In an interview with Raw Story, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) denounced President Barack Obama for blocking any investigation or prosecution of torture under the Bush Administration as inviting ‘tyranny.”
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Category: International
In an astonishing concession under pressure from the Catholic Church, the New Zealand Human Rights Commission has agreed to remove language from a draft report that simply stated that New Zealand is a secular state and that religion was only for the “private sphere.”
Continue reading “Human Rights Commission To Remove Language Referring to New Zealand as Secular State Under Pressure From the Catholic Church”
We have seen police charge everything from flatulence to a hug to a pillow attack as assault. However, this Toronto officer tells a young woman that if one of her bubbles touches his uniform, he will arrest her for assault. She is later shown being arrested.
Continue reading “Bubble Bust: Toronto Officer Claims Assault When Bubble Touches Him”
Islamabad, Pakistan is dealing with murder that seems the Middle East version of the water fountain scene in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.. Muslims attacked Hindus and forced dozens to flee their homes in Sindh province after a young Hindu boy committed the offense of drinking water from a cooler outside of a mosque.
Continue reading “Muslim Attack Hindu Families After Boy Drinks Water In Front of Pakistani Mosque”
Researchers have announced that they believe that they found the location of the famed round table of King Arthur. They believe it was not in a castle and not actually a table but a Roman-built structure designed to house up to 1000 knights. It was, however, round.
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In a surprising rebuke to the United States, the Swiss have decided to block the extradition of filmmaker Roman Polanski on the curious grounds “that it was not possible to exclude with the necessary certainty a fault in the US extraditionary request.” Putting aside that the reason is incomprehensible, the decision appears to affirm that there are two different systems of justice for celebrities and non-celebrities.
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The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has released a disturbing account in its monitoring of abuses by police in that country. The AHRC alleges that Babul Kazi, a mechanic, was tortured to death after he was unable to pay bribes to the police. Babul was arrested with the two men who worked for him in his auto-ricksaw. Kazi was later brought to the hospital dead and showing signs of torture.
Continue reading “Bangladesh Police Accused of Murder of Man Who Could Not Pay Bribe”
Belgium will soon be giving people a funeral more befitting deceased goldfish than people. Undertakers are planning to dissolve dead bodies in caustic solutions and then flush them into the sewers.
It appears that ever-expanding hamburgers are outstripping our physical capabilities. Dentists in Taiwan have issued a warning that giant hamburgers are causing jaw damage from over-extension. It is a short-sighted move by dentists since these burgers are likely to push humans to new evolutionary breakthroughs by favoring people who can unhinge their jaws like snakes.
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Two prominent art curators in Moscow, Yury Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev, are facing three years in prison for showing art that insulted the Russian Orthodox Church. It is the latest example of blasphemy prosecutions, a growing trend in the West and industrialized nations.
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Below is today’s USA Today column on the arrest of individuals for telling obvious jokes on airplanes and at airports.
Continue reading “Airlines Should Go After Hoaxers, Not Jokesters”
What do you do when you hand over all your money before a promised Doomsday, but Doomsday never comes? You go find the next best thing: a lawyer. That is the situation in Australia where a court has frozen the assets of Pastor Rocco Leo and his associates at Agape Ministries after followers demanded their money back. While there appears to have been no written contract, this appears a novel inverse of a force majeure claim: the act of God never came.
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Picture this scene out of Midnight Express, police surrounding a nervous man late at night on an airport tarmac. Pulling away his shirt, they find taped to his body . . . steaks. A beef mule. That could be the scene in Karnataka, India where the government is about to make the possession of beef a criminal offense. Presumably, possession of beef with intent to distribute will receive a higher sentence.
Continue reading “Do The Prime, Do The Time: India Legislators Move To Criminalize Beef Possession”
A group of 15 monkeys at Kyoto University’s primate research institute escaped from a high-security research center by learning how to use tree limbs to catapult themselves over a 17ft high electric fence. One of them was named Dr. Zaius. Ok, I made that last part up but it is clear that our monkey overlords are gathering.
First there was the scandal in the hot dog eating world. Now, scandal rocks the Sumo world. Is nothing sacred? Sumo star Ozeki Kotomitsuki, 34, has been implicated in a gambling scandal and has been dismissed by the Japan Sumo Association.
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