Category: Politics

International, Military, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

Taliban Reportedly Holds Huge Meeting To Select New Leader . . . in Pakistan

Flag_of_Taliban.svgFlag_of_PakistanPakistan continues to defy the United States and the Western world in harboring Taliban fighters and lying publicly about the collusion of its intelligence services with the terrorist organization. There is no greater example that a meeting of hundreds of Taliban leaders to select their new leader. That would seem an ideal time for an attack by the United States and Afghanistan, but the meeting is being held in Pakistan and reportedly with the knowledge of the Pakistani government. The “Unity shura” will be brought to the Taliban by the country that we have given billions of dollars to in the war on terror.

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Academia, Bizarre, Media, Military, Politics, Religion, Society

West Point Law Professor Resigns In Wake Of Controversy Over Article On Combatting “Pernicious Pacifism”

635767224944016792-f40d384b-0872-441b-bcf9-4e11d11f8955-bestSizeAvailableThere is a truly bizarre story this week involving a former Indiana University law professor who resigned from West Point Military Academy’s law department as a disturbing article was published where he denounces other scholars who exhibit “pernicious pacifism” as aiding and abetting terrorists. The case raises free speech and academic freedom issues in handling controversial writings of academics. However, it also raises the poor standards for selecting faculty at West Point, a concern that I have had in the past with regard to its legal studies as well as those at other military educational programs. Not only does Bradford have extremist and disturbing views but he has been previously accused of exaggerating his credentials.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

Shooting the Messenger: Reporter Forced To Confess To Contributing To Fall of Chinese Market

400px-Chineseart_ExecutionpaintingThe Chinese regime followed its recent market meltdown in true Maoist fashion this week. It dragged out a journalist, Wang Xiaolu, to confess that he helped start the crash. It cannot be the centrally planned, artificially dumped up system itself. No, it was a journalist.

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Bizarre, International, Politics, Society

Mugabe Insists “No Suffering” in Zimbabwe

200px-mugabecloseup2008 President Robert Mugabe, 91, has long been one of the world’s most heartless and merciless dictators, but he seems also on a quest to show that he is also the most clueless. This week Mugabe expressed utter surprise that his people were starving as he and his notorious and corrupt family live like emperors. He assured that there is “no suffering” in Zimbabwe.

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Bizarre, Environment, Politics, Society

Nestlé Under Fire For Drawing Tens of Millions of Gallons Of Water For Sale While Paying Only $524 Under An Expired Permit

250px-Nestlé.svg220px-Drinking_waterThere is an interesting controversy brewing over the continued removal of water by Nestle from California’s water supply during the record drought in that state. Nestle continued to remove millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forest to sell as part of its Arrowhead bottled water brand. While the rest of the state is facing stringent water reductions, Nestles has been criticized for removing 27 million gallons of water from 12 springs in Strawberry Canyon under a permit that expired in 1988. The expired permit’s fee for the water, according to critics? $524.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Indian Village Council Sentences Two Sisters To Be Raped As Punishment For Brother Running Away With Woman From Higher Caste

1024px-Flag_of_India.svgAccording to various media reports and Amnesty International, an all-male village council in India sentenced two sisters, including a 15 year old girl, to be raped as punishment for their brother running away with a married woman from a higher caste. The accounts state that Meenakshi Kumari, who is 23, and her younger sister, will then be paraded naked with their faces blackened through the streets as part of this disgraceful, primitive sentence.

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Courts, Free Speech, International, Politics

Court In Egypt Sentences Al-Jazeera Reporters To Three Years Imprisonment

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Flag of EgyptWe previously wrote HERE and HERE of the arrest, conviction, and sentencing several Al-Jazeera reporters for the dubious accusation of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood through their coverage of the “civil war” in Egypt.

Now in its latest retrial, the Court sentenced Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed to three years imprisonment for operating without a press license and broadcasting material harmful to the state. An international outcry likely will follow.

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Bizarre, Politics, Society

Garbage In, Garbage Out: San Jose Considers Installing License Plate Readers On Garbage Trucks

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

garbage-truck-scaniaSan Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo and Councilmen Johnny Khamis and Raul Peralez proposed installing license plate readers on garbage trucks. If there is one thing apparently that is important to the collection of your trash and rubbish it is reading every license plate in the neighborhood it seems. The city officials believe it will make a strong dent in the number of stolen and wanted vehicles left out in the street around garbage day.

The proposal involves installation of the readers and feeding the license data to the central computer system that serves the police department’s LPRs installed on patrol cars. It promises to be a monumentally cost inefficient system despite what city officials might claim. The civil liberties implications notwithstanding.

Psst, car thieves of California: be sure to take in your stolen car when you take out the trash.

