Rear Adm. Russell Harding, the deputy commander of NATO forces in Libya, admitted today that NATO killed over a dozen rebel soldiers but refused to apologize. What struck me as the most odd was his statement that NATO did not know rebels had tanks when I have seen numerous pictures in the popular press of rebels driving tanks. It is a bit disconcerting that NATO intelligence is worse than mine.
Continue reading “We’re NATO and We’re Here To Help You: General Admits It Killed Over Dozen Rebels But Says It Had No Idea They Had Tanks”
Category: International
The radical art collective Voina is facing charges for hooliganism after the group painted a 210-foot penis a drawbridge in St. Petersburg. The group, however, will also receive an art prize from the Ministry of Culture and the National Center for Contemporary Art.
Continue reading “Russian Ministry Awards Art Prize To Group That Painted 210-Foot Penis on Drawbridge — While Criminal Charges Are Pending”
In Canada, Const. Geoff Mantler has racked up quite a record of assaulting citizens. The officer now stands accused of three separate assaults on citizens, including one assault caught on camera. The government, however, has decided not to press charges in the third case.
Continue reading “Canadian Police Officer Accused of Series of Assaults On Citizens”
China has continued its effort to avoid the type of protests for freedom seen in other authoritarian regimes. By permitting free speech or association? No, a more classic approach. The Chinese are rounding up bloggers, lawyers, activists, and anyone who has expressed free thought in the last few years. The latest is prominent artist Ai Weiwei, who was arrested trying to board a flight to Hong Kong.
Continue reading “China Arrests Leading Artist in Crackdown on Free Speech”
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
A couple of months ago, my daughter recommended that I take a look at an adoption case that was just ruled on by the Missouri Supreme Court. I did not have a chance to look at in-depth until recently and it is both interesting and heart wrenching. It involves a Guatemalan immigrant mother whose baby was born in the United States while she was in the country illegally and the baby was adopted while the mother was in prison. Thankfully, the Missouri Supreme court ordered a new adoption hearing which could still be another hurdle for the biological mother, but she now has a chance at regaining custody of her son. Missouri Supreme Court Continue reading “Adoption Nightmare for Guatemalan Mother”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Spanish police are still trying to figure out how alleged kidnapper Jose Carlos Serna twice escaped from jail on the authority of a fax. Serna was arrested after police discovered him hiding in a carved out sofa in his home in a Madrid suburb. The reputed head of a kidnapping gang, Serna was freed after jailers received a bogus fax purportedly from the regional court ordering his release. A call was even placed to the jail confirming the fax. Jail officials tried to verify the order with the court but their calls went unreturned.
The Old Bailey appears to have radically changed notions of punishment in the criminal justice system. Satpal Kaur-Singh, 44, confessed to forcing his autistic son, Ajit Singh-Mahal, 12, to drink bleach to kill him. She succeeded in Barking, England. Her sentence: seven years — less than what you get in this country on some burglary charges.
Indian legislators in Gujarat have banned a book by Pulitzer-Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld because it reportedly suggests that Mahatma Gandhi was gay. The book discusses Gandhi’s relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach (who is shown here on the right with Gandhi). Lelyveld insists that the legislators are misreading the book, “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India,” but the legislators want the book banned. Of course, Candhi was a champion for free speech but the legislators see no contradiction.
Continue reading “Indian Province Bans Book on Gandhi Over Suggestions That He Was Gay”
A vegan couple in France has been charged with criminal neglect after the death of their 11-month-old daughter. Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou were charged after their daughter died from vitamin deficiency due to the fact that they only fed her mother’s milk. In a prior column, I wrote about the disparate treatment given parents who kill their children for religious reasons as opposed to non-religious neglect.
Continue reading “French Vegan Parents Charged With Death of Their Malnourished 11-Month Baby”
An amazing discovery has occurred in England where a 2,500-year-old human skull was discovered and inside was a well-preserved 2,500-year-old human brain. It was well preserved in the wet soil in the area.
Continue reading “This is Your Brain on Peat: 2,500-Year-Old Brain Found In England”
For those of us who are incredulous at the changing rationales for our intervention in the Libyan civil war, Deputy National Security Adviser 
Denis McDonough has come to the rescue. He told reporters that “we don’t make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent. We make them based on how we can best advance our interests in the region.” Thus, inconsistency is the consistent policy that we are trying to advance?
Continue reading “Obama Aide: “We Don’t Make Decisions . . . Based on Consistency or Precedent””
The Syrian government has reportedly opened fired on protesters soon after President Bashar al-Assad promised to put an end to protests. The reported massacre occurred in the city of Sanamin near Daraa. Given President Barack Obama’s rationale for going to war in Libya, doesn’t that mean we will soon be bombing Damascus as we have Tripoli? After all, both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted that they had no choice when it was clear that the government was shooting protesters. Now, Syrian protesters can claim the same right to a U.S. led “time-limited, scope-limited military action.”
Continue reading “Onward To Syria? Government Reportedly Massacres Citizens”
This highly disturbing video (below) has just come to light showing five Brazilian police officers pushing around a young unarmed boy. He is then shot five times, including in the cheRst.
Continue reading “Shock Video: Brazilian Police Shown Shooting Unarmed Child In Chest”
Many citizens are breathing a sense of relief today. When we saw the Obama Administration bomb the capital of a sovereign nation and openly support rebel forces in the field, many jumped to conclusions and asked how Obama could start a war without congressional approval under Article I. White House Spokesman Jay Carney has finally set the record straight. This may look like war but it is really “a time-limited, scope-limited military action.”
Continue reading “War “Time-Limited, Scope-Limited Military Action” Is Hell”
There is an interesting case out of Berkeley, Illinois involving alleged religious discrimination. The Obama Administration is supporting former teacher Safoorah Khan who alleged discrimination at her middle school after she was refused leave of three weeks to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The school insists that she was the only math lab instructor and would have left at the critical end-of-semester period for the school.