An unnamed 20-year-old man succeeded last week in combining trafficking in the infamous ivory trade with the destruction of historical artifacts to become one of the truly vile humans on Earth. The man broke into the Paris National History museum and cut off the tusk of the famous Louis XIV elephant with a chainsaw. An alert neighbor heard the sound of the chainsaw and called police. The man was arrested as he tried to make his escape.
Continue reading “Thief Cuts Off Tusk From Louis XIV’s Elephant With Chainsaw”
Category: Society
Despite the rain, Easter was a smashing success at the Turley house including a soggy but fun neighborhood Easter Egg hunt around our house. Environmentalists however are hoping that these good feelings could translate into some support to save the erstwhile mascot of the holiday: the New England cottontail. The rabbit species faces potential extinction because its needed scrub land is being eradicated by many of those same Easter-loving humans.
Continue reading “Peter’s Peril: New England Cottontail Facing Extinction”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Author’s Note: Grace Under Pressure is an on-going series of posts honoring everyday people who courageously make positive differences in their own lives and consequently in the lives of others. It is my own personal affirmation that unexpected heroes reside among us and that they serve as quiet but unshakable proof that virtue really is its own reward – and ours, too.
Every year, Henrico’s (VA) Deep Run High School holds a dance marathon to help local charities. The event is wildly successful raising over $1 million since its inception in 2007. The kids start their dancing on Friday night and 27 shaking hours later the exhausted participants rightly toast their accomplishment with some donated punch and soft drinks. This year they toasted more than a marathon.
Sophomore Michael Schiavo was the top fund-raiser this year bringing in an impressive $7,161 in donations. But according to Michael, he got a lot more than he gave. Michael suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. DMD is a genetic based dystrophy that attacks 1 in 3600 boys. It usually manifests itself in infancy and causes a wasting away of muscle tissue that is replaced with fat and fibrotic tissue leading to fibrosis. The average life expectancy for patients afflicted with DMD is around 25.
Continue reading “Grace Under Pressure: Michael Schiavo’ s Speech”
Happy Easter to all of our bloggers and readers that are celebrating today. The fluffy interloper came last night and left an array of goodies for the four kids. He was forced to work a bit later by two separate questionnaires from Madie and Aidan.
John Cassidy has a remarkable story out in the New Yorker this week about a sweetheart deal cut by the Justice Department with one of the wealthiest men in the world, Steven A. Cohen (who may be pictured here at a standard picnic, or not). Cohen’s company would pay $626 million but not have to admit any wrongdoing and Cohen would face no personal sanction. The billionaire appears to be celebrating this month with a buying spree with a Picasso painting and a huge new mansion. What is amazing is that various Cohen subordinates have pleaded guilty and Cohen has been tied directly to an insider trading allegation. Yet, he appears to “too big to jail” as a continuation of the Obama Administration’s bifurcated legal system for the super rich and the rest of us.
Saudi Arabia has long shocked the world with its medieval Sharia justice system, but nothing prepared most of us for the recent execution in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. Faced with Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussein, a Yemeni man accused of murder and sodomy, the Sharia court ordered him first beheaded and then crucified. This is not the first such sentence under Sharia law. A man in 2009 was ordered beheaded and then crucified for being a gang leader.
Continue reading “Over-Kill: Saudi Court Orders Man Beheaded And Then Crucified”
Dale Peterson, the Alabama Republican running for Agricultural Commissioner, has railed against “thugs and criminals.” Yet, Peterson is facing a second shoplifting charge in just five months. The latest charge however is over a handful of nuts that he ate at a Sam’s Club. Indeed, it is hard to see why either of these charges were brought rather than requiring a simple payment at the counter.
We have long followed the horrific record of China on the environment. The Chinese regime has continued to push for high production rates as the number of “cancer villages” and lethal pollution rises across the country. This record has made China the worse environmental violator in the world. Now, greed has combined with power to make for what could be one of the greatest single environmental losses with China expanding its destructive record to Latin America. Ecuador has announced a plan to auction off more than three million hectares of pristine Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies. The loss of such pristine areas (and unique species within it) will cause incalculable damage to feed China’s insatiable demand for energy.
