There is a deeply troubling case out of New Hampshire where attorney Lisa Biron has been convicted on all eight counts of transportation of a minor with intent to commit criminal sexual activity, sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography. The jury took less than two hours to convict in a case with strong evidence and highly disturbing facts. Biron has been identified as an attorney with an anti-Gay Christian group.
Despite an international outcry and effort to pay traditional “blood money” in the Saudi legal system, the Kingdom has cut the head off a Sri Lankan maid for allegedly smothering an infant child when the nanny was just 17. The maid was decapitated by a swordsman in Riyadh under the country’s Sharia based legal system.
Colin Farmer, 63, is a blind stroke victim who uses a standard white stick to walk. Farmer suddenly found himself on the ground in Lancashire, England after a police officer thought he was brandishing a samurai sword. He shot Farmer in the back with a 50,000-volt Taser stun gun.
There is something fundamentally creepy about this animal . . .
Shortly after Christmas, the Eleventh Circuit barred an appeal from Ronald B. Smith, a death row inmate in Alabama, due to his failure to “properly file” a document by the court deadline. The filing was actually timely but his lawyer failed to include a $154 filing fee or, in the alternative, file a motion that his client was indigent. He was indigent but that did not stop the Eleventh Circuit from barring the death row appeal. The Supreme Court has twice rebuked the Eleventh Circuit for its draconian treatment of such minor rules in capital cases but the judges on that court continue to dispense with notions of equity and proportionality (and justice) in barring such appeals. It turns out that his lawyer was under probation at the time and later committed suicide.
Jason Earl Dean was a man who believed that he had found his soulmate at work at Taco Bell in Ringgold, Georgia. However, instead to turning to eHarmony or ChristianMingle.com, Dean, 25, turned to a pair of handcuffs and a unpromising plea for companionship. He was convinced to let the 18-year-old woman go and then “made a run for the border.” He was arrested two days later by Dalton State College campus police. He was sentenced this week to ten years with four years of actual prison time for false imprisonment.
I was interviewed this week for an article today on ChristianMingle.com. I previously published a blog article on the precarious line between false advertising and faith-based pitches at the company. My favorite fact from Paul Farhi’s article below is that ChristianMingle is an outgrowth of a Jewish dating site that has now branched out into other faiths and made a killing by bringing the goyim together.
In Norfolk, police deployed to deal with a surprising series of emergency calls about a lion on the loose. They soon found not a lion but Charles the Monarch — a groomed labradoodle.
Continue reading “Norfolk Police Deploy After Lion Sighting And Find Groomed Labradoodle”
We have seen virtual adultery lead to real divorces. The question is whether a virtual murder can generate an actual homicide charge. The answer appears to be no after a Chinese father, Mr. Feng, hired professional “assassins” to hunt down and kill his son in his online game. The son was unemployed and the father feared that he was spending too much time in his virtual world.
Continue reading “Father Hires Assassins To Kill Son . . . Virtually”
For those insisting that President Obama is likely to turn over a new leaf in his Administration’s crackdown on medical marijuana, you might want to tell Aaron Sandusky who was just given 10 years in prison for operating three medical marijuana growing enterprises in California. Continue reading “Obama Administration Secures 10 Year Sentence Against Medical Marijuana Grower”
Florida Atlantic University has found itself embroiled in a national outcry over the views of James Tracy, an associate professor of media history. Tracy, 47, went to his blog, Memoryholeblog and held forth on his suspicion that the massacre in Connecticut might have been a government drill or may not even have actually occurred. In a blog entitled “The Sandy Hook Massacre: Unanswered Questions and Missing Information,” Tracy wrote “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described.” For those mourning the loss of the 20 children and six adults, it was both an outrageous and hurtful claim — leading many to call for the firing of Tracy. However, as correctly noted by the FAU administration, this was a personal blog and Tracy has every right to espouse such theories.
We have been following the continuing arrests and even prosecutions of citizens who film police in public. (For prior columns, click here and here). Despite consistent rulings upholding the right of citizens to film police in public, these abuses continue. The latest has a different twist. Andrew Henderson not only had his camera taken from him by police in Little Canada, Minnesota but he was charged with violating the the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by filming officers responding to a call.
Continue reading “Minnesota Man Criminally Charged After Filming Police in Public”
Ever wonder what dogs dream about? This one seems to involve being devoured in a tooth-by-tooth fight with a band of dingos.
Michigan Supreme Court Justice (and former prosecutor) Diane Hathaway has resigned from the state’s highest court after a judicial agency accused her of “blatant and brazen violations” of judicial ethics that include allegations of bank fraud, tax fraud, money laundering and lying to investigators. The alleged facts are quite shocking and lead to the question of why Hathaway has not been charged criminally. In 2008, Hathaway launched a successful Democratic campaign to unseat conservative Chief Justice of the Court, Cliff Taylor. Her heavily negative campaign accused Taylor of failing asleep on the bench and declared “If you see justice in the name, he really belongs in the hall of shame.”
We have a development in the latest case of a student being suspended for using a finger gun. Previously, Montgomery County suspended a six-year-old boy for making a finger gun with his hand and saying “Pow.” Now school officials have rescinded the suspension of a 6-year-old Silver Spring boy who they said pointed his finger like a gun and said, “Pow.” However, once again, there is no action to be taken against school officials for ordering such an absurd punishment in a mindless “zero tolerance” policy. Continue reading “Terror Tots III: Maryland Officials Reverse Suspension Of Six-Year-Old For Making Gesture Of Finger Gun And Saying “Pow””