I was intrigued by the meeting of France’s new president Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a meeting where they discussed their sharp differences over austerity programs for European nations like Greece. On his flight to the meeting, Hollande’s plane was struck by lightning and he had to take another plane. After hearing of the divine act, Merket insisted that the lightning strike was “maybe a good omen for our co-operation.” Now that is a spin and got me to thinking about other omens. I wonder if Merkel used the same line as Mrs. Baylock in the movie The Omen when meeting Hollande: “Have no fear, little one… I am here to protect thee. ”
Category: International
Called “the Salman Rushdie of music,” Shahin Najafi, a Germany-based Iranian singer, has been hit with fatwas calling for his killing, including one from a leading Ayatollah, after he released a song with references to Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, the tenth of the 12 Shia Muslim Imams. The brief reference was enough to call for his death under Sharia law.
CEO Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase (shown left) went public with a whale of tale today about how one of its investors, Bruno Michel Iksil, known as the “London Whale” lost $2 billion in bad bets on volatile synthetic credit securities. What is most striking about the story is that Dimon was the executive who led efforts to limit reforms by the Federal Reserve after the last financial scandal. Now he says “There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment . . . grievous mistakes, they were self-inflicted.” Sound familiar?
Continue reading “Ahab Finds His Whale: JPMorgan CEO Says “London Whale” Swallowed $2 Billion”
Iran has long been flog-happy in its imposition of medieval Sharia laws. Now, it has sentenced cartoonist Mahmoud Shokraye to receive 25 lashes for drawing a caricature of Iranian MP, Ahmad Lotfi Ashtiani, that the MP found insulting. As you can see, it is a pretty mild cartoon but Iranian officials stand by the punishment.
Continue reading “Iran Sentences Cartoonist To Be Flogged For Insulting Politician”
Cheryl Bormann, counsel for defendant Walid bin Attash, has created a stir over wearing a hijab to the military tribunal and asking other women to cover up out of respect of the Muslim sensibilities for the defendants. I have received a fair number of calls on this from reporters and lawyers due to my past representation of Muslims in national security cases. I believe the display was a professional and tactical mistake and I would not want someone on my team to try to make such an extreme accommodation to a client.
In the last couple of years, there have been periodic articles about a Chinese industry selling powdered human flesh — usually ground up babies — as a stamina booster. Now, there is a report of South Korean agents seizing drug capsules filled with powdered human flesh. This follows other reports on testing showing endangered animals in various Chinese products, including endangered porpoises. I was unaware however of the allegations of the consumption of human remains. I guess Soylent Green (set in 2022) was just off by ten years.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
As people here no doubt know I am quite opinionated and rather definite in my views, perhaps to a fault some might say. In this piece though I must admit that I have mixed feelings as to what is right and what is wrong, in the issue I write about. The recent thread on this blog: Trophy Terrorist: Obama Suggests Romney Would Not Have Ordered the Killing of Osama Bin Laden: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/30/obama-suggests-romney-would-not-have-killed-osama/ engendered a lively debate on the propriety of summarily executing a purported mass murderer. In my mind as I viewed the back and forth of the thread, including my own comments, I began to think of the trial of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway for killing 77 people, the fact that he was using his trial for publicity to advance his racist cause in Norway and that at worst he was facing only twenty-one years, though it “might” be extended for life.
Had Osama Bin Laden been captured and stood trial it would have created a worldwide sensation. It would have had to have been televised, since the clamor for an “open” trial would have been deafening and I would have added my small voice to the clamor. The necessity of fairness to the defense would have followed the same dictum, since a publicly perceived unfairness would result in a U.S. public relations disaster, for obvious reasons. Therefore, this trial could have been used as a stage for stirring up the “terrorist” pot and perhaps as a great recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. My question is: faced with such potentially explosive results from a trial, is the government justified in simply killing to preclude a greater evil? To be honest I’m not completely certain where the equities of these situations lie as I’ll explain. Continue reading “When Mass Murder is Political”
Kuwait’s parliament has passed the latest law limiting speech in the name of religion. The bill makes it a death penalty offense to curse God or the Prophet Muhammad or his wives.
Continue reading “Kuwait Passes Law Making Cursing of Muhammad A Death Penalty Offense”
Iranian “courts” have continued their attack on the rule of law by ordering the jailing of leading human rights attorney Mohammad Ali Dadkhah. Dadkhah has shown great courage in representing dissidents, including Youcef Nadarkhani, the Iranian pastor charged with apostasy and sentenced to death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. Dahkhah was actually in court defending an individual when the judge announced his own sentence to nine years in prison.
For years, I have warned clients of the dangers of parakeets and their ability to give evidence against you. We have an example of this testimonial capability out of Sagamihara, Japan, though with a happy ending. Piko-chan was lost and simply gave police his address.
Continue reading “A Little Bird Told Me: Parakeet Supplies Police With Address To Be Returned Home”
You know those nut jobs in Times Square proclaiming the end of the world is coming? It appears they have company. A lot of company. According to a worldwide polls, nearly 15 percent of people believe the world will end during their lifetime while 10 percent believe that the Mayan calendar shows that it will end in 2012. Once again, I will simply note that sea otters appear far more advanced than humans in every meaningful way.
Well, at least China expects someone to apologize . . . just not itself. After keeping a blind Chinese legal activist in continual house arrest and denying him access to the outside world, China has demanded that the United States apologize for allowing him to enter its embassy after his inspiring escape. In the meantime, it has rounded up every Chinese person believed to have helped Chen Guangcheng. Chen has been allowed to go to the hospital and is expected to return home and presumably to his caged existence.
Dr. Terry Jones is back with his lighter fluid and Korans. In what he called a worldwide campaign of Koran burning, Jones torched the Islamic holy book and a picture of Muhammad in the name of fighting religious intolerance. He and his supporters claim that they are only trying to help Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani who was convicted of apostasy in Iran, a case that we have been following. Of course, the action will only harden the demand to put Youcef Nadarkhani to death by irate Muslims in Iran and other countries. But, few people believe that Youcef Nadarkhani is anything more than an excuse to engage in such hateful demonstrations.
We previously discussed the unease that many of us felt with the celebrations that occurred over the killing of Bin Laden and the later use of the killing to bolster the Obama campaign. This discomfort increased recently with an Obama commercial that unfairly suggested that Governor Mitt Romney would not have ordered the operation to go forward. Just in case anyone thought that was a tasteless and baseless campaign pitch by an overzealous Obama aide, the President himself just reaffirmed that message in a press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan this afternoon. It appears that, while the Administration will again bar the release of photos to the media and the public of the operation, they are eager to drag the body of Bin Laden behind the presidential limo to every possible campaign stop.
Dr. Anna Mackowiak is being accused of a horrific act of vengeance against her ex-boyfriend, Marek Olszewski. The Polish dentist had agreed to treat Olszewski for a toothache despite their breakup just days after they broke up. After being given a high dose of anaesthetic, Mackowiak ripped out every tooth in Olszewski’s mouth. It must be welcomed news for Dr. W.B. Galbreath that there is some other dentist who looks worse today.
Continue reading “Dentist Under Investigation After Removing Every Tooth From Mouth Of Ex-Boyfriend”