Wynonna Judd filed for divorce Tuesday from her estranged husband, less than a week after his arrest in Texas on sex charges involving a minor. Dan R. Roach, 49, was arrested Thursday in Abilene and charged with three counts of aggravated sexual battery against a child younger than 13 in Nashville, police said. He was expected to be extradited to Nashville, said police spokesman Don Aaron. It wasn't known if he had an attorney.
"I am obviously devastated," the 42-year-old country singer said in a statement on her Web site. "Our family will pull together, begin the healing process and hopefully -- by the Grace of God -- become stronger. We will move forward with our faith, family and our friends to find resolution to this difficult situation."
Aaron said an investigation by the department's sex crimes unit started in February. Judd cited irreconcilable differences as a reason for divorce in the complaint filed in the Nashville suburb of Williamson County. The couple, who were married in November 2003, have been separated since Feb. 18, according to the complaint.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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Playing Country & Western music backwards gets you your virginity back, too?
Can we get another Al Gore photo? Something silly, like Kerry in a beret?
Al Gore will receive an honorary International Emmy award recognizing his role in launching the interactive Current TV channel. The International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said this week that it will present the award to the former vice president in a Nov. 19 ceremony in New York.
The Founders Award is presented to a person or organization "which crosses cultural boundaries to touch our common humanity," academy president Bruce Paisner said in a statement. "We in the media industry are honored that one of the world's leading political figures has joined our global community of broadcasters," Paisner said.
Gore co-founded Current TV in August 2005 for young, technologically savvy viewers. The cable network's programming consists of short documentaries and viewer-created content.
Current TV reaches about 40 million homes in the United States, and was introduced to another 10 million homes in Britain this month.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/29/2007 06:34 ||
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It reaches my house. So does Univision, BET, amd MSNBC. And I don't watch them either.
Moderator Note: no need to use tinyurl; just use the URL of the actual source, pasted into the Source box. Thank you...
A third of women think they are too fat ever to appear naked in front of their partners, according to a survey. Images of stick-thin models and digitally-slimmed celebrities are convincing a whole generation to keep their clothes on at all times. Experts believe the compulsion to cover up is putting a serious strain on domestic relationships, with one woman in ten having to turn out the light before she can undress in front of her partner.
Experts believe more research is called for...
Some of the most awkward encounters happen in the bathroom - with nearly a quarter of females never entering with their other half. Of those who do, around a third said they felt self-conscious about being seen in the nude. According to the survey of 3,500 women for a bathroom equipment company, one in ten is so body-shy she will even lock the bathroom door to avoid her partner bursting in.
Despite all this, almost all women interviewed agreed that it was vital that a couple felt comfortable naked together. Men seem largely immune to the insecurities afflicting their girlfriends and wives, and are happy spending almost double the amount of time being naked in an average day. They are so fond of being naked that more than two-thirds said they regularly walk around the house with nothing on.
Good gawd: we're men!
Even though 46 per cent of women confess they like to do the same, a third of these said they would never wander naked where their partner could see them. It is the same in the gym, where 79 per cent admitted they had hang-ups showering and changing in front of other women. Jill Parkinson, from www.shuc.com, the company which commissioned the research, said: "It's shocking how self-conscious people are about being naked in front of their partners - especially when it comes to the bathroom. "This shows how seriously people think about their body image - yet being bare-skinned is such a natural thing."
#2
This is something new? A stray fact: One of the more humiliating aspects (as opposed to truly serious ones) of the Nazi Holocaust was that, for many of those taken to the concentration camps, stripping for the selection exam was the first time they were unclothed in front of another since they'd been old enough to bathe alone. And it was Queen Victoria who advised her daughters to close their eyes and think of England; one somehow doesn't suspect her of prancing around in front of her husband wearing nothing but the crown and a happy smile.
#4
This needs two things to be compelte:
First: the dancing fat naked chicks,
and second ( steel wool alert) The mental picture of Rosie NOT being in the shy group.....
#5
USN Ret, now ya' went and ruined the whole image for me (not, I can easily erase the image of that thing from my mind).
The wearing of clothing by humans is a comparatively recent evelopment as is the notion that nakedness is a sin. It dates back less than 6 thousand years and exists primarily in Judea-Christian cultures. You do not find a similar nakedness taboo in other cultures, particularly for children or adults of a certain age outside their own home or within a restricted social order.
