An Austrian SWAT team learned the perils of working in the dark this week (as did an innocent family) when the police decided to leave off hall lights in an apartment building so not to alert the suspect. The problem is that, with the lights off, they could not make out the door numbers and raided the wrong unit.
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The bloody horror that befell Northwestern Iraq and in Syria at the hands of ISIS is likely to force a geopolitical reassessment as to alliances and policies. There have been many calling for us to change our role in the Syrian civil war as well as demanding changes in the leadership of Iraq itself. One fact is certain the threat posed by ISIS is real, growing and it seems ironic that even other jihadi groups can no longer accept the actions of this terrorist organization. European governments worry of the distinct possibility a terrorist, failed state will emerge having shores on the Mediterranean.
Such a change might be beginning now and will ultimately find common causes between the West and the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party. While the German Government has historically used legal and diplomatic maneuvers to suppress the PKK, it now is poised to arm the Kurds in Northern Iraq in response to ISIS and very well could be ultimately supporting the PKK, at least unofficially.
Continue reading “Will The Threat Posed By ISIS Change Views Of The PKK From Terrorist To Friend?”
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
Photographer Amos Chapple brings us a fascinating look into Meghalaya, India, known as the wettest place on Earth. The area receives 467 inches of precipitation per year and under these conditions residents have over centuries adopted several means to cope. In particular is the issue of bridges.
Ordinary bridges constructed of lumber suffer rot under such an environment and are impractical. It was discovered that Rubber Trees possessed a root system that was not only trainable, but could be woven together to form structurally sound bridges.
Continue reading “India’s Living Bridges: A fascinating Look At Sustainability”
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In a ruling likely to embolden other cities and counties in Washington to prohibit legal marijuana businesses Pierce County Superior Court Ronald Culpepper ruled that Initiative 502, Washington State’s voter approved marijuana legalization and regulation measure, does not pre-empt local governments from adopting ordinances banning the legal marijuana industry.
We have previously discussed local ordinances and moratoria with the city of Wenatchee as a focus (HERE, HERE, and HERE) In this case plaintiff Tedd Wetherbee, who received state approval to found and operate a marijuana retail business in the City of Fife was denied a business license by the city by reason of an ordinance prohibiting such businesses.
The ruling could lead to further erosion of the voter-approved initiative having main purposes of ending the criminal element of marijuana distribution and providing the state with an additional source of tax revenue.
Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
This might be a face only a Deputy Prosecutor could love. Reportedly so much that Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Marriya Wright is now facing charges of Rendering Criminal Assistance in the First Degree and having a curious incident where she is alleged to have passed to a jail inmate a picture of herself posing in a bikini.
Convicted felon Matthew Baumrucker described in a letter to KREM News as a “Cinderella Story” of a relationship between a couple from the opposite side of the tracks and the law.
Continue reading “Deputy Prosecutor Alleged To Have Sent Bikini Photo And Texts To Inmate”
Submitted By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We have discussed the sad plight of the low castes of Indian society and their removal from the benefits of India’s emergence in the world. In particular is the notion of certain human beings are considered to be untouchable. Examples include being last to be rescued during floods (HERE), a case of doctors refusing to treat an untouchable woman in labor resulting in she and her child dying (HERE) Children suffering horrific acts of violence (HERE) Child Rapes (HERE) and others.
Deutsche Welle recently published an interview with Meenakshi Granguly, the South Asia Director for Human Rights Watch who co-authored a study titled “Cleaning Human Waste: ‘Manual Scavenging,’ Caste, and Discrimination in India.” The study focused on “Manual scavenging” – the cleaning of human waste from open roads and dry pit latrines by communities considered low-caste – [that] is still being practiced by hundreds of thousands of people in India” The report was released August 25th. It is one of sorrow and deep social injustice.
There is an interesting case out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit this week on the limits of hate speech prosecutions. The court overturned the hate-crime convictions of 16 men and women in a bizarre series of attacks where Amish victims had their beards cut off. It was personal hatred not religious hatred that prompted this Amish on Amish crime in the view of the court. I had previously criticized the prosecution of the defendants under the hate crime law. Amish bishop Samuel Mullet Sr. (left) was convicted in September of organizing a series of raids in 2011 against religious enemies and disobedient family members. This was an intra-Amish dispute in which the men’s beards were forcibly sheared and women’s hair was cut. He was given 15 years in prison for federal hate crimes in an extreme interoperation of the law by the Obama Administration, which claimed jurisdiction in what appeared a state offense. They did so by building the case around the “Wahl battery-operated hair clippers” used to cut the beards of Amish men and insisted that federal jurisdiction followed the clippers which crossed state borders in their manufacturing and sale. The case is United States v. Miller, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 16532, 2014 FED App. 0210P (6th Cir.).
Continue reading “Sixth Circuit Overturns 16 Hate Crime Convictions In Amish Case”
A second American has died fighting for the terrorist organization ISIS, or Islamic State — a group that is so extreme and bloodthirsty that even Al Qaeda leaders have stood against it. The latest American to die is Abdiraaman Muhumed from Minneapolis, who notably left behind nine children to seek paradise in martyrdom as a terrorist.
Lawrence Winger, a leading labor and employment lawyer in Maine, was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with possessing child pornography. Winger, 63, consented to a search of his office where investigators allegedly found dozens of images and videos of prepubescent children engaged in sexual activity. Winger has a blog specializing in labor and employment issues.
Continue reading “Leading Labor Lawyer Arrested For Child Pornography in Maine”
Armand Cyr (right) discovered the hard way why Russian roulette has not taken off as a popular pastime with most thinking people. Cyr, 38, was reportedly playing the game with a loaded .38-caliber revolver and his friend John Dybowski, 26 (left). After Cyr blew his brains out, police arrested Dybowski.
Continue reading “Connecticut Man Charged After Friend Loses Game Of Russian Roulette”
We previously discussed the tragic case of an eight-year-old boy who shot himself accidentally with a fully automatic Uzi. A similar tragedy has now occurred but it is the instructor who was killed by a 9-year-old girl learning to fire a submachine gun in Arizona at the Bullets and Burgers shooting range. The instructor, 39-year-old Charles Vacca, died at a hospital after he was shot in the head.
There are some people who tend to blend in on a line up and then there is David Tyron Harris. Harris, 32, was arrested this week in Maryland one one count of second degree assault and one count of strong armed robbery.
Continue reading “Sometimes a Line Up May Not Be Necessary . . .”
Continue reading “Southern California Football Star Suspended After Hero Claim Debunked”
For those already uncomfortable with the erosion of the separation of church and state in voucher programs and faith-based programs under Presidents Bush and Obama, a new proposal in Flint Michigan is likely to seen the inevitable result of this trend. The Flint city council is considering using police and other public officers to distribute copies of “The Way To Happiness,” a book by Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard.
Continue reading “Flint Michigan Considers Distributing Scientology Book To Save City”
Deputy Senate Speaker Roberto Calderoli (and Senator from the The Northern League and once Minister of Reforms under the center-right government of Silvio Berlusconi in 2006) may not appeal to many Italians. He is viewed as xenophobic and racist. He insults groups with remarkable frequency and . . . oh yes . . . he says that he is possessed. That’s right, Calderoli believed that he has been hexed by the father of the the Minister of Integration and wants an emergency exorcism from the Church.
Continue reading “Campaigning on Hope and Change? Italian Politician Asks For Exorcism By Pope”