Yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry turned himself in response to the indictment for alleged abuse of power. Regardless of how you feel about Perry, he takes a damn good mug shot.
One of the first things that my kids did when I got my iPhone with Siri was to ask “how do I get rid of a body.” The question is such a favorite that Siri is programmed to answer. However, police allege that Pedro Bravo, 20, was serious when he asked Siri that question after kidnapping and strangling his friend Christian Aguilar (below), 18, in September 2012. The two were sharing a room at University of Florida. On the day that Aguilar died, police say that records show that Bravo asked “‘I need to hide my roommate.” Siri responded “What kind of place are you looking for? Swamps. Reservoirs. Metal foundries. Dumps.” Aguilar was later found in a shallow grave in a Levy County forest, about 60 miles southwest of Gainesville. The ultimate Generation Z murder case. Siri however was not indicted as an accessory before the fact.
In New Orleans, Armand Bennet, 26, was shot in the forehead during a traffic stop by New Orleans police officer Lisa Lewis. However, the police department did not reveal until much later that Lewis turned off her body camera just before shooting Bennett. Bennett survived and has now been charged under prior warrants for his arrest. It also reviewed that Lewis had had a prior run in with Bennet who escaped about a week earlier.
Nigerian Christian preacher Temitope Joshua is a multi-millionaire wannabe messiah with a devoted following in Africa. Joshua has decided to act to help the desperate situation in Sierra Leone. He sent a private jet to deliver 4,000 bottles of his patented holy anointed water and $50,000 in cash to defeat Ebola. Just what these ebola villages need, holy water from Brother Joshua.
Now here is real progress that we all can rally behind. Sharon Standifird, a mother in New York, was tired of having her teenagers ignore her calls. Rather than continuing the usual threats of punishment, Standifird went “all techno” on her kids. She spent months developing an app, “Ignore No More,” that prevents a kid from making any calls until they return the call from their mother (and presumably their father).
We have been following the controversy surrounding the confrontation of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young with pro-life advocates on campus. Miller-Young led her students in attacking the pro-life display, stealing their display, and then committing battery on one of the young women. Thrin Short, 16, and her sister Joan, 21, filed complaints and Miller-Young was charged with criminal conduct including Theft From Person; Battery; and Vandalism. To the surprise of some of us, faculty and students rallied behind Miller-Young. She remains employed as a faculty member. Miller-Young initially pleaded not guilty but later entered a guilty plea with an apology. She has now been sentenced to sentenced to three years of probation, 108 hours of community service, 10 hours of anger management, $500 in restitution and a small fine. While her actions (and absence of serious university punishment) remain highly disturbing, some of the letters written on her behalf raise new questions over the commitment of University of California faculty to free speech and core academic principles. Miller-Young has been defended by faculty as the victim of a media campaign to portray her as “an Angry Black Woman” and her seemingly happy demeanor on the videotape has been dismissed as a “mask” that she wears as part of a “cultural legacy of slavery.”
There is a truly horrific story out of South Jordan, Utah where retired teacher Jan Harding is in critical condition after drinking tea accidentally poisoned with an industrial oven cleaner by Dickey’s Barbecue Pit. An employee confused the oven cleaner with sugar in making the sweet tea for customers. The tort liability is obvious in such a case and could involve both negligence and strict liability claims given the involvement of food or drink served at a restaurant. The chemical has been described as Lye in some news accounts.
The Saudi Sharia system has again made headlines with its perverse view of justice. The latest victim is a businesswoman who will receive 50 lashes for merely insulting the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or the Saudi morality police. Of course, the Saudi morality police is widely ridiculed and denounced as a group of religious fanatics upholding a medieval system of religious law.
Continue reading “Saudi Court Orders Woman Flogged For Insulting Morality Police”
This Russian driver may have been prepared for any number of things but my guess is that an erupting geyser was not one of them.
Continue reading “Try Explaining This To Your Insurance Agent . . .”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Beginning this school year, Dubuque, Iowa public school students in middle and high school are to be required to wear heart rate monitors to determine their activity levels in gym class. The heart rate will apparently be part of the grade they receive.
In an almost unbelievable new standard of measuring grades, the public school district in Dubuque believes that their cardio-vascular knowledge is of such expertise, that they can fully translate it somehow into a measure of a student’s progress.
Continue reading “School District To Require Students To Wear Heart Rate Monitors In Gym Class”
By Charlton S. Stanley, Weekend writer
We should have seen this coming. I believe it is going to get worse before it gets better, if ever. At some point there is going to be a “pitchforks and torches” backlash.
It may be starting in Ferguson, MO. Take a look at one of the latest stories to come out of there. It’s sad that we have to look overseas to get reliable and up to date news about what is happening in the good ol’ US of A. Because of the great sucking sound that is the US corporate mainstream media, people who want to get a more balanced read on the news check sites such as Al Jazerra, The Guardian, RT, The Epoch Times, and Der Spiegel.
Late yesterday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry was indicted by a grand jury in Austin on charges of abuse of power. The charges stem from Perry carrying out a threat to veto funding the budget for the Travis County Public Integrity Unit, which handles political corruption investigations.
District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg had been arrested for drunk driving and was widely criticized for her conduct while in custody. She refused to resign even after been sentenced to jail and Perry carried out his threat. I have been critical of Perry in the past and I believe that his veto was wrongheaded. However, I view the indictment as very troubling on a separation of powers basis and the result of the extension of criminal provisions with tangential applicability to this type of dispute.
Continue reading “Texas Rick Perry Indicted On Abuse of Power Charges”
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
U.S. District Court Judge James Parker of the New Mexico District ruled a monument displaying the Ten Commandments must be removed from the Bloomfield, New Mexico City Hall.
A lawsuit was filed in the district on behalf of two members of the Wicca Religion by the American Civil Liberties Union against the city. Judge Parker’s ruling stated the city had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to United States Constitution.
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
King5 news reports that the operator of a medical marijuana dispensary in Bellingham, Martin Nickerson, sued because he was being simultaneously prosecuted for marijuana distribution and targeted by the state Revenue Department for not collecting taxes on marijuana sales. He argued he couldn’t pay the tax without incriminating himself.
In what should likely be a continuation of process rather than an abrupt end U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman dismissed the case last week for lack of jurisdiction.
The attorneys representing Washington State argued that the case should be tried in state court, that it was not within the jurisdiction of the federal government.
Continue reading “Federal Judge Dismisses Washington Marijuana Tax Case”
We often use these pages to discuss tragedies and disasters. So it is time to report a happy ending. Unbeknownst to most on this blog, a catastrophe occurred on the return from our family trip to Cape Cod. Upon our return to Virginia, Madie, my youngest learned that she had left “Baa” her lifelong lamb blankey at the hotel in Hyannis, Massachusetts. However, as it turned out, a rescue would be launched.