That article is so impartial and so objectively written that I have no reason to doubt of its veracity. Here's an example:
Bryant Wilkerson was a 28-year-old postal service clerk with nothing on his record worse than a fender-bender. That day, he was merely making a U-turn, in a place where U-turns are permitted, when a 17-year-old party girl in her daddy's SUV tried to speed around him.
He's facing 21 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Laura Varker is posing on her MySpace page in a bikini.
Jeez. I really hope the guy Wilkerson doesn't end up in jail for 21 years, and I hope that at least SOME sort of punishment is made for the teenager... but the way the situation sounds, it doesn't look good. I hate hearing about stuff like that.
A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs - Hollywood films with the "dirty parts" cut out of them - has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls.
Orem police say Flix Club owner Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, and Issac Lifferth, 24, were booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old.
CBS Station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that the shocking discovery came when a mother found a $20 bill in her daughter’s room last week and questioned her about where the money came from.
The girl confessed that she and a friend had been paid for sexual favors by an older male.
Lifferth was additionally charged with patronizing a prostitute and was also in possession of a prescription drug medication without a prescription.
Thompson's Flix Club was one of several Utah-based video outlets that traded in edited versions of R- and PG-13-rated films, catering to clientele who wanted to watch hit movies without nudity, sex, language or graphic violence.
Such video editing operations came under the gun of Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America.
In a case brought by the DGA, a federal judge ruled in 2006 that editing out material (such as Kate Winslet's bare breasts in "Titanic") violated copyright laws. The decision was against a Utah company called Clean Flicks.
Thompson, who was a franchise operator for Clean Flicks, opened Flix Club last year, similarly trading in edited videos but claiming that such editing was for "educational use."
Threats of lawsuits from the Hollywood studios forced him to agree to shut down on December 31.
Wait, you mean the people who are overly upset by things like "naughty" hollywood scenes are usually the very thing they're preaching against???? I suppose next you'll tell me that elected officials who speak out against gay rights are themselves picking up men in bathrooms.
Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights
By Kim Sengupta
Thursday, 31 January 2008
The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.
Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.
The Independent is launching a campaign today to secure justice for Mr Kambaksh. The UN, human rights groups, journalists' organisations and Western diplomats have urged Mr Karzai's government to intervene and free him. But the Afghan Senate passed a motion yesterday confirming the death sentence.
The MP who proposed the ruling condemning Mr Kambaksh was Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, a key ally of Mr Karzai. The Senate also attacked the international community for putting pressure on the Afghan government and urged Mr Karzai not to be influenced by outside un-Islamic views.
The case of Mr Kambaksh, who also worked a s reporter for the Jahan-i-Naw (New World) newspaper, is seen in Afghanistan as yet another chapter in the escalation in the confrontation between Afghanistan and the West.
It comes in the wake of Mr Karzai accusing the British of actually worsening the situation in Helmand province by their actions and his subsequent blocking of the appointment of Lord Ashdown as the UN envoy and expelling a British and an Irish diplomat.
Demonstrations, organised by clerics, against the alleged foreign interference have been held in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where Mr Kambaksh was arrested. Aminuddin Muzafari, the first secretary of the houses of parliament, said: "People should realise that as we are representatives of an Islamic country therefore we can never tolerate insults to reverences of Islamic religion."
At a gathering in Takhar province, Maulavi Ghulam Rabbani Rahmani, the heads of the Ulema council, said: "We want the government and the courts to execute the court verdict on Kambaksh as soon as possible." In Parwan province, another senior cleric, Maulavi Muhammad Asif, said: "This decision is for disrespecting the holy Koran and the government should enforce the decision before it came under more pressure from foreigners."
UK officials say they are particularly concerned about such draconian action being taken against a journalist. The Foreign Office and Department for International Development has donated large sums to the training of media workers in the country. The Government funds the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in the Helmand capital, Lashkar Gar.
Mr Kambaksh's brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, is also a journalist and has written articles for IWPR in which he accused senior public figures, including an MP, of atrocities, including murders. He said: "Of course we are all very worried about my brother. What has happened to him is very unjust. He has not committed blasphemy and he was not even allowed to have a legal defence. and what took place was a secret trial."
