Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Uncategorized

Saudi Man Arrested After Pressure Cooker Found In Luggage

220px-Super_Cocotte_decor_SEB-MGR_Lyon-IMG_9918It appears that there is nothing so unnerving as a Saudi man traveling with a pressure cooker these days. Hussain Al Khawahir was arrested in Detroit after he was found with luggage containing a pressure cooker — the common kitchen appliance used by the Boston Marathon bombers. The question is why the federal authorities are still holding the man who allegedly had a page missing from his passport and found in possession of a kitchen appliance.

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Criminal law, International, Religion, Society

Saudi Arabia Orders Man To Receive 300 Lashes And Six Years In Jail For Helping Woman Convert To Christianity

300px-Fomfr_whipSaudi Arabia has added yet another infamous case of religious intolerance and hatred after a Lebanese man was given 300 lashes with a whip and sentenced to six years. His crime? Simply helping a Saudi woman who wanted to convert to Christianity. While Saudi Arabia continues to object to any slight of Islam in Western Countries, the Kingdom continues to deny the human right of people to choose their faith — and impose medieval punishments for those who try to exercise their faith under the Sharia system. The woman fled the Kingdom in the hope of being able to worship the God of her choice.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Society

Ancient Mayan Pyramid Destroyed For Gravel In Belize

250px-First_Tractor_Company_-_old_working_model_-_01220px-Maya_Presentation_of_Captives_detail_2_KimbellIn a true crime against culture, a construction company in Belize City has destroyed one of Belize’s largest Mayan pyramids to use it for gravel for road fill. Archeologists and locals say that there is no way that the company officials were unaware of the historical meaning of the pyramid when they took backhoes and bulldozers to it. Before they succeeded in eradicating the structure, locals took pictures showing the center of the pyramid still standing with a Mayan room exposed at the top.

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Animals, Bizarre, Criminal law, Environment, International

Poacher Shoots Elephant . . . Elephant Tramples Poacher

180px-African_Bush_Elephant_MikumiWhile I hardly relish the death of any person, this is a story that represents a rare victory of an elephant versus a poacher. Solomon Manjoro was one of many poachers who are killing off whole species to sell ivory or animal parts to willing buyers. Police say that he and accomplice Noluck Tafuruka, 29, went to the protected Charara safari area in Zimbabwe to kill an elephant but Manjoro ended up being trampled by his prey.

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Bizarre, International, Politics

New Zealand Politician Resigns After Insulting Waiter In Drunken Exchange

250px-Coat_of_Arms_of_New_Zealand.svgWe have yet another example of the difference in expectations between Americans and voters in other countries. We have politicians who disappeared for months from office, solicit prostitutes from the Senate floor, and call workers “wetbacks.” Yet, they remain in office. However, New Zealand’s National Party MP Aaron Gilmore has resigned after calling a waiter a “dickhead.”

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Bizarre, Criminal law, Free Speech, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society

Oregon Man Acquitted After Arrest For Stripping Before TSA . . . TSA Responds By Bringing Its Own Charge

images-1I have previously written about how the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) set out to create a crime never approved by Congress: the crime of making a joke in an airport about security issues. The TSA has long appeared to chafe at the notion of an agency dependent on Congress or the public for its authority. That appears the message being sent to John E. Brennan. You may recall Brennan from a story last year when he stripped in the Portland International Airport in protest of increasing invasive TSA security measures. He was cleared by a judge who found his stripping was a form of protest. However, the TSA was clearly miffed by decision of the judge, so Brennan was pulled into the administrative abyss by TSA with an agency charge. It appears that, if the law will not punish a citizen, TSA will.

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Animals, Society

Study: A Pet A Day, Keeps The Doctor Away

dogwithballsThere are many pet lovers on this blog and the article below reaffirms your pet-loving lifestyles is not just emotionally but physically good for you. The American Heart Association (AHA) issued a scientific statement last week saying owning a pet may help to decrease obesity, blood pressure and cholesterol. Notably, for those of us who are dog lovers, dogs showed the greatest benefit for pet owners in terms of health benefits.

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Congress, Criminal law, International, Justice, Media, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

Tax Havens For the Wealthy, But What About the Rest of Us?

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Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger

Recently, the ICIJ, better known as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released a report detailing hundreds of thousands of off-shore companies whose sole product or service is to hide income from many countries tax authorities.  “A cache of 2.5 million files has cracked open the secrets of more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts, exposing hidden dealings of politicians, con men and the mega-rich the world over.

The secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists lay bare the names behind covert companies and private trusts in the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and other offshore hideaways.

They include American doctors and dentists and middle-class Greek villagers as well as families and associates of long-time despots, Wall Street swindlers, Eastern European and Indonesian billionaires, Russian corporate executives, international arms dealers and a sham-director-fronted company that the European Union has labeled as a cog in Iran’s nuclear-development program.” ICIJ.org   Continue reading “Tax Havens For the Wealthy, But What About the Rest of Us?” →

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Politics, Science, Society, Supreme Court

Plastic Fantastic Recycled Revisited

by Gene Howington, Gust Blogger

As previously discussed in the column “Fantastic Plastic?“, the advent of cheap 3-D printing (or additive manufacturing) is changing the nature of how we can manufacture anything including guns. At the time the original column was written, a pioneer in additive manufacturing of guns – Defense Distributed of Austin, Texas – was making headlines for using this technology to make lower receivers for AR-15 style assault rifles. Although in the proof of concept stage, Defense Distributed had rapidly shown that they could make such a component capable of firing over 600 rounds before stress failure. I speculated that such a weapon was not as threatening due to size and some materials constraints and that even more dangerous was the possibility of all (or nearly all) plastic handguns and other easily concealable weapons that escape normal detection techniques.

