Category: Society
The St. Louis Police Department have released an extraordinary video this week showing how one of the many stores were looted in Ferguson, Missouri after a grand jury declined to vote indictments in the Michael Brown case. The criminals are clearly shown and the police are seeking their names to arrest them.
Master Cpl. Jeff Davis of the Dover Police Department has become a virtual sensation with his lip-syncing to Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” has now gotten more than 20 million views on YouTube, a trip to Good Morning America in New York, and even received a “LOLOLOLOL THE SASS” tweet from Swift herself. My kids loved the video so I thought I would share it in case you have not seen it.
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a Muslim prison inmate in Arkansas, Gregory H. Holt (also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad), can grow a short beard for religious reasons. The case is The case is Holt v. Hobbs, 13-6827. It represents a trifecta loss. The federal magistrate (Joe J. Volpe), the district court judge (Brian S. Miller), and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (Judges Bye, Arnold, and Shepherd) all ruled against Holt only to see a unanimous Supreme Court reject their reasoning. Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor both wrote concurring opinions.
For many NFL fans, the Patriots are like the “Cobra Kai” team from Karate Kid and coach Bill Belichick could well be sensei, John Kreese, screaming “sweep the leg” at NFL games to Tom Brady. That image was reaffirmed this week with the reported finding that the Patriots, again, cheated in the game against the Indianapolis Colts to secure a position in the Superbowl. The NFL has reportedly claimed that the Patriots under inflated 11 out of 12 balls in clear violation of NFL rules to give Brady and his receivers an edge. If there was intentional deflation, it warrants punishment since the team is responsible under the rules. However, there is an even more serious question of intentional deception, particularly after the deflation was noticed in the course of the game. The question is whether Belichick and Brady were aware of the violations, particularly after Brady called the accusations “ridiculous.” If the Colts and the refs immediately could tell the difference, it is hard to believe that Brady could not. After all, it was Brady who once said that he preferred under-inflated balls.
As some of you know, I am a military history nut and collect (on a small level) military historical items. That is why this story caught my eye . . . and my greedy imagination. Sitting at the muddy bottom of the Congaree River in Columbia, South Carolina appears to be the long lost munitions booty of General William T. Sherman from his Carolinas campaign. If retrieved, the find could yield thousands of saves, cartridges, scabbards and other items that would thrill civil war buffs — and flood the market for such items. In a curious way, the river find shows history repeating itself. It was the dumping of pollutants by a gas-producing plant that led to the discovery of Sherman dumping his munitions in the river.
Continue reading “Sherman’s Spoils: Thousands of Civil War Relics Found On South Carolina Riverbed”
We have previously discussed (here and here) the growing conflicts over businesses that decline to accommodate same-sex weddings and events in a clash between anti-discrimination and free speech (and free exercise) values. Despite my support for gay rights and same-sex marriage, I have previously written that anti-discrimination laws are threatening the free exercise of religion. Some of these cases involve bakeries that insist that making wedding cakes for same-sex couples violates their religious principles. Now we have a twist on this trending litigation. The Azucar Bakey has been found to have broken discrimination laws by refusing to make an anti-same-sex cake. The bakery was asked to make a Bible-shaped cake with an anti-gay slur and owner Marjorie Silva refused. The customer brought a complaint to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and won.
Continue reading “Cake Wars: Bakery Under Investigation After Refusing To Make An Anti-Gay Cake”
The intense animosity between Israel and its Arab neighbors was put into sharp relief last week when a simple selfie at a beauty pageant triggered a full fledged criminal investigation. Miss Israel Doron Matalon (first from left) snapped a selfie at the pageant and posted it. Someone noticed that the smiling contestant next to her was Saly Griege, this year’s Miss Lebanon (second from left). The reaction was seismic and sad. It appears that fraternization, like beauty, remains in the eye of the beholder.
We often discuss the short time allowed to react in auto accidents and this video illustrates the point. In this case, the accident may be part of the result of the recent black ice conditions in New Jersey where a rapid and sudden freeze led to multiple deaths in various states.
