Vice President Joe Biden has many fine attributes but his gift for gaffes is beginning to rival Dan Quayle’s record. In this gem from Blacksburg, Virginia, Biden declares that he has never seen it written that we cannot be the leader of the world in automobile production in the 20th Century.
Continue reading “Biden Pledges To Be The Leader In Automotive Production In The Last Century”
We often discussed the lack of deterrent for prosecutorial misconduct in the United States. When cases are overturned due to destruction or withholding of evidence or other violations, few reporters track down the original prosecutors to hold them accountable. Prosecutors are rarely punished for such acts. The article below in the New York Times details a shocking example of alleged misconduct and the lack of action by the Queens District Attorney in dealing with what appears gross violations by prosecutors in the office.
Continue reading “Lawsuit Details Alleged Prosecutorial Misconduct In New York Murder Case”
Next time you are at Denny’s for that Grand Slam breakfast you might consider their special on weddings. Denny’s has announced that its Vegas location will feature a full bar and a wedding chapel.
Continue reading “Grand Slam Wedding: Denny’s Adds Wedding Ceremonies To Its Menu Items”
In the 1960s and 1970s, one of the most feared violent revolutionary groups was the Weathermen. It seemed that they had returned . . . and they are better armed. The National Weather Service has reportedly asked for 16,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point (JHP) bullets. Hollow points — or dum-dum bullets — are illegal under international law in war because they are designed to flattened upon impact and cause massive wounds to targets. Now a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said it is all a mistake. They are not armed weathermen . . . they are arming the Fisheries office personnel.
Tang Hui (a pseudonym) is a mother who attracted international support after she was arrested by Chinese authorities for protesting the lack of action after her 11-year-old daughter was kidnapped, raped and forced into prostitution in 2006. Her story is horrific but not unique. The mother reported the kidnapping to police who did nothing even after she discovered her daughter at a strip club. She took her home and continued to protest the failure to punish her rapists who were still walking the streets. The authorities cracked down in response: the mother was convicted and sent to a prison camp.
There is an interesting story below about airlines that force men to switch seats when they are seated next to an unaccompanied child out of fear that they could be child molesters. A firefighter recounts how he was forced to move on a Virgin Australia flight because there was a child next to him. Qantas has actually defended the discriminatory policy.
Continue reading “Qantas Defends Policy To Bar Males From Sitting Next To Unaccompanied Minors”
I generally thought the NBC coverage of the Olympics was pretty good and I like Bob Costas as the central host — even though many objected to the delay in showing events to maximize NBC’s audience during the games. However, the goodwill almost evaporated in watching the coverage of the closing ceremonies. As I tweeted last night, I found it really irritating to have to listen to Seacrest and others talk over the music to add predictable and sometimes vapid comments. It appears I was not alone with critics piling on NBC on social media sites.
Continue reading “Weak Finish: NBC Under Fire For Closing Ceremony Coverage”
Civil libertarians have been concerned for years with the move toward greater use of the military in domestic operations by both President George W. Bush and now by President Barack Obama. The military continues to shift resources for prepare for large-scale domestic operations. Most recently, the Marines moved to create a battalion to allow the military to “be capable of helping control civil disturbances, handling detainees, carrying out forensic work, and using biometrics to identify suspects.” Now the Small Wars Journal, a respected publication closely followed in the U.S. military, has published an article entitled “Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A ‘Vision’ of the Future” by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army’s University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert at the University of Kansas. It lays out not just the military but the legal basis for military operations to crush domestic insurrections in the United States.
Chef Jason Febres at the Taste & See restaurant in Wichita seems confused by all of the commotion over his menu. Febres triggered an international outcry with his announcement that he would be serving up Lion for a special on the menu with kangaroo, alpaca, crocodile and water buffalo. After the restaurant was deluged with objections from animal rights activists, environmentalists, and human beings, Febres withdrew the item saying “We did took a second look … and realized that yes, it can be a little shocking and disturbing for some people.”
Continue reading “Wichita Restaurant Under Fire For Lion Dish On Menu”
For years, we have had a spirited debate over whether civil libertarians could vote for Barack Obama after his expanding of Bush anti-privacy measures, “hit list” policy, refusal to prosecute officials for torture, and other actions. For those who now oppose Obama, there is now a theme song to express their angst and anger. Even for those who still support Obama, you have to admit it is pretty funny.
