An update on Gillian Gibbons and her encounter with Islamic hard-liners from our wire friends at AP.
She was convicted of insulting Islam and sentenced to two weeks in a Khartoum prison, nearly a third of which she’s already enjoyed. The prosecuters were attempting to inflict the harsher punishment of 40 lashes, a fine, and six months in jail for [...]
The big news this morning is the resignation of Texas Education Agency’s Science Curriculum Director, Chris Comer, just a few scant months before the State Board of Education is slated to review the science portion of the state curriculum. Word is that the resignation comes on the heels of a move to fire Comer for [...]
A 54-year-old British schoolmarm is in a Khartoum prison for allowing her 6 and 7-year-old students to name a toy stuffed bear “Muhammad”, or so we’re told here by the BBC. Each child was given a weekend with the bear, and was supposed to write a story about what they did with the bear. Some [...]
There has been quite a bit of debate over the last decade over the use (and overuse) of ADHD drugs, like Ritalin. Now this from BBC:
In 1999, the American study concluded that after one year medication worked better than behavioural therapy for ADHD. This finding influenced medical practice on both sides of the Atlantic, and [...]
One running question that seems to follow me from place to place lately, like some lost puppy: what’s it really for?
Reading Scott Henson’s blog about the ‘Texas Criminal Justice Reverse Lottery‘ and the abysmal clearance rates for serious crimes, and I’ve got to wonder about every part of the justice system. What’s any of it [...]
A major difficulty in even bringing up problems with the criminal justice system is an apparently universal assumption that any convicted felon is worthy of any torment we can lay upon him. Only in the case of an innocent man executed by the state can there be the appropriate sense of indignity at the incompetence [...]
A woman engaging in some Fight Club-type civic psychosis at a local grocery was caught by store security cameras dumping mothballs into the buffet soups.
They tracked her down by the info she gave them for her customer club card — which she apparently used frequently as her club records showed multiple recent purchases of mothballs.
Instead [...]
My anti-prison stance grows stronger each year. Periodically, we’re treated to an academic report that announces that no matter what crime is studied, prisons just make better criminals. The ones showing how prisons turn non-violent drug users into violent thugs have been common since the 80’s. This new one on how prisons help build and [...]
In the ancient world, there were frequently household members known as ’slaves’. These people were unrelated to the head of the household, would work at the bidding of the head of the household, and would receive a share of household resources. In terms of the notion of Household discussed earlier, there is a need to [...]
It is an imperative of Life that we each must search for more of what we have, only better. It’s no accident that hominids, like most herding species, were originally nomadic. They were always searching over the next hill, beyond the next valley, for the greener pastures and fatter sheep. The advent of semi-agricultural habits [...]