A twenty-eight-year-old British woman was allegedly kidnapped and gang raped by three Iranian men in Dubai. When she and her roommate went to police, they found an all-too-common hostile response from police in the Islamic state. While the police sought (and ultimately arrested two of the three Iranians), the woman was charged with “drinking without a license.”
Category: International
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Two adopted Ethiopian twins are reaping the benefits of cochlear implants provided by their American adopted parents. Separated and abandoned in war-torn Ethiopia, the twins’ future looked bleak especially in view of their inability to hear or speak. Chris and Al Shasteen adopted the pair and added them to their large family. Ruby and Kate underwent the procedures at Oklahoma City Community Hospital. Their remarkable transformation is caught on video. Careful what you wish for these two look like they have a lot to say! Angels among us, indeed.
Kudos: Nal
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
just look me in the eyes . . . This is why dogs get away with so much. Of course, the combination of cuteness and color-blindness (as well as the absence of fingers or the ability to read) would seem to create a hazard for dog drivers, but you can’t tell that to a bunch of trainers in New Zealand. It appears that you will now have to shop for that perfect ride for your Range Rover.
One hour ago, our blog passed the 14,000,000 viewer. The fact that we only recently passed the 13,000,000 viewer mark reflects the impressive growth of this blog. Congratulations everyone. Now if we could only get .000001 of those viewers to vote for us on the ABA blog competition we could crush the competition! If you (are any distant relative, incompetent ward, or pet) has not voted, you can vote here and cast your vote today!
The Obama Administration has announced that it will seek the expansion of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to include a wider range of espionage operations. The move which has attracted little attention would create a large spy network in the Pentagon as the same time that the CIA is moving to build more of an independent air force and military operational capacity.
As protests continue over the power grab of President Mohammed Morsi, Islamists pushed through a draft constitution without the involvement of Christian or liberal members to give Muslim clerics oversight over legislation and add restrictions to free speech, women’s rights, and other civil liberties.
I wonder if Homeland Security has a color coding for this particular warning. A Serbian village, Zarozje, is in full panic after its mayor issued a serious public health warning of an outbreak of vampires. One particular vampire actually: Sava Savanovic, which by the way is a great name for a vampire.
Continue reading “Serbian Mayor Issues Public Health Warning On Vampire Outbreak”
We have another chilling tale of the plight of women in some traditional Islamic areas. A woman known as Nurbanu had divorced her husband when she found him in bed with another woman. The husband than responded to the divorce by throwing acid in her face — an all-too-common crime against women in the Middle East. The woman was disfigured and blinded, but the husband received only one year of jail for the crime. Nurbanu said she was then coerced to remarry him and he now allegedly continues to beat her. Warning the picture below is graphic and disturbing.
We have previously discussed the potential liability stemming from pranks. This video sent to me by a former student seems the perfect avenue for an infliction of emotional distress claim or negligence claim after inducing a heart attack in the subject.
Continue reading “Joke or Tort: Elevator Prank Raises The Question of Liability After The Laughs”
The ABA Journal has released its list of the top 100 legal blogs in the world and we are once again in this august group of blogs. Congratulations to all of our regulars contributors and weekend bloggers. We have previously taken the top spot under the opinion category in the past but the ABA has now eliminated that category. Even more ominous was the decision to put the largest blogs in direct competition under an expanded “News/Analysis” category. This includes the long dominant “Above the Law” site. We would have to punch considerably above our weight to beat “Above the Law,” which is ranking regularly in the top two most visited legal sites in the world. Frankly, it is like a dingy going up against a battleship. However, we have never flinched in the face of superior numbers. So it is time to vote! It takes a very quick registration. Just click here and cast your vote today!
Continue reading “TURLEY BLOG MAKES ABA TOP 100 — NOW IT IS TIME TO VOTE FOR THE TOP BLOG!”
Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
We have seen the Republicans falling all over themselves to claim that the UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, should not be our next Secretary of State following her statements in our Libyan Ambassador’s death at the hands of terrorists. Former GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain were at the forefront of the attacks on Ambassador Rice. “Shortly after Romney conceded his loss earlier this month, McCain set his sites on UN Ambassador Susan Rice, a likely nominee to succeed Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Pointing to several television appearances where Rice communicated the intelligence community’s as-yet imperfect understanding of what happened during the Benghazi attacks, McCain promised that “I will do everything in my power to block her from becoming Secretary of State.” ‘ Think Progress
Now it seems that not only has McCain backed off his promises to block Ambassador Rice’s rumored nomination to succeed retiring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but a prominent Republican is actually advocating her as a better Secretary of State candidate than Senator John Kerry because it was alleged that Kerry is against War! “Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on Sunday suggested that Republican senators should confirm United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice if she is nominated as secretary of state because she is more likely to support going to war than Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). ” Raw Story Continue reading “Secretary of State or Secretary of War?”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
As a visceral person who loves film, I am easily moved when I watch productions that connect the struggles of human beings with the vicissitudes of life. This week I watched such a creation and its’ genius was that it led me to thoughts larger than the particular subject of the program. Hubris is an ancient Greek word that can be thought of as indicating: “a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris . To the ancient Greeks, hubris played an important part in their philosophy and in their philosophic expression in Greek dramas. In those times sexuality was also deeply intertwined in its examples. However: “In its modern use, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of humility, though not always with the lack of knowledge.” I intend to extrapolate from one desperate time in American history a sense of what fault it exposes in a macro-cosmic human sense.
Along with the “Great Depression” in the United States, an ecological disaster occurred and added to the general economic misery of the country. This was the advent of the “Dust Bowl” in the agricultural “heartland” of our country. The documentary I watched was “Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl” which I’ll link at the end of this guest blog. From 1930 through 1940 immense dust storms, with ever increasing frequency, began to plague this area along with a parching drought, devastating this formerly fertile region. As the farming economy shrank, children died and farm folk were driven into despair, it became apparent that this ecological disaster was brought about by the people who had worked the land into becoming among the most productive farmlands in the world. I watched this documentary, tearing up frequently at the human misery I saw and clenching my jaw in anger at the sheer cupidity that caused it. I was rediscovering a part of our history that I had known little about except for where it happened. By retelling this tale though I want to make a larger point. The Greeks had it right about humanity in general, in that as we have become masters of this planet, so many of us have so often been laid low by the hubris of thinking ourselves completely in control of our world and immune to the effects of nature. Continue reading “Humanity’s Hubris”
Just when you thought that the Saudi Kingdom could not make things more demeaning for women, male guardians reportedly will now be informed of the movement of women in their family under an electronic monitoring system. Women are not allowed to drive or to travel without consent of a male, even a younger brother.
Continue reading “Report: Saudi Government Monitoring Travel of Women and Alerting Male “Guardians””
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. This is my favorite holiday with all of the essential elements of joy: food, friends, and football. Continue reading “HAPPY THANKSGIVING!”
Warning: This story is really really gross. However, there is an intriguing (if icky) legal point but you have to wait for it. A Swedish woman has been charged with necrophilia in Gothenburg. Police discovered various skeleton parts and skulls in her apartment including a picture of her licking a skull. They accuse her of having sex with the skeletal remains. However, is that truly necrophilia?