Weekly round up

Photo of the week: Peaches Geldolf, is modeling for Agent Provocateur's line of "Season of the Witch" lingerie

SOMALIA: A German shipowner pays $2 million dollars ransom to Somali pirates who hijacked his vessel and kidnapped the crew. But this money only rewards terrorists, and goes to buy more weapons and equipment so other innocent vessels will be threatened in the future. Haven't we learned anything from the past? Also, see similar incident here. France has the right idea, and storms a pirate ship instead. Good for them. Vive la France!

UK: England is now the most densely populated region in all of Europe, primarily due to skyrocketing immigration (and the figures don't even take into account the illegal population).

UK: Sharia courts are now officially permitted in the UK. They are Muslim religious courts that rule on community issues such as domestic violence, inheritance, and divorce, due to mutual agreement beforehand (like going on the "Judge Judy" show in the US). The article claims that women are receiving a smaller share in financial decisions than they would in a regular British court. If that's true, it's entirely their own fault - any woman foolish enough to choose to have a Sharia court hear her case deserves exactly what she gets. Oh, and Muslim religious courts have no place in the country anyway, but that's a given that seems to have fallen by the wayside...

UK: Outrageous incident in which a hotel clerk refuses a room to a customer simply because he is in the Army. If this happened in the USA, it would have generated a great deal more outrage. The hotel apologized, but there was still no explanation for the refusal in the first place. The English now seem to view these incidents as almost normal. Patriotism isn't so cool anymore...

SPAIN: One African immigrant is killed and thousands of others go on a violent rampage. This is the usual story in Europe, an immigrant is killed by the police, and the community bursts with outrage. But the really perplexing thing in this case is that he was killed by another immigrant during a drug deal gone bad. Trashing your own neighborhoods in protest of your own crimes seems a strange way to improve your standard of living. And a question: why didn't the major media outlets cover this story? Is it because they couldn't blame it on the police?

ISRAEL/ARGENTINA: Debbie Schlussel points out a heck of a story, that unfortunately gets buried in the current "now, now" news climate. Apparently, Israeli Mossad agents hot on the trail of Adolf Eichmann (the most wanted Nazi war criminal at the time), stumbled across the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, and didn't apprehend him because they didn't want to jeopardize the Eichmann mission. Fascinating stuff.

GERMANY: In a somewhat related story to the one above, a 90 year-old Josef Scheungraber is on trial for Nazi war crimes committed 64 years ago. It may be the very last Nazi crimes trial ever.

PAKISTAN: Girl was married at 9 years-old to a man who was 45, tries to get an annulment when she is 17, and is gunned down by her own family because of her "dishonorable" actions. Need I say more? Discussion at Jihadwatch.

Iowa, USA: Fort Dodge Community College president Robert Paxton resigns over the "scandal" of him appearing in a photo giving beer to young woman. Since drinking beer is legal, and the woman was of legal age, I'm not sure what the problem is. But someone was outraged somewhere. Looks like Mr. Paxton didn't aggressively fight the action either, since his severance package was about $400,000! One hell of a salary from a community college... But what the hell, it's only money, right? It's not like students need it or anything...

USA: The Obama tax cut web site claims to show you what your tax cut would be under a President Obama. Problem is, the math doesn't add up. For example, it says that a single parent, making only $10,000 a year, would get a $490 tax cut. Problem is, anyone at that income level already doesn't pay any taxes. So how can you cut $490 out of zero? The site is nothing more than a fraud.

UK: Christmas and Easter are banned from a Yorkshire Coast College's calendar, in order to "increase inclusion and diversity”. I.e., for fear of offending Muslims. Should I remind them that the UK is a officially a Christian nation?

South Carolina, USA: In Hilton Head, a fourth-grade student is suspended for having the blade from a broken pencil sharpener in school, followed by a storm of outraged calls and emails to the school. In response, the principal wrote a letter of explanation to parents, but it was not very reassuring, since she admits the sheriff's department was called to respond to the 10 year-old armed suspect. It gets even worse when she admits that the school doesn't have a zero-tolerance policy anymore; i.e. she was not forced into this level of hysterical overreaction, but rather chose to do so. Good discussion at Overlawyered.

New York, USA: Hasidic Jews are upset with bicyclists, particularly female bicyclists, riding through their neighborhood "without dressing modest(ly)". They are also complaining that the bicycles pose a threat to "children and elderly residents". Since they don't use bicycles themselves, maybe they don't understand, but this seems like common sense: don't cars pose much more of a threat to pedestrians than bikes?



Interested in reading more? Click on any label below to read related articles, bookmark this site, or subscribe to my  RSS Feed