25. september 2003

Mother has son killed for being "unruly" Olga Iliokina, a 32 year old Russian mother, has been found guilty of hiring her 12 year old son's schoolmate to have him killed because of his unruly behaviour. She had paid the killer €28 for the deed. The 14-year-old murderer was imprisoned for nine years, while the mother herself was jailed for 20 years. Pleading guilty she told the court: "My son never obeyed me, he was like a hooligan, and he was always stealing the family's money."  Maybe, just maybe, Ms. Iliokina has read the Bible, which indeed prescribes this solution for unruly children: Deut 21:18-21 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. I wonder what Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore would say? 9:36:36 PM    comment []  trackback []

RIAA thugs go after grandmother The recording industry has withdrawn its lawsuit against Sarah Seabury Ward, a 66 year old sculptor. Ward was accused of sharing 2000 files on Kazaa, and the RIAA demanded $150,000 per song (!). However, she is a computer neophyte who never installed Kazaa. Besides, she has a Mac, not a PC, so she can't run the file sharing software. [Her lawyer Jeffrey] Beeler complained to the RIAA, demanding an apology and "dismissal with prejudice" of the lawsuit, which would prohibit future lawsuits against her. Foley Hoag, the Boston firm representing the record labels, on Friday dropped the case, but without prejudice. "Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote to Beeler. Now, considering that this was a case of an obvious error that even the RIAA had to admit, how many people have really been wrongly identified? One of the songs she was accused of sharing was the rap song "I'm a Thug," by Trick Daddy. This is a poster song for RIAA lawyers, probably explaining why they were so enraged. 8:26:21 PM    comment []  trackback []

On this day in history... On September 25th, 1639, the first printing press comes to America 1789, US Congress approves Bill of Rights 1906, Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich is born 1957, paratroopers escort nine blacks to a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first US female supreme court justice ...and... 2002, the Secular Blasphemy blog is started Thank you to all my readers for a fun and fascinating year! 7:36:42 PM    comment []  trackback []

Amina Lawal freed by shariah court Nigerian Amina Lawal, who was sentenced to death for having a child out of wedlock by a Nigerian Islamic shariah court, has been freed by the Shariah Court of Appeal. The judges released and acquitted her because she become pregnant before shariah was implemented in her home province. Very good news for her, but this still leaves the main problem in place: a medieval court system in modern society. What if the UN Security Council declared shariah law a violation of human rights and condemned trying to implement or support such courts as a crime against humanity? 6:24:17 PM    comment []  trackback []

Headscarf of content Now here's a difficult question France is currently having a harsh debate over women wearing head scarves in public schools. At the same time, a German court has sided with the Muslim women teacher who wanted to wear a headscarves at school. Opponents argue that the school is no place for showing religious symbols, and that the head scarf is a symbol of discimination and oppression of women. Proponents say a ban amounts to religious discrimination. I tend to side with the opponents of a ban, on principle, but agree that this is a difficult question. Many Muslim women and girls no doubt chose to wear the head covering. However, many have no choice, and a ban would allow girls to grow up in the west at least partially sharing a culture of freedom. 6:54:06 AM    comment []  trackback []

Mass extinction linked to gamma-ray burst The sudden extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago is widely believed to be caused by a meteor impact. This was, however, not the only mass extinction of life in the Earth's history, nor the most destructive. Around 440 million years ago, at the end of the Ordovician period, more than a hundred marine invertebrates families suddenly disappeared. US astronomer Adrian Melott, of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and colleagues, have proposed that what happened then was consistent with the effect of a nearby gamma-ray burst. These cosmic explosions are more powerful than supernovae, so powerful that we can observe them even when they happen in distant galaxies. If one happened a few thousand light years away, the gamma rays would convert some of our atmosphere into nitrogen dioxide, a brownish gas we know from smog. It would filter out sunlight, trigger an ice age, and also cause acid rain and destroy the ozone layer, leaving the planet open to the Sun's ultraviolet rays. Some evidence indeed suggests that the extinction 440 mya was followed by an ice age, and the scientists hope more research may reveal new evidence supporting this theory. Let's hope none of those happen again any time soon. 4:20:30 AM    comment []  trackback []

Let the punishment fit the crime The 22 year old intoxicated woman who was caught stealing from Beate Uhse's sex-shop here in Bergen futilly begged to not be reported to the police, allegedly because she had just been let out of prison. What she stole? A purple dildo and two sexy uniforms, a nurse's and a prison uniform. She may now be supplied with a prison uniform for free. (From a Norwegian article in Nettavisen) 2:11:02 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2003 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.10.2003; 02:25:22.