Nakedness could be said to be more in line with a human beings' "more natural" sense of walking around in a comfortable environment. Clothing and coverings can be, I believe, conclusively shown to have been adaptations to early hominids' environmental conditions - if you're cold, and you can kill something that has fur, you claim its fur to help keep you warm, etc., etc.
Other "environmental" factors also entered the equation as hominids developed such as the desire to protect one's softer and mor vulnerable areas from such things as prickly thorns or rough branches snapping back whilst moving through the woods on a hunt, not to mention figuring out ways to protect ones' more sensitive areas from biting jaws, slashing claws, and simply the ever-present bugs and mosquitoes that abounded in our early evolutionary development (and still do BTW).
And then there's the whole deal of protecting one's vulnerable areas from ones' enemies when they're throwing rocks or more dangerous weapons.
Clothing developed from a need for protection. Anti-nudity morality developed from misguided religiosity. Nudity is recognized in many locations in the Bible and it is not generally condemned therein except where inappropriate.
I can almost guarantee you that Jesus Christ went nude at times, especially as a child, and almost certainly as a man when amongst his kinfolk men and apostles at baths and such.
Victorian principles so warped our perceptions of morality that we can hardly recognize who and what we are any more.
The clothed state is not man's natural state (and that comes from someone who has as much a moral and ethical adversity to going around nude as anyone else).
Note that I specifically left Islam out of the mix as I consider Islam to be a warped and twisted homogenization of religious ideologies and cult-like behavior, not a true culture.
#6
BTW, by the notation "less than 6 thousand years", I mean, in general, in our modern culture's thought patterns. I am fully aware that humans have been around for at least 200+ thousand years (along with Neanderthals till somewhere around 30-50 thousand years ago) and probably longer, and that recent findings in hominid evolution push our hominid ancestry back to beyond the 2-1/2 to 3 million year period commonly referenced in anthropology texts (probably at least doubling it).
#7
FOTS, before you tee off on the Victorian era, you need a little education as to why it happened.
The Victorian era, as any medical historian knows, was a response to widespread and devastating syphilis which explorers brought back from the Americas and really started rampaging through Europe in the late 1600's until, well, the Victorian era.
When seen in this light, Victorian morals were far from "warped" but were a sane and rational approach to creating a society where this awful ailment (at the time pretty much incurable) could be curtailed. It has even been suggested that Victorian morality may be Africa's inevitable and best respone to its own raging HIV epidemic.
The clothed state may not be the natural state, but neither are large urban areas with prostitutes and polymorous sex and horrible incurable STD's. The Victorians certainly seem to be overboard from our 2007 perspective, but given the times in which they lived, they made some good sense.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/29/2007 22:15 Comments ||
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Signs and portents gentlemen, Signs and Portents
A mysterious giant hexagon lies above Saturn's north pole, captured by cameras on Nasa's Cassini Orbiter. Spanning 25,000km - equivalent to the width of two planet Earths - the bizarre geometric feature appears to remain virtually still in the atmosphere as clouds swirl around it. Let the "2001, a space odyssey" references ensue.
The infra-red images show the hexagon - which contains a smaller six-sided formation - extends about 60km down into the clouds.
#3
My guess, A huge active volcano on the surface, belching it's product by a factor of 6 on Saturn's geosynchronous rotation! The size of this polar volcano, probable the first to be discovered in the solar system in the future is as big; as Mt Everest is to an ant mound. The 'lines' may be caused by a "suction hiccup" from the flue, or a rotational 'pause' of the entire surface of the planet from the backkick! Hey, it happened to Earth during that last tsunami for a fraction of a second!!
#7
SMN, Saturn is a gas giant. There is no rocky "surface" for there to be a volcano on. Just different levels of gas compression, until you come to the point where gas congeals.
#8
Mizzou, actually, some astronomers presume a solid core, possibly rocky, with inner core in hot, semi-liquid state. The main reason is that the planet outputs more enegy than it receives from sun.
#9
A regular shape like a hexagon can only be designed by intelligence, and it is clearly an inefficient use of energy, which will probably accellerate the heat death of the universe. Saturn must be made to understand the error of its ways. Al Gore must go there immediately, on a sacred mission to have Saturn sign the Kyoto protocol. Show them a movie or something. Or else, I will simply be unable to cope.