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Constitutional Law, Media, Politics

License Plate Data Mining By Police Partially Curtailed By Red Tape After 80Gb Drive Got Full

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

TRS-80 Model 1Those who strongly advocate for both privacy and efficient government are sure to be perplexed.

Oakland Police, which has a License Plate Recognition system that gathers thousands of its citizens’ license plate data via cameras, decided to reduce their license plate data-mining retention time after the underlying hard drive storing the data filled up, crashing the storage system. The culprit was a desktop computer running Windows XP on an 80 gigabyte hard drive.

If that wasn’t enough the replacement of this hard drive, at least, was curtailed by a firewall of red tape that seems to have prevented the city from buying a replacement drive. A one terabyte hard-drive can easily be found for fifty dollars.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics

WA State Senators Declare Supreme Court Order “Unconstitutional”

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

wa-constitutionA sign of the current education situation in Washington State took a turn for the obvious when, showing a fundamental lack of knowledge of basic civics, a coalition of Washington State Senators declared an order of the State Supreme Court to be Unconstitutional. That’s right, the several senators seem to have missed a key portion of their junior-high education relating to which branch of government has the ultimate say in constitutional matters and perhaps the workings of our tripartite government.

The claim of unconstitutionality stems from an open letter penned by several state senators describing the “constitutional crisis” caused by a rogue state supreme court. Previously the court held the state in contempt for failing to provide for the constitutionally mandated primary duty of funding basic education. It ultimately prescribed a penalty of $100,000.00 for each day the legislature failed to furnish the court with a suitable plan to address shortcomings enumerated in McCleary v. State.

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Academia, Free Speech, Politics

Laugh Less, Protest More? Comedians Reportedly Avoiding Colleges and Universities Due To Speech Regulations

nicubunu_open_mouthThere is an interesting story out this week of how comedians are avoiding college campuses due to the increasing levels of speech regulations and complaints over speech deemed insulting to any group. We have been discussing the rapid expansion of speech controls on campuses and the loss of core principles of free speech that once defined American academia. The rule today appears to be to laugh less and protest more on campus.

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Criminal law, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Islamic State Bulldozes 1,500 Year Old Monastery

_85115479_85115478The Islamic State continued its campaign against civilization this week with the demolishment of a 1,500 year old monastery. ISIS views no religion but Islam as worthy of worship and kills non-believers as acts of true faith. ISIS has also abducted dozens of Christians and is known to sell girls as sex slaves — again claiming such rapes as acts of Islamic morality in its twisted reading of the Koran.

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Free Speech, Media, Politics, Uncategorized

Federal Court Rules That City of Inglewood Cannot Copyright City Council Meetings

297px-Seal_of_Inglewood,_California.svgWe have been discussing the ever-expanding copyright and trademarks claims on what seems every object and observation in modern life, including such things as pictures taken of public scenes in London, in Paris, and in New York. Now the Inglewood City Council has attempted to use copyright law to silence critics and control public information by invoking protection over Inglewood city council meeting footage used on YouTube videos. Fortunately, Joseph Teixeira prevailed in City of Inglewood v. Teixeira after a federal court ruled that it could not use copyright to silence him or others.

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Courts, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

Federal Judge Says Hillary Clinton Violated Government Policy In Using Personal Server While Secretary of State

170px-Msc2011_dett-clinton_0298sullivanHillary Clinton has insisted throughout the ongoing email scandal on two points repeated as a virtual mantra: there was no classified material sent on her unsecured personal email system and she was in total compliance with the law. I have questioned both points and noted that she is really saying that no “marked” classified material was sent (a less than compelling argument) and she is speaking of federal criminal laws as opposed to the clear official policy not to use such personal servers. It appears clear that some of this material was indeed classified and, as I discussed this week on NPR, the policy against doing what she did was clear and strong at the time of her tenure at State. Now, United States District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan has weighed in with comments this week that Clinton clearly did violate State Department policy and that violation caused much of the difficulty in retrieving her communications while in office.

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Bizarre, Media, Politics, Society

State Department First Claims There Are Zero Emails Related To Scandal . . . Then Admits To Court That There Are Thousands

StateDepartmentWhile the attention nationally has been on the server of Hillary Clinton and the ongoing investigation, there is a new development in the effort to acquire another set of emails that should cause public outcry. Two years ago, the State Department officially stated that there were no emails responsive to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about a close Hillary Clinton adviser’s contact with the media. Now, after the intervention of a federal judge, the Department has admitted that it has located 17,855 emails that appear to match the criteria. From 0 to 17,855 and no one seems particularly bothered by the false statement of the State Department in its early response to the lawful request under FOIA. No one is under review at the State Department for possible termination or even discipline. No one is being transferred or retrained. The government first says that there were no emails and then is forced to admit that there are potentially thousands. It is being treated as just another day in the life of our government.

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