This girl gained international infamy by throwing puppies into a fast-moving river while being videotaped. They then put the videotape on YouTube. Now, the Bosnian police have decided that she will face no punishment of any kind due to her age.
Continue reading “Bosnian Police Announce That They Will Not Press Charges Against Girl Who Threw Puppies Into River”
Category: International
Today, Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders went on trial for alleged hate speech for his anti-Muslim and anti-immigrants comments. While I strongly disagree with those comments, I believe the trial is a threat to free speech and part of a growing crackdown in the West on critics of religion.
Continue reading “Dutch Politician Geert Wilders Goes On Trial For Hate Speech”
Murni Amris, 27, and Rukiah Abdullah, 22, are the latest women to be flogged under Sharia law. Their crime in Indonesia? Selling food during Ramadan.
Continue reading “Women Publicly Flogged In Indonesia For Selling Rice During Ramadan”
Germany is finally in the black. On Sunday, Germany paid off the last of the reparations set 92 years ago after the end of World War I. The final £60 million installment of the £22 billion debt was paid off pursuant to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
Continue reading “It’s Over, Over There: World War I Ends With The Payment of Final Reparations By Germany”
This is a curious crime report. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, Jr. in Zapata County Texas is dealing with “lake pirates.” Falcon Lake sits on the Texas/Mexican border and a Texas couple was attacked while jetskiing by a boat of “pirates” who shot David Michael Hartley, 30. The wife had to speed off, leaving her husband in the water.
Continue reading “Lake Pirates? Texan Killed on Border Lake By Mexican Pirates”
There is an interesting ruling out of Canada where Justice Susan Himel of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice has struck down Canada’s prostitution laws as violating the basic rights of prostitutes and their clients. It is a position that many libertarians and some civil liberties advocates have long advocated — objecting to the criminalizing of such agreements between consenting adults absent some injury to a third-party or cognizable crime.
Continue reading “Canadian Court Strikes Down Prostitution Law”
The Iranian courts have produced their weekly outrage. The leading blogger in Iran, Hossein Derakhshan, 35, was sentenced to 19 1/2 years in prison for his writings. Derakhshan was the founder of one of the first Farsi-language blogs and helped instruct others in how to create their own blogs. The authoritarian regime views such blogs as a threat to its control over the population.
Continue reading “Iran Sentences Leading Blogger To Almost 20 Years in Prison”
Dalai Lama has given researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison a donation of $50,000 to study happiness. Once again, I remain unclear why I am not the recipient of such academic grants. I could show that giving me just $25,000 would produce considerable happiness.
Continue reading “Hello Dalai: Spiritual Leader Hands Out $50,000 To Study Happiness”
Google and its chief executive Eric Schmidt have been convicted of defamation in France in a decision that, in my view, defies logic and legal principles. The company was convicted due to the results of its “suggest” function which lists words commonly used by users. In this case, the plaintiffs’ name produced automatic suggested words of “rapist” and “satanist.”
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It appears that, before the Queen asked the government to take over responsibility for the finances of her palace, she had asked for the government to use energy-saving grants for low income families to heat the palace.
Continue reading “We Are Not Amused: Queen Sought Low-Income Funds To Heat Palace”
The Washington Post is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to extend a freeze on new settlements in exchange for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. It is an astonishing offer, if true, since the settlements have long been a major barrier to peace negotiations but under this deal would be frozen in exchange for a spy’s release. It would seem to undermine the substantive arguments in favor of such settlements.
Continue reading “Report: Israel Offers To Extend Freeze on Settlements in Return for The Release of Convicted Spy Jonathan Pollard”
Russian politicians appear to be adopting the methods of some Sharia courts in proposing that corrupt Russian officials be branded with the letter K (the Russian symbol for a bribe taker) on their left hands.
Continue reading “Russian Party Leaders Call For Branding Of Corrupt Officials”
For civil libertarians, the decision by President Obama to bar the prosecution of Bush officials for the torture program was always a flagrant choice of politics over principle. Now a poll ratifies that decision. A poll commissioned by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that Americans are accepting torture in greater numbers. The study also shows a decrease in support for Israel in any military conflict and two-thirds saying that they would like the U.S. to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Continue reading “Poll: Americans More Supportive of Torture — Though Still a Minority”
A top party leader and associate of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under fire this week for arguing that Poland may have been as responsible as Hitler for the outbreak of World War II. Erika Steinbach said Poland had mobilized its troops months before the Nazis invaded in September 1939.
Continue reading “German Leader Suggests Poland Partially Responsible for Nazi Invasion”
Senior Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, has denounced the Holocaust of Jews as nothing more than a “superstition” of the West. The cleric insists “[t]he Holocaust is nothing but superstition, but Zionists say that people of the world should be forced to accept this.”
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