There is a bizarre and disturbing case out of India where an Indian man has been criminally charged after his wife filmed homosexual liaisons in their home and took the evidence to the police. It is a crime punishable by life in prison to engage in homosexual relations in India. The case is an insight not only into the abusive Indian criminal code but the traditions of such arranged marriages. What is interesting is that the wife, a dentist, has also charged her in-laws with a crime after alleging that they had to know that their son was gay before the marriage.
Category: International
Bus driver Andrew Holland said last year has been a nightmare. He has spent six months on bail, hired an attorney, and stood accused of a heinous crime. People ridiculed him and shunned him for allegedly possessing a film that showed a woman having sex with a tiger. The police charged him with possession of an extreme pornographic image. No one however appeared to actually watch or analyze the film. The film turned out to be a man in a tiger costume who kept saying ‘That’s grrrrrreat’ – the catchphrase of Frosted Flakes cereal mascot Tony the Tiger. All charges have now been dropped, but one has to wonder how the police or prosecutor could have missed this small detail. Putting aside the fact that a man in a tiger outfit hardly looks like the real thing, a talking tiger might have been a clue.
I have previously discussed my admiration for Pope Francis, who strikes me as a truly holy man in every true sense of that term. Francis has pulled the Church into the Twenty-First Century with massive reforms and new approaches. This week saw one of the most remarkable such changes: Pope Francis announced that it is perfectly consistent to be a Catholic and an evolutionist. For many Catholics who cannot deny the evidence that the Earth is billions rather than thousands of years old, the announcement shows that it is possible to believe in both God and evolution.
Continue reading “Pope Francis: Evolution Is Consistent With Being Catholic”
I have been organizing my pictures from my recent trip to Italy and was struck by the many people that we met on our wanderings. The led to the column below.
The viral video below shows one of the closest calls that any of us have seen. This little girl in Ukraine barely avoid being killed by a collapsing segment of a building.
Continue reading “Ukrainian Girl Avoids Certain Death By Inches In Collapsing Facade”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
It never ceases to amaze me that the heads of major corporations and officers of those companies just never seem to go to jail when the corporation’s fingers are caught in the cookie jar. We saw two separate examples of that concept this week. One example is simply a case of corporate greed at employees expense and the other is a brutal and deadly tragedy that caught up the corporate employees, but not their bosses.
In the past, I have written about banks getting away with fines and financial penalties for committing crimes, but today the focus is on two corporations in two different areas of endeavor. I am referring to the corporation formerly known as Blackwater and Electronics for Imaging (EFI). Blackwater as you may recall was in the private security and intelligence gathering business with many government clients, while EFI is a Silicon Valley tech firm with earnings of over $100 million in 2013. They both have one thing in common. They broke the law and one got a slap on the wrist and the CEO and founder of the other and his fellow corporate officers avoided any culpability in a brutal murder case. Continue reading “Two Corporate Crimes and No Accountability for the Suits”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
Fascinating book out by NPR media reporter, David Folkenflik, entitled Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires that explores the strange world of publisher Rupert Murdoch. Gobbler of such English-speaking newspapers as The News of The World, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times, Murdoch is mostly known for his media collaboration with Roger Ailes in the development and promotion of Fox News, the Right’s mouthpiece of choice. Until his inglorious dismount from credibility in the London Phone Hacking scandal where a Murdoch newspaper employee was convicted of hacking the telephone voice mails of murdered British teenager, Milly Dowler, Murdoch had personified all that is unseemly about tabloid journalism. The personification of Charles Foster Kane, Murdoch fed the Right the red meat of dissention blending news with opinion and relying on practices that were criticized by honest journalists (even conservative ones) around the world calling it right-leaning tabloidism (here).
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A second reporter for the Russia backed television network RT (Formerly known as Russia Today) has resigned her position due to what she considered to be being required to obscure the truth and whitewash the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. She made the announcement via a RT News Broadcast she anchored.
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Members of the Kurd Community residing in the United States will host a demonstration to draw attention to the plight of Yezidi and Christian women in Iraq and Syria suffering and persecuted at the hands of ISIS.
Reportedly beginning at 10:00am on Monday, October 27, members of the Kurdish Diaspora will begin a five-day hunger strike at Lafayette Park across from the White House, culminating with a march to the White House and a demonstration on Friday, October 31 from 12:00-3:00pm. The procession will include a mock Islamic State (IS) slave market, exhibiting the humanitarian disaster being faced by thousands of Yezidi and Christian women and girls currently being held captive by IS in Iraq and Syria.
Continue reading “U.S. Kurds To Stage Mock Sex Slave Auction and Begin Hunger Strike At White House”
We previously discussed the pending execution of Rayhaneh Jabbari, 26, for killing a former Iranian intelligence official who she said had raped her. Early reports that the execution had been carried out were premature and international efforts intensified to save Rayhaneh. I regret to report that the Associated Press is now confirming that today the Iranians hanged Rayhaneh in the latest outrage to come from that medieval legal system.
Continue reading “Iran Hangs Woman Who Claimed That Intelligence Official Drugged And Raped Her”
Having just come back from exploring the Coliseum in Rome, this story captured my interest. Anthropologists have analyzed the diet of gladiators in the city of Ephesus and determined that they mainly lived on a beans-and-grains diet rather than meat. a drink made of plant ashes that was supposed to “fortify the body after physical exertion and … promote better bone healing.”
Continue reading “Study: Gladiators Ate Primarily Grains and Drank Ash Tonic”
We have previously discussed the outrageous case of Asia Bibi who is the latest victim of a death sentence under the medieval Sharia law system imposed in Muslim countries — sentenced to death for insulting Mohammad. Now, a court in Lahore upheld the verdict and affirmed the death sentence for the 50-year-old motion of five. She said that her nightmare began when she took a drink of water from a bucket being used by Muslim women. As a Christian, she was viewed as unclean and the women assailed her and later accused her of saying something insulting to Mohammad. Not only did leading Muslim clerics in Pakistan support her execution but one offered a reward for any faithful Muslim to murder her.
I have noticed recently that airlines have been ramping up the safety video that most people ignore on flights with some long needed humor. However, I am afraid that Air New Zealand has the competition won.
Continue reading “Air New Zealand: “The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made””
We have previously discussed how domestic programs are being cut while the government pours billions into Iraq and Afghanistan. I have previously written about the waste of billions of dollars by the government without any significant discipline for government officials. We have become accustomed to reports of unimaginable corruption and waste in Afghanistan from bags of money delivered to officials to constructing huge buildings to be immediately torn down to buying aircraft that cannot be used. The common element to the stories is the absence of any reported prosecution or even discipline for those responsible. We now have yet another example of spending huge amounts of money on failed programs because no one has the guts to cut off the money. The latest example is our $7.6 billion eradication campaign for poppy fields which has proven an utter failure. Yet, no one wants to be accused of being soft on drugs — so officials sending kept spending as we cut educational, scientific, environmental, and infrastructure programs at home. It is better to waste billions than make a tough decision in government.
Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh has announced that he has found “the source of all evil and devastation” in the world. It is no small achievement. The source you ask? Twitter. That’s right, Twitter is “the source of all evil and devastation.” This is one of top ranking Islamic cleric in the most powerful Muslim nation on Earth.
Continue reading “Leading Muslim Cleric: Twitter is “The Source Of All Evil and Devastation””