#10
When I saw that picture, giant honey bees came to mind. There are many naturally occurring geodesic formations on earth; so why not in outer space or on other planets? Still, I like the idea of sending Al Gore to Saturn as an emissary.
#11
Hexagons instead of circles in situations of crowding are quite common in nature. Someone else already mentioned honeycombs. Another example is fish nests when the population density is high (sunfish have been known to do this).
Perhaps there is some general paradigm which applies here.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/29/2007 6:50 Comments ||
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#12
Well, not sure that can be applied here. We have one single element here (the nesting does not count--it i still a single element), we would have more hexagons present side-by-side if crowding was the case.
#15
Reminds me of the standing waves that result from sending vibrations through a liquid. Although on this scale it would have to be VERY low frequency (I think) and I have no idea what would make a planet vibrate.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/29/2007 16:24 Comments ||
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#24
LOL!!
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/29/2007 16:45 Comments ||
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#25
Man, oh man, am I going to be listening (and visiting the websites) to what George Noory and Richard Hoagland have to say about this little bit of mystery (The Enterprise Mission article on the moon Enceladus is fascinating).
#28
I watched the movie. The entire thing rotates, although slowly. I saw darker 'streamers" moving from the "corners" toward the inner formation, which looked layered. Some pretty cool stuff, I admit. Reminds me of one of my favorite websites.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/29/2007 20:05 Comments ||
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#29
Brain Storm this people, imagine a bath tub full of mucky water rotating clockwise, while it's drain plug has been 'pulled'. The funnel affect of that water being siphoned down counter clockwise while looking straight down into the vortex (ie, drain) would look remarkable like the phenomena we see on top of Saturn. The "hex lines" would have to be caused by some type of factor 6 reverse pressure; and the person who figures out that 6 factor will be the one on the newspaper frontpage.
#30
By the way, without any 'back pressure' at all, you would have affectation similar to a "visible" black hole, a perfectly circular event horizon, which this isn't.
Britain is asking the United Nations and African leaders to reprimand Zimbabwe for its human rights failures. Correspondent Peter Heinlein reports from U.N. headquarters in New York. The British U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones-Parry, urged the Security Council Wednesday to step up its criticism of Zimbabwe and its president, Robert Mugabe. "We believe that the United Nations and specifically this council should accelerate action on Zimbabwe to match that of the African Union and other regional organizations such as SADC," he said.
Boy howdy, a reprimand: that'll show Bob, now won't it.
SADC, the Southern African Development Community, is discussing recent developments in Zimbabwe at a summit in Tanzania. Leaders of the 14-nation group called the meeting after Zimbabwean security forces detained and beat opposition leaders, including Movement for Democratic Change head Morgan Tsvangirai.
Ambassador Jones-Parry called on the regional grouping to take the lead in condemning the deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe. "We hope that summit will send a strong message about the human rights and humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe where daily the news seems to get worse," he said.
The U.N. Security Council will hear a closed-door briefing on Zimbabwe Thursday at Britain's request. The briefing will be given by a senior U.N. humanitarian affairs official.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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You could have sorted this out yourselves in 1980 but chose not to. You turned over the reins to Bad Bob, and it doesn't matter that the inmates were screaming for him; you were the adults and had the obligation to act prudently. You were told this would happen back then. Now everything that the Lancaster House critics forewarned about has come to pass, You, and the rest of the Commonwealth who aided and abetted your decision, bear at least a significant part of the blame. Yeah, you can say Zimbabwe did this to itself, but you helped--a lot.
Posted by: Mac ||
03/29/2007 9:01 Comments ||
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Bangladesh’s High Court has ordered the electoral roll be scrapped after a January election was postponed amidst complaints the voters’ list was stacked with fake entries. The US-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs has said 12.2 million names were included on the original list either by mistake or in duplication. Former prime minister Sheikh Hasinas Awami League said the now-scrapped list had 14 million “ghost” names on it. Bangladesh is now being run by an army-backed interim government headed by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed. He has said a new election schedule would only be announced once critical electoral reforms, including a new voters’ list, were in place.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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Where's Katherine Harris when you need her?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/29/2007 2:20 Comments ||
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The Election Commission (EC) has made a move to impose a ban on the use of portraits or names of national leaders in election campaigns by contesting political parties and candidates. It has also planned to ban the use of religion in election campaigns, according to sources in the EC.
