It does not matter that our invasion in Iraq is an ongoing nightmare. We are being told to intervene in a civil war where Sunnis and Shia are carrying out centuries of hatred with atrocities on both sides. Senators want the U.S. to enforce a no-fly zone which would involve direct attacks on Serbian air forces while President Obama has already pledged to directly support rebel forces with arms.
Continue reading “Senators Call For U.S. Intervention In Another War”
Paranoia and police power are never a good combination, but Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to have readily embraced both. With thousands protesting his destruction of the secular traditions of Turkey and authoritarian power, Erdogan has called on his Islamic supporters, crushed protesters with tear gas and clubs, and now blamed an international conspiracy led by the media, particularly the BBC and CNN. Turkish police have been attacking makeshift hospitals with tear gas, including an attack that led to a pregnant woman losing her baby in a miscarriage. It was a tragic symbol of the cost of Erdogan to the future of this nation.