Qayoum Baabak, the editor of Jahan-i-Naw, said a senior prosecutor in Mazar-i-Sharif, Hafiz Khaliqyar, had warned journalists that they would be punished if they protested against the death sentence passed on Mr Kambaksh.
Jean MacKenzie, country director for IWPR, said: "We feel very strongly that this is designed to put pressure on Pervez's brother, Yaqub, who has done some of the hardest-hitting pieces outlining abuses by some very powerful commanders."
Rahimullah Samander, the president of the Afghan Independent Journalists' Association, said: "This is unfair, this is illegal. He just printed a copy of something and looked at it and read it. How can we believe in this 'democracy' if we can't even read, we can't even study? We are asking Mr Karzai to quash the death sentence before it is too late."
The circumstances surrounding the conviction of Mr Kambaksh are also being viewed as a further attempt to claw back the rights gained by women since the overthrow of the Taliban. The most prominent female MP, Malalai Joya, has been suspended after criticising her male colleagues.
Under the Afghan constitution, say legal experts, Mr Kambaksh has the right to appeal to the country's supreme court. Some senior clerics maintain, however, that since he has been convicted under religious laws, the supreme court should not bring secular interpretations to the case.
Mr Karzai has the right to intervene and pardon Mr Kambaksh. However, even if he is freed, it would be hard for the student to escape retribution in a country where fundamentalists and warlords are increasingly in the ascendancy.
How you can save Pervez
Sayed Pervez Kambaksh's imminent execution is an affront to civilised values. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion. If enough international pressure is brought to bear on President Karzai's government, his sentence may yet be overturned. Add your weight to the campaign by urging the Foreign Office to demand that his life be spared. Sign our e-petition at www.independent.co.uk/petition
While I feel they're going very overboard, I think that a bunch of American's telling them what's right and wrong isn't going to help the situation at all.
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- A former cellmate of a woman accused of killing her month-old baby by burning the girl in a microwave testified Thursday that the woman confessed to the crime, saying the baby "fit right in" the oven.
Linda Williams testified that she developed a sexual relationship with defendant China Arnold when the two were cellmates in the Montgomery County jail in March.
Arnold confided in her about what happened to her baby, Wiliams said.
Arnold feared that her boyfriend believed he wasn't the child's father and that he was going to leave her, Williams told the jury.
"She said she put the baby into the microwave and started it and left the house," Williams said.
Williams said she asked Arnold how she got the child into the oven.
"She said she fit right in," Williams said.
Sitting at the defense table, the 27-year-old Arnold showed little emotion as her trial got under way in the August 2005 death of Paris Talley at their Dayton home.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Jon Paul Rion, Williams acknowledged that she met with detectives after the alleged conversation and told them Arnold had said she didn't know how the baby died.
Williams, who has since been released from jail, said she lied to detectives in that initial interview because she had feelings for Arnold.
In his opening statement, Rion said: "The evidence is going to show that she did not purposely take the life of her own baby."
Rion said that other people had access to the baby, that Arnold was intoxicated to the point of blacking out when the child died and that people questioned about the case changed their stories. Rion also raised questions about the reliability of the science when it comes to determining the effect of microwaves on humans.
Thermal burns on the baby were different from those that would have been suffered from a fire, electrical shock, hot water, an iron or chemicals, said Russell Uptegrove, a forensic pathologist with the Montgomery County coroner's office. It took him awhile to consider that the burns might have come from a microwave oven, he said.
"It was so heinous to think of that, that I couldn't convince myself it was a real possibility," Uptegrove said.
DNA recovered from the ceiling of the oven matched that of the baby, he said.
During the opening statement by Assistant Montgomery County Prosecutor Daniel Brandt, a photo of the burned baby was flashed on a screen for the 12-member jury to see. Arnold sat quietly, occasionally jotting notes on a yellow legal pad.
Brandt said Arnold killed the child after arguing with her boyfriend over whether they had been faithful to each other.
When the couple took the baby to the hospital, Brandt said, Arnold exclaimed: "'I killed my baby. I killed my baby."'
Brandt said Arnold later told police it never would have happened had she not gotten so drunk. He said Arnold, who has been in jail since she was charged in November 2006, told Williams she had killed the baby in the microwave and other inmates that she hadn't meant to do it.