The sources said the EC is taking steps to amend the code of conduct for contesting political parties and candidates in parliamentary elections. Once the reforms are implemented, two major political parties -- Awami League and BNP -- will not be allowed to use images of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and late President Ziaur Rahman in their election campaigns. Similarly, Islamic political parties including Jamaat-e-Islami will be barred from using religion in their election campaigns.
The EC will also make stringent provisions for punishing any political party or candidate if they violate the electoral code of conduct. "The father of the nation and national leaders are assets of the nation. They cannot be properties of any individual political party," Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain told reporters referring to the EC's move to impose the restrictions. "No political party or candidate will be allowed to use portraits of national leaders on election campaign posters," the election commissioner said adding that the move has been initiated to keep national leaders above controversy.
A political party or a candidate however may use his or her party chief's portrait, his or her own portrait, and the election symbol on the campaign poster, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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That makes sense. If you can't elect them out of office the only way to get rid of them is to kill them.
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev dismissed five senior officials Wednesday and invited opponents to take up their jobs, but opposition leaders rejected the offer and urged him to resign. "We are inviting new people. Let's work together," Prime Minister Azim Isabekov, Bakiyev's long-serving aide, told reporters. "The government wants new forces, new people, new ideas. ... We want the republic to be stable. We want society and political forces to put forward their candidates."
He said the dismissed officials included First Deputy Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov, the Cabinet's chief of staff and the ministers of economics, emergency situations and health. Bakiyev's offer, clearly intended to pacify opponents, only raised the tensions as the opposition, spearheaded by former Bakiyev ally Felix Kulov, stepped up its pressure on the president to resign and hold early elections. "It's just a political game. [We] did not ask the president to sack the government. We just want early elections," said Omurbek Suvanaliyev, a Kulov aide. "We won't even talk to him."
Kulov has said his United Front opposition party would use only constitutional means to bring about early elections. The country is not due to hold parliamentary or presidential polls until 2010. Opponents say Bakiyev, elected in 2005, has failed to fulfill his pre-election pledges to bring stability and economic growth and stop state corruption.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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China on Thursday blasted separate calls by a French politician and Mia Farrow to use the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games to pressure Beijing into doing more to stop the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. "We don't think it is appropriate to link the Olympic Games in Beijing with the Darfur issue and we don't think it will be popularly accepted or echoed by people around the world," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.
"It is a totally misguided approach for people to link the Darfur issue with the Games and try to tip the balance in their favor in order to enhance their own reputation," he said at a regular press briefing.
China, which buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil and sells it weapons and military aircraft, has opposed sanctions against Sudan but urged the government earlier this month to follow through on a plan to deploy U.N. peacekeepers to beef up African Union forces in the troubled region.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/29/2007 06:55 ||
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This is the sort of thing that having the Olympics will help. China would think nothing of these sorts of issues before.
Ha, I like how the spokesman calls her out for trying to use such a tragic issue to aggrandize herself, though.
This story is a little over a year old but still very relevant considering Hillary's sucking up to the Unions.
by Jonathan Tasini
Even Wal-Mart, the largest and arguably most powerful corporation in the country, is no match for the triangulation, pandering and obfuscation of Hillary Clinton. With Wal-Mart rating as public enemy number one among many liberals, progressives and just regular voters, Clinton is finding her past ties to Wal-Mart too hot to handle so, presto, over the side the Beast of Bentonville must go.
For those not in the know, Clinton served on Wal-Mart’s board for six years prior to her husband’s run for the presidency. She recently received $5,000 from Wal-Mart. I’ve raised the Wal-Mart relationship repeatedly in my current race against Clinton and it causes deep unease among voters. I believe it speaks to the incumbent’s close ties to abusive corporate power: her large corporate financial contributions, her support for so-called “free trade” (which is simply trade to benefit corporations) and her unwillingness to confront corporate power that denies every American, among other things, universal health insurance.