Continue reading “Parody Video “The Obama That I Used To Know” Goes Viral”
Here is my column today in USA Today calling on the Olympic committee to consider an overhaul of Olympic rules to update procedures and remove archaic and discriminatory rules. While some may treat this as a call for a new Olympic legal team, it is merely an effort to get the Olympic to guarantee greater fairness with a systemic review of the rules for various sports. What bothers me is to see avoidable mistakes treated like just part of the games, even though they do great injustice to athletes who sacrificed so much to get to these cameras.
Submitted by: Michael Spindell, guest blogger
“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes – not that you won or lost –
But how you played the Game.”
by Grantland Rice
How many of us grew up with the paraphrase of these words ringing in our ears as we participated in all of the competitions that humans partake in. These sentiments represented the epitome of humans engaging in fair contests, the object of which was defining dominance in a particular field and/or activity. We were all supposed to be “fair”, “play by the rules”, honor our opponents and most of all treat them with respect. Much of this was first defined in Western Culture by the Code of Chivalry which not only defined how men hacked each other to death on the battlefield, but also how they were to treat the “fairer” (weaker) sex. As the merchant class rose and nobility declined, Chivalry was subsumed in Western Culture by the notion of “fair play”. That all of these concepts have been but hypocritical touchstones meant to add the veneer of human nobility, to human competition, is rarely admitted by those who promote competition for financial and/or political gain.
Thoughts of this came to me as I watched the Olympics this year, listening to the portentous palaver of the announcers, discussing the contests and the purported values behind them. Yes I felt tears of patriotic pride as Gabby Douglas won the gymnastics Gold Medal, but I also saw the pain on the face of Viktoria Komova, who “only” won the Silver Medal. Implicit was that the Russian gymnast had failed in her quest and that she would forever be marked by this failure. This is the hypocritical dichotomy that is pursued in all avenues of competitive human endeavor when reported upon by the media.
Humanity reached the top of the “food chain” by defeating the competition over eons of strife with other fierce predators. While there are still valid arguments on each side of the question as to how human society developed, whether in a spirit of cooperation, or as a rigid imposition of the will of the “leader”, we cannot question that we attained our status because of our predatory talents. Once the “order” of society was imposed humanity began to learn to sublimate battles to the death for proof of supremacy, into “contests” of talent. We learned to sort out our “hierarchy” through these contests and indeed they have developed into a wide range of competitions that most of us use to determine our places in the world. This is not a controversial idea, but even so I would like to take a step back from it and look at the obvious background of human competition that is missed as we “crown” our champions and pity those who could not measure up. The Olympic Movement is a very problematic one. I could go into its mixed history of bigotry, commercialism, deception and tragedy, but that is perhaps for another time. Continue reading “How You Play the Game”
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“There’s a party in my mind…And it never stops
There’s a party up there all the time…They’ll party till they drop
Other people can go home…Other people they can split
I’ll be here all the time…I can never quit.”
– “Memories Can’t Wait” by Talking Heads, written by David Byrne and Jerry Harrison
As previously discussed here at Res Ispa Loquitur, some fashion choices can be downright criminal. This time our contestant on Felony Runaway Fashions is Chad William Forber, 41, from Blue Grass, Illinois. Like our previous encounter with those who have a daring fashion sense, there is no probative legal analysis of this case and no pressing civil rights issue. Just good clean fun(ny facts). Also some not so funny (alleged) drug use. This time our designer’s drug of choice was methamphetamines. There is nothing funny about meth. Nothing at all.
Since 2008, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo has been seeking the arrest of Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir for his alleged involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since 2003 in Darfur. He might want to pop in on the United Nations Human Rights Council — Al-Bashir is about to be one of its members.
Continue reading “Genocidal Sudanese Warlord To Join U.N. Human Rights Council”
It appears the fight over Lebensraum is now being waged over liquor store shelf space. An American couple has triggered a free speech controversy in Italy after complaining about the sale of wine with the image of Hitler on the label or other labels for “Mein Kampf” wine or wine with the motto “Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer” (one people, one empire, one Fuhrer). Michael Hirsch, a lawyer from Philadelphia, complained about the sale of such items. In Italy, prosecutors are looking into the matter for possible criminal charges. The question is whether the producer should have a right to supply such bottles and customers should have the right to buy such bottles.