In recent weeks, Muslims in Bangladesh have marched on the capital demanding death for atheists who have simply openly blogged about their their beliefs. Islamic groups have denounced the blogs as an insult to Mohammad and Islam and demanded arrests. In the meantime, they have attacked atheists and engaged in violent attacks in the name of Islam. They have killed eight people as part of their moral crusade. Rather than arresting the culprits, the government has moved against the bloggers.
Continue reading “Bangladesh Moves Against Atheist Bloggers In Blasphemy Crackdown”
The U.S. Supreme CourtToday, the Supreme Court will take up the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), the law signed by Bill Clinton that denied benefits and equal treatment to same-sex couples. This follows yesterday’s interesting, and at times heated, debate over Proposition 8 in the Hollingsworth case. I will be on MSNBC today discussing the case with NPR’s Here and Now at 12 and then Martin Bashir at 4 p.m.
Continue reading “Supreme Court Takes Up The Defense Of Marriage Act”
While we have been recently discussing the environmental meltdown in China, including unimaginable river pollution, it is important to keep in mind our own environmental problems. A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency captures how bad the situation is for our surface water. Fifty-five percent of U.S. river and stream lengths were found to be in poor condition for aquatic life due to fertilizers and other runoff.
Continue reading “Report: Fifty-Five Percent Of U.S. Rivers Unfit For Aquatic Life”
There is an interesting story out of Galveston, Texas where officials say that a vial of hemorrhagic fever has gone missing from a research facility at the University of Texas Medical Branch. What is striking is that the school has simply said that the vial was probably lost in a cleaning process. I represented Dr. Thomas Butler who was charged with numerous national security counts for the loss of vials of plague. I was brought into the case by the National Academy of Science members who were alarmed by the abuse of this esteemed scientist by the Bush Administration. With the encouragement of federal officials, Butler was vilified in the media as “Dr. Plague” in an absurd federal prosecution despite the fact that he revealed the missing vials and also thought that they were likely cleaned. Yet, the Justice Department not only pursued him viciously but enlisted Texas Tech University to make unrelated contracts claims against him to try to force a plea bargain. Butler is one of the leading experts on plague and is revered by many for his selfless work in some of the poorest areas of the world. He went to jail (on the contract claims) while the Justice Department is just shrugging off the loss of this vial on the same theory.
For months, conservatives and conspiracy theorists have been flogging a story of a huge arms buildup within the Department of Homeland Security. I was a bit taken aback by the purchase of roughly 2 billion rounds by the DHS as well as a report of the purchase of 2700 light-armored vehicles. However, it seemed like the coverage was over-wrought and that such bulk purchases could be viewed as efficient contracting to get the lowest possible price. Yet, now the DHS has reportedly ordered 360,000 addition rounds of hollow tip bullets (sometimes called Dum-Dum bullets) in addition to huge prior orders. I do not understand why such an arsenal has to be created within this one agency, particularly the use of these bullets designed to maximize damage to the human body.
Below is today’s column in USA Today. It is a follow up to my speech at the National Press Club on the 4oth anniversary of Watergate. The event included a number of Watergate figures from Daniel Ellsberg to Liz Holtzman to Alexander Butterfield and others. It was an extraordinary event organized by Common Cause.
In a highly questionable ruling, New York Supreme Court Judge Robert Mueller (left) enjoined the showing of Lifeline’s film, “Romeo Killer: The Christopher Porco Story,” which tells the true story of University of Rochester student Christopher Porco (right) who murdered his father with an axe and tried to murder his mother. It is a case of prior restraint and is rare in the United States. Proco had sued that the movie uses his name “for the purposes of trade.” However, Porco is a convicted murderer in a high-profile case from Nov. 2004. It is not clear how Mueller believes that such cases depictions are not covered by free speech but thankfully Mueller was reversed by the appellate court.
Continue reading “Where Art Thou Romeo? Lifetime Movie Enjoined At Request Of Convicted Killer”