So, I had to chuckle when I read that Clinton, having never said a bad word about the company in the past, recently said that Wal-Mart should pay more for its workers’ health benefits. And, to boot, she returned the $5,000 she had received from the company. But, when asked what she did about the company’s benefits for workers when she served on the board, she replied, “Well, you know, I, that was a long time ago ... have to remember…”
You canÂ’t have it both ways. You canÂ’t promote an image of being an intelligent woman who has a pile of facts at her fingertips but, at the same time, you suffer a sudden bout of amnesia when asked to answer for your record. And it would be an inconvenient record to defend.
In 1992, Wal-Mart was simply smaller than it is today. But it was still huge, with $43.9 billion in net sales, 1,714 stores and 371,000 employees. Even in 1992, Wal-Mart was already the worldÂ’s largest retailer.
And the board Hillary Clinton sat on was rabidly anti-union, was exploiting sweatshop labor around the world, discriminating against women workers, forcing workers to labor off the clock and destroying communities that did not want them. This should not be a shock: Clinton was a partner in the Rose law firm, one of the most active anti-union law firms in the country.
So, the question still remains: what did Hillary Clinton do—or, not do—when she served on the board of Wal-Mart? Maybe, if her memory was refreshed, she could tell us how she protested the company’s relentless union-busting, expressed feminist outrage at the widespread discrimination against women and was horrified that the mushrooming wealth of the Wal-Mart family was made possible on the backs of slave labor around the world.
Her behavior then, when the spotlight was not on and her record did not matter to voters, should tell voters a lot more about her principles and values than the carefully orchestrated image New Yorkers try to figure out now. The voters deserve to know. For the past 25 years, Jonathan Tasini has been a union leader and organizer, a social activist, and a commentator and writer on work, labor and the economy. From 1990 to April 2003, he served as president of the National Writers Union (United Auto Workers Local 1981) During his tenure, the union tripled in size and became one of the most influential forces in the country for protecting the rights of freelance writers.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/29/2007 11:38 ||
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...but no word yet about an endorsement from Snap-On Tools...
Sports legend and social activist Billie Jean King announced her endorsement of Hillary Clinton today.
"What I learned when I first met Hillary, and what I know now, is that she is qualified to lead this country. As a young woman, mother, advocate, First Lady and Senator she has continually shown us she is passionate about improving family issues, healthcare, equal pay and the challenges that people all across this nation face on a daily basis," King said. "Hillary and I both believe strongly in equal rights and opportunities for all people. She is a winner and I am standing beside her because she has the vision, the drive and the knowledge to lead this country." Oh, shut up and serve...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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"She is a winner and I am standing beside her because she has the vision, the drive and the knowledge to lead this country."
For a person whose eyes are so often focused below someone else's waistline, I'll forego her sense of "vision", thank you. The irrational ravings of Rosie O'Donald and Germane Greer have already done enough damage to the gay women's community's cause as it is.
To all Rantburgers, please trust me that I'm begining to rethink my staunch support of gay rights. I still believe that gays have constitutional rights to freedom of expression. As to rights of adoption and full fledged marriage, that's another matter.
If these loudmouthed fucks could just keep on topic and on message with respect to the worthiness of America's virtues and values, I might retain more of a supportive stance. As it is, the anti-American position of this nation's homosexual population is slowly eroding any legal protections that they might have once deserved.
Shuckey darn! Tie me to a hog and color me conservative.
"I am woman!
Hear me bitch!
Buy my records!
Make me rich!"
NEW YORK - The political arm of NOW, the National Organization for Women, will endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid on Wednesday, according to Democratic officials familiar with the plan.
No telling who the military wing of NOW is gonna endorse...
... Condi Rice ...
Clinton will join NOW president Kim Gandy to accept the endorsement, which will take place at Washington's Sewell-Belmont House, the historic home of the National Women's Party. "The NOW PAC is excited to close out Women's History Month with news that's sure to energize women's rights supporters across the country," Gandy said in an e-mail statement.
Clinton, a New York senator, has made a deliberate pitch to women voters since launching her White House bid in January. Earlier this month, her campaign unveiled "Women for Hillary," an effort to recruit women voters to talk up Clinton's candidacy to other women. A separate, Web-based component targeting younger women, http://www.icanbepresident.com, is another part of the outreach effort. Clinton advisers point to 2004, when about 9 million more women than men voted in the general election. Founded in 1966 by activist Betty Friedan, NOW is one of the oldest and best-known feminist advocacy groups in the country.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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I wonder how much they got paid for the endorsement. You've come a long way baby. You went so far that you came full circle to the world's oldest profession.
