We have previously discussed violence and legal measures targeting dogs by some Muslims who view canines as “unclean.” Even postcards with dogs and service dogs (and here) have raised the ire of some Muslim groups. Now this issue is getting some long-needed attention in Iran after a short film that showed stray dogs being tortured and killed by having acid injected into them.
Category: International
We have yet another horrific “honor killing” — this time in Pakistan. Muhammad Siddique became outraged when he learned that his wife, Shabana Bibi, 25, had not asked him for permission to leave the house to visit her sister so he and his father beat her, doused her with gasoline, and burned her alive. The only good news is that the authorities have arrested the father and son and charged them with murder as well as terrorism.
I have previously authored columns and blog entries criticizing the airline industry for its nosedive in customer services and accommodations. (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). The includes the planned switch to “bench seating” where passengers are expected to start bringing their own cushions. Despite the rising criticism of airlines making record profits while continuing to strip away every comfort, there is a new report that Southwest is now turning its back on passengers. The airline and Airbus are going to stuff another seat into coach class with new A380 superjumbo carriers.
Continue reading “Cattle Call: Airbus and Southwest Moves To Add Even More Seats To Coach”
It was five years ago that the puzzle world was rocked by a Sudoko cheating scandal. Now the chess world has faced its own scandal with the effective banishment of Georgian champ Gaioz Nigalidze, who was found to have secreted a smartphone in a toilet to cheat during an international tournament. This brings a new meaning to the chess terms of a “bust” and a “bye.”
It appears that we would all be better off if we just let our dogs sniff our rear ends. In Buckinghamshire, researchers have found that dogs have a 93% reliability rate when detecting bladder and prostate cancer. The research by by Dr Claire Guest and her colleagues has been published in Humanitas Clinical and Research Centre in Milan.
West Allis, Wis., police had a bit of a surprise when they responded to a call about a mysterious man in the neighborhood near Milwaukee in July 2013 and found Dwayne S. Powell, a private detective, with two laptop computers, binoculars, a GPS tracking device, a stun gun, two rifles, four handguns, 2,000 rounds of ammunition and a homemade silencer in a rented SUV. While first resisting to give his name, Powell reportedly admitted that he was hired to keep continual watch on the father of David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology, who had separated from the church. Powell further stated that, after seeing what he believed was a possible heart attack, he contacted David Miscavige, who allegedly told him to let his father Ronald Miscavige Sr. die and not intervene or call help. The case has not led to litigation but it could.
Russia’s culture minister Vladimir Medinsky on Sunday fired the director of a Siberian theater. Boris Mezdrich as director of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Ballet Theater had committed the sin of staging Wagner’s opera “Tannhauser” which offended the powerful Russian Orthodox Church. It is the latest example of the rollback on free speech under the Putin regime.
We have yet another disgusting video of Islamic fighters systematically destroying their own history and culture in the name of Islam. The latest images are from Hatra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which is in an area controlled by the Islamic State. We have previously discussed videos of these fanatics destroying museums and ancient cities as offensive to their Islamic values.
Continue reading “Video Shows Islamic Fighters Destroying The Ancient Hatra Site”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A legal analysis in Canada of their anti-discrimination laws indicates that discrimination might occur if women are to wear revealing clothing and men are not similarly attired.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held that a dress code requiring a waitress to wear a bikini top during a nightclub’s Hawai’ian themed event was discriminatory because men were not required to wear a male specific analog of her clothing.
We have yet another attack on free speech and the free press from one of our allies. Malaysian cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Alhaque, better known as Zunar, has been hit with nine counts of sedition for tweets critical of the country’s judiciary. It is an outrageous prosecution brought under a law that defines sedition as any comment that promotes hatred toward the government. Zunar previously defended his art against claims that it is defamatory. Zunar faces up to 43 years in jail if found guilty on all nine charges.
Continue reading “Malaysia Charges Cartoonist With Sedition For Criticizing Its Courts”
There is an interesting lawsuit in France by six survivors of the January attack by Islamic extremist Amedy Coulibaly at the Hyper Casher Jewish supermarket in Paris. The six people were mortified after learning that French media broadcasted their hiding location in a refrigerator while Coulibaly was looking for hostages and threatening to kill them all.
A new study has raised the disturbing question of whether we are substantially under-estiminating the annual death toll from air pollution, which currently stands at around 3.4 million a year. The reason is the failure to measure the lethality of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), emitted during fossil fuel burning.
We recently discussed the savage murder of Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, in Bangladesh by Islamic extremists. Now, another blogger who wrote about Islamic extremism has been hacked to death. Washiqur Rahman Mishu, 27, was hacked and stabbed to by the Islamists in broad day light in Tejgaon Industrial area of Dhaka.
Continue reading “Second Blogger Murder In Broad Daylight By Islamic Extremists in Bangladesh”
We previously discussed the terrible case of Sureshbhai Patel who was seriously injured after former Madison (Alabama) police officer Eric Sloan Parker slammed him face first into the ground during a confrontation. Parker is now charged on the state level and facing a civil lawsuit. Now he has been charged with violating Patel’s civil rights. As we have discussed before, the question is whether such federal charges are necessary or warranted. Obviously, while based on the same conduct as the state charges, the charges are different. On the state level, it is assault while on the federal level it is the denial of federal rights. The Supreme Court has rejected double jeopardy attacks on such back-to-back charges, but these cases still raise the same concerns of multiplication of charges.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In what hopefully will become the conclusion of an oppressive years long ordeal, Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, overturned the murder convictions against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
The news came as somewhat a surprise considering the zeal at which the prosecution fought to ensure the defendants be imprisoned for over two decades. The subsequent court drama and media circuses made it seem an almost foregone conclusion her fate would ultimately rest upon an extradition hearing within the purview of American courts.
Continue reading “Italian High Court Acquits Amanda Knox And Raffaele Sollecito”