In New York, former state trooper Brian Beardsley is now clear of any criminal charges following the announcement yesterday of Hamilton County District Attorney James Curry that the grand jury had dismissed an earlier felony charge. Beardsley was charged after he ran over Chad Finch, 20, (left) who had fallen in the road. Beardsley, who was returning from a party with this girlfriend, pulled over briefly and she called police. However, they then left the scene and returned home.
Bo is the type of dog everyone loves. Happy, friendly . . . well perhaps a bit too friendly. His owner, Edwin Henderson, ran from police serving a drug search warrant and hid the in the surrounding terrain. When an officer saw his dog Bo he said “go get him” and let him loose. Bo did precisely that, running to some high grass with his tail wagging excitedly in finding Henderson. The police were no less excited. They arrested Henderson with failure to obey police, manufacturing a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. He is accused of being a meth dealer.
It is not clear what will happen to the dog, who is likely to be viewed as something of a rat. There must be a witness protection program for canines to assume a new name and identity, perhaps as a ranch dog in Montana?
Source: ABC
There is another controversy raising the increasing assertion of authority of school officials over pictures and statements made by students outside of school. In Massachusetts, Jamie Pereira was suspended from school after a photo of her and her boyfriend, Tito Velez, both 16, holding Airsoft rifles was posted on Facebook. A caption beneath the photograph read: “Homecoming 2014.” The picture looks like a new American Gothic for some and a threat to others. However, the controversy again raises the limits and discretion of school officials in monitoring speech outside of school for students and teachers alike. There was good reason to be concerned but the punishment was due to the disruption caused rather than an actual threat from the picture.
There is a highly disturbing controversy outside of Salt Lake City where Darrien Hunt, 22, was shot six times by police officers who claimed that he charged them with a sword. Hunt was dressed in a Japanese anime costume with a 2 ½ foot steel sword that the family insists was nothing more than a prop. An autopsy released this week shows that several of the shots entered in the back of his body. The case has raised racial concerns since Hunt was black and the officers were white.
Continue reading “Utah Police Shoot Man Dressed in Anime Costume and Carrying Sword”
For many years until his death, Carl Kauffeld, the director of the Staten Island Zoo and at the American Museum of Natural History, insisted that he had discovered a new species of frog leaving in New York and New Jersey, but faced widespread dismissals from his colleagues. Kauffeld died in 1974, but this week he received not just vindication but a new species named after him: Rana kauffeldi. The frog was found living in wetlands from Connecticut to North Carolina near I-95.
The Saudi morality police are back in the news with another attack on free speech and the free exercise of religion. The Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia) police arrested a man who believed that he could see Muhammad and believed that he was walking among us. It is an expression of faith but in Saudi Arabia you must believe what the government believes or face arrest or even death.
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.
There was much coverage recently about the claim of physicist Rongjia Tao (left) of Temple University that tornados could be curtailed dramatically in the Midwest by the construction of 1,000-foot walls across the middle of the country. Meteorologist Brice Coffer of North Carolina State University says that his research blows away that theory.
Continue reading “New Research Purports To Blow Away The Great Wall of The Midwest Theory”
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.
Yesterday, I completed the long circuit hike at Old Rag in the Shenandoah National Park. It is one of the most challenging hikes in Virginia and takes much of the day but it is worth it. It remains one of my favorite hikes with truly breathtaking overlooks. In the Fall, Virginia is radiant with different colors and you get the “big picture” on Old Rag.
Despite claims from the government (outside of Saudi Arabia) that it is seeking to modernize its legal system, the Sharia-based Saudi system continues to churn out abuses that shock the conscience. The latest victims are three lawyers who have been jailed for Tweets denouncing the Saudi court system — widely ridiculed by lawyers around the world as a medieval anachronism.
Continue reading “Saudi Arabia Jails Lawyers For Criticizing Court System On Twitter”
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”
Having watched the Redskins-Cowboys game last night, this story caught my eye. I previously wrote a Washington Post column on the controversy over the Redskins name. In the column, I mentioned that a large number of both Native Americans and non-Native Americans do not view the team name to be offensive and explored the issue of of who should decided such questions. A story in the Washington Post discusses a vocal opposition to changing the name “Redskins” in Red Mesa, Arizona. It is the other “Redskins” team from Red Mesa High School — a school composed of largely of Navajos.
Finally, a study that we can believe in and truly get behind. A study published in Nature Neuroscience found that chocolate has a natural compound from cocoa that can reverse age-related memory loss. The problem is that you have to eat so much that you immediately remember that you have a serious weight problem.
There appears to be a race by politicians to show who is more serious about Ebola by imposing greater and greater restrictions on anyone suspected of being a carrier. It now appears that we may have our first court challenge to these limitations and there are viable claims to be made. The American Civil Liberties Union is acting on behalf of a nurse, Kaci Hickox, who has been under quarantine after she arrived at Newark International Airport. I will be discussing the case on CNN this afternoon with Wolf Blitzer.
Continue reading “Nurse Reportedly Moving Toward Lawsuit Over Ebola Quarantine Rules”