Continue reading “Video Captures Black Ice Accident Of Truck On Interstate In New Jersey”
I have previously written about the waste of billions of dollars by the government without any significant discipline of 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 immediately torn down to buying aircraft that cannot be used. Much like our useless campaign against poppy production where we continued to spend billions because no one had the courage to end or change the program. We now have another such example from Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko about a $500,000 facility that was built and just left to “melt away” within four months of being built. Of course, contractors and corrupt Afghan officials have made huge amounts of money from such waste. Billions have disappeared while our own science, educational, and infrastructure programs are being cut. The flow of U.S. money however has not ended. After a trillion dollars, our government is on course to spend billions more in the country.
There is an interesting case developing in California over an alleged serial killer that has prowled around a neighborhood for years. The alleged culprit is Jaxson, a female eight-foot alligator believed to be 40 years old, that was kept illegally by a Van Nuys family without a permit. The “Anatomy of a Murder” aspect of the case comes in with the findings of the police in the hidden box of Jaxson — two dead cats. The police are asking neighbors to report other missing cats. I am sure it was unintentional but one article reported the suspicion about missing cats before adding “[t]he house is a family residence with multiple occupants, but no children were found there.” I do not think Jaxson is to blame.
Continue reading “Corpus Felis: Police Discover Eight-Foot Alligator Hidden In Home With Dead Cats”
A new study in the journal Science suggests that humanity is on the very of causing “a major extinction event” in our oceans while another study has found that 2014 was the hottest year in 135 years of record keeping. In the meantime, Pope Francis has again raised climate change and called environmental destruction a “sin” and affront to God.
Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey. It turns out that the book is a bunch of . . . well . . . malarkey. Published in 2010, the book is an account of how Alex fell into a coma when he was six years old that lasted for two months. Alex said that during the coma he went to heaven and encountered the angelic aftermath awaiting the faithful. Alex however has now recanted the book and said that none of the heavenly account is true. Tyndale House has announced that it will no longer print the book.
Continue reading “Malarkey: The Boy Who [Did Not Come] Back From Heaven”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
It is always tragic when anyone is killed. It doesn’t matter if it is accidental or intentional. The tragedy of someone dying is universal. However, when the person killed by a Cleveland Police Officer is a 12-year-old, tragic just doesn’t seem to describe it correctly. You will probably recall the recent case out of Cleveland, Ohio where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by Officer Timothy Loehmann.
Tamir Rice was shot while playing in a Cleveland park. A citizen called 911 and suggested that a juvenile was pointing a gun, which was probably a toy, at people in the park. When Officer Loehmann and his partner answered the call they saw Tamir playing on a swing with the “weapon” in the waistband of his pants. Released videos suggested that Officer Loehmann fired at Tamir within 1-2 seconds of arriving at the park. That same video evidence also shows police throwing Tamir’s 14-year-old sister to the ground and handcuffing her.
When I first heard about the November 22nd, 2014 incident, I was shocked that a 12 year could be gun downed by a police officer. Even the recent stories about the police killing suspects in New Mexico, Missouri, New York City, to name a few, did not prepare me for this killing. Tamir was a 12-year-old child.
When the videos came out and when the truth about Officer Loehmann surfaced, I realized that Officer Loehmann was unfit for duty as a police officer anywhere and the Cleveland Police Department was negligent in hiring an unstable young man to patrol its streets. The decision to hire Officer Loehmann initiated the sad outcome in November. Continue reading “The Sad and Negligent Decision to Hire Officer Timothy Loehmann”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A Manatee County Florida Sheriff’s Detective solved what could have been one of the greatest heists of recent memory.
Crime solver, Detective Todd Zink, caught a recently released inmate red handed; saving John Q. Taxpayer and the state treasury a tidy fortune.
Suspecting that this sly cad might have lifted something before she was released from jail, Detective Zink showed an impressive level of clairvoyance when his tough, streetwise diligence tracked her down before she could fence the loot to the underworld. The theft of this treasure, as with other fine works of art and antiquities to the illicit international art market, would represent an unparalleled loss to the culture of our great republic.
We invite you to read on, for another exciting chapter of Detective Zink, the Eliot Ness of Florida.
Continue reading “CRIME OF THE CENTURY FOILED BY INTREPID FLORIDA DETECTIVE”