Rion said Arnold, who has three sons, loved having a daughter and quit college and her job so she could stay home and take care of her. Rion said that Arnold's boyfriend was the father of the child, and that it couldn't have been anyone else.
A baker who put abortion tablets into his wife's breakfast to try to make her lose their baby has been jailed.
Gil Magira, 36, crushed the tablets into his 38-year-old wife Anat Abraham's sandwich, a bowl of cereal and a yoghurt, the Old Bailey was told.
Mrs Abraham suffered pain and bleeding but the child survived unharmed.
Magira, of Holmebrook Drive, Hendon, north London, admitted "using an instrument to procure a miscarriage" - the first such charge in 30 years.
Magira was sentenced to five years which was then reduced to three years and nine months to take into account the time he has already spent in custody.
The court heard it was the first time such a prosecution has been brought for more than 30 years.
Simon Mayo, prosecuting, said the defendant had had "constant and compulsive" thoughts about forcing his wife to have an abortion.
His wife said she feared for her life - and that of the child - when she realised what he had done.
"What made it worse was how desperate and determined he was to try to kill the baby that I already felt moving inside me," she said.
Magira was described by his lawyer Jonathan Goldberg QC as an eccentric "Woody Allen character" who regretted what he had done and now wanted to help look after the child.
The defendant's mother, Lisa Or, defended him, saying her son was a "good boy" and terrified of his wife.
When Magira found out his wife was pregnant in November 2006 he panicked and begged her to have an abortion. When she refused, he began looking for abortion medication on the internet.
When his wife was 11 weeks pregnant he put abortion tablets in a sandwich which he then gave to her.
Mrs Abraham felt pain and bleeding the next day and went to hospital, but the baby survived. Magira then put pills into her yoghurt and cereal.
When this too failed, he confessed to a counsellor, who told him he should tell his wife.
"He told her that he was ashamed of himself and he didn't want to hurt her. She told him that she didn't want to see him," said Mr Mayo.
She told him their relationship was over.
In May, Magira took an overdose. In hospital he said "either he or the child would have to die".
In a witness statement read to the court, Mrs Abraham said: "I realised I had lived with a person for 10 years who I don't really know."
Judge Oliver Sells said: "It was an act which was a terrible aberration. No-one who has heard what occurred can be in any doubt what you were setting out to do."
Four Daphne Middle School students -- two boys and two girls -- have been accused of taking nude photos of themselves with cell phone cameras and exchanging them, Daphne Police said today.
Daphne Police Lt. Jud Beedy said the investigation has uncovered two separate incidents:
--In one incident, a girl and a boy took nude photographs of themselves and sent the photographs to each other. This happened off campus, he said.
--In the other, a girl was given a cell phone by a boy. She took the cell phone into the girls bathroom at school, took nude photographs of herself and gave the cell phone back to the boy, he said.
Three students involved have been suspended by Daphne Middle School administrators, Baldwin County Public Schools spokesman Terry Wilhite said today. No arrests have been made, Beedy said, but the investigation continues.
I doesn't really surprise me...puberty is hitting earlier and earlier, it seems. You should see some of the sixth graders I see at work, they're gigantic and fully developed. Frightening.
hey - to paraphrase david cross, kids are learning and engaging in sex at younger and younger ages, which is why we should lower the age of consent to 15.
I don't see where the crime is with the kids, I mean sure sixth grade is a tad young, but I don't think there is a law against taking pictures of your naughty bits.
hey - to paraphrase david cross, kids are learning and engaging in sex at younger and younger ages, which is why we should lower the age of consent to 15.
It's the real reason I'm here in China. They just want an American dude. It's simple economics of supply and demand. There is a short supply of American guys, so the demand for us is quite high.
Comments
(other than the right to remain sexy???)
...
(J/K)
Though very fucked-up, I took some solace in the fact that he got convicted.
Police: Students exchanged nude cell phone photos
And the second one...Well, so? Who gives a fuck? They're having a bit of harmless fun.
hey - to paraphrase david cross, kids are learning and engaging in sex at younger and younger ages, which is why we should lower the age of consent to 15.
I'm 15! I second this motion!
Unless it's a talking stud horse on a stud farm etc.