In this instance, we have a case of science rapidly catching up with speculation.  Last week Defense Distributed released the following video of their plastic handgun design.  The only metal component of the weapon is the firing pin. It is called (rather dramatically) the Liberator.

In a move that is not entirely unexpected as self-described crypto-anarchist Cody R. Wilson and his company Defense Distributed continue to push both the boundaries of the technology as well as gun laws, the government took action. It is no secret that escalation often begets escalation. Is this the first salvo by the government in their dealings with Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed?

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Criminal law, Justice, Society, Uncategorized

Criminalizing Mental Illness: Jails, Hospitals, or On the Street?

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe) guest blogger

NIMH sealBoP sealWhat is wrong with this picture?  According to figures obtained from the Department of Justice, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) reports that back in 1999, sixteen percent of the prisoners in State and Federal jails and prisons had a diagnosable major mental illness. These diagnoses include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, or some other mental illness that can be classified as “severe.” Based on the number of known prisoners, this means there were roughly 283,000 persons with severe mental illnesses locked up in Federal and State correctional facilities, and that was 13 years ago. It has gotten worse since then. At the end of 2011, 2,266,800 adults and approximately 71,000 juveniles were incarcerated in Federal and State prisons, and jails.  That is 2,337,800 incarcerated inmates. If the sixteen percent figure holds, and there is no reason to believe it hasn’t, there are now about 374,000 mentally ill inmates in correctional facilities. “Correctional facility” is an oxymoron when it comes to providing treatment.  According to both law enforcement and mental health groups, the percentage of mentally ill being locked up is growing, not decreasing.

By way of contrast, public psychiatric hospitals have a patient population of 70,000 with similar severe mental illnesses. Want to know something else scary? Thirty percent of those patients are classified as forensic patients. They are awaiting trial, or so in need of treatment the prison system cannot cope with them. This was something I saw when I worked at the Mississippi State Hospital on the forensic unit. We would get prisoners from the State Department of Corrections that could not be managed adequately on the psychiatric unit at the penitentiary. Almost all State and Federal correctional facilities now have special units for the mentally ill, or with mental or physical handicaps. County jails nationwide do not usually provide mental health care at anything more than the most superficial level.

Furthermore, law enforcement officers are increasingly becoming first responders to people with severe mental illnesses in crisis. That is not working out very well for the police or the public, as we have seen in numerous stories reported on this blog. I talk to many sheriffs who are both angry and frustrated their jails are filling up with the mentally ill. They do not have the trained staff or the facilities needed to care for the mentally ill. At the same time, access to mental hospitals is becoming increasingly difficult.

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Uncategorized

A Sonnet for Mother’s Day by Christina Rossetti

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger

I’ll be busy celebrating Mother’s Day with my ninety-five year old mother, my daughter, and granddaughter–and also with my husband and son-in-law.  Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who frequent this blog! I’m dedicating the following poem to my dear mother.

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A Poem by Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome

Has many sonnets: so here now shall be

One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me

To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,

To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee

I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;

Whose service is my special dignity,

And she my loadstar while I go and come

And so because you love me, and because

I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath

Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:

In you not fourscore years can dim the flame

Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws

Of time and change and mortal life and death.

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Academia, Animals, Environment, International, Politics, Religion, Science, Society, Uncategorized

A Meditation on Fear

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger

220px-The_Thinker,_RodinSometimes I’ll be watching something and a thought will occur to me and it will stick in my mind and lead me into a meditation on a more global idea that remains with me as I try to puzzle it out. A train of thought set off this week was a TV program in which a person had to deal with aging and it was clear that their fear of their own mortality that controlled their actions. The program is forgotten and unimportant in this piece, but it did start me spending much time extrapolating the implications from that situation. This represents the rude beginnings of a theory I’ve developed, sans research, on why many people respond the way they do to the world, especially in a sociopolitical sense. Feel free to attack it, because it is merely a product of my tangled thought processes and in truth I don’t even know if it is particularly original, or the result of my synthesis of much I’ve learned and read through the years.

Noticeable human development began at least a million years ago in an apelike creature that was small and relatively weak, considering the predatory creatures that surrounded it. Life was a tricky proposition for that creature and the act of merely staying alive consumed its time. I would think that almost all of its day was spent in a state of fear, causing adrenalin rushes and hyper sensitivity to its environment. Those with the most fear, sensitivity and intelligence survived enough to pass on their genes to the coming generations, thus continuing the evolutionary cycle. As time and evolution passed enormous changes in brain size and other factors turned this fragile being into an omnivore predator that mastered the food chain. Yet still remaining were the instincts of fear and hyper-vigilance, since life even at the top of the food chain remained brutal and short. Those instincts protected us well until a next evolutionary step that took us to a whole new level, leaving us as unquestioned masters of life on this planet. That step is what some are calling a social evolutionary process. When humans began to band together into larger groups their place in the world increased exponentially. This “social evolution” changed the Earth and continues today, but nevertheless we are still primarily ruled by fear and by hyper-vigilance. Let me take you where this thought has led me and perhaps you can show me the flaws in my nascent “theory” and provide me with respite from its repetition in my brain. Continue reading “A Meditation on Fear” →

Criminal law, Justice, Testimony

Why The FBI Doesn’t Record Interrogations

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

136px-US-FBI-ShadedSealAt a time when recording a conversation is as easy as whipping out a cellphone or iPod, the FBI policy on electronic recording of witness interviews is: “agents may not electronically record confessions or interviews, openly or surreptitiously, unless authorized by the SAC or his or her designee.” Instead FBI agents take notes and later type up a summary report called a form 302. The interview takes place with two FBI agents and the single interviewee. The FBI has eschewed the objective for the subjective.

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