A human smuggling scheme responsible for arranging air transportation for thousands of illegal immigrants has been broken up with the indictments of 14 people who worked in travel agencies, officials announced Thursday.
Six Phoenix-area travel agencies were responsible for moving at estimated 6,800 people since 2005, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. In addition to the 14 owners or employees of the agencies who were indicted, two people who ran so-called "drop houses" also were charged in the case. The agencies arranged for one-way travel to destination cities across the nation, in many cases through McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Goddard said the year-long investigation uncovered ticket sales worth about $2 million.
"This case underscores our increased commitment to investigate and prosecute human smuggling in Arizona," Goddard said.
The travel agency workers were charged under state human smuggling laws because they were facilitating the human trafficking. Undercover officers who bought some of the tickets made it clear they were intended for illegal immigrants, authorities said. According to Goddard, illegal immigrants would be brought into the Phoenix area by human smugglers, put up in drop houses, and then provided the airline tickets to their final destinations. The Las Vegas airport was usually chosen because the Phoenix airport had a greater law enforcement presence.
Arab lesbians gathered Wednesday in Haifa at a rare public event, quietly defying protests from Islamists and a taboo in their own society.
So strong is the antipathy toward homosexuality in their communities that only few of the Arab women in the crowd of about 250 were gay - a sign of how much Arab women feared being identified as lesbians, said Samira, 31, a conference organizer, who came with her Jewish Israeli girlfriend. "We'd like all women to come out of the closet - that's our role. We work for them," said Samira, who battled her own family when they found out she was a lesbian.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
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#2
This is precisely the kind of thing we need to encourage. Free all the bored/battered women of Islam, and the men will hopefully slaughter each other competing for the few that remain.
#3
I guess this part was pretty obvious: Many of the attendees said they were sad that the only place safe enough to hold a conference for gay Arab women was in a Jewish area of Haifa, which has a mixed Arab-Jewish population.
Now if they held the conference in Tehran, or Damascus - that'd take chutzpah!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/29/2007 6:09 Comments ||
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#1
70% rate efficiency is absolutely astounding, I believe this would be a brilliant way of producing power on a MASS scale, maybe only 15 years from now.
One great way to drop are dependency on oil. Think of all the water we use, we can now use it to power us. Recycling is an effective way, and more people should turn to it. (Although Greenpeace get in the way a lot! bunch of muppets.) Greenpeace are so for the world they don't want us to have anymore railways. What a bunch of to**ers jees.
But anyway, I think that with this we can change the world, clean water, make electricity and really make a difference
#2
I don't see this as being more than a niche even if it works out technically. The electricity would only be produced in badly polluted water and the amount of electricity wouldn't be much more than the amount needed to run the water treatment facility, if that; not that the technology is unwelcome, just that its not a savior technology.
A Muslim woman filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against a Hamtramck judge because he dismissed her small claims case after she refused his order to remove her veil while testifying.
Ginnnah Muhammad filed suit in U.S. District Court in Detroit, accusing 31st District Judge Paul Paruk of violating her First Amendment rights to freely exercise her religion and the Civil Rights Act by denying her access to the courts.
Muhammad wore a niqab -- a scarf and veil to cover her face and head except for her eyes -- to Paruk's courtroom Oct. 11 as she contested a $2,750 repair bill from a car rental company after thieves broke into a vehicle she was using. Paruk said he needed to see Muhammad's face to gauge her truthfulness. Muhammad's lawsuit also seeks to allow her to wear her veil at her next scheduled court date, on April 18 before Paruk. The car rental company has sued Muhammad because she has not paid the bill, and it is seeking a ruling from Paruk to order Muhammad to pay.
Given the tight time frame, Muhammad's attorney, Nabih Ayad, is asking the federal court to impose a stay on the Hamtramck case. Ayad also said he would file a motion next week with the Hamtramck court asking Paruk to recuse himself from the case. Muhammad, 42, of Detroit said Wednesday that Paruk's handling of her case made her feel "empty, like the courts didn't care about me." Paruk did not return a message seeking comment.
In the past, Paruk has noted that not all Muslims consider the niqab a religious symbol. He also has said he sought to accommodate Muhammad by letting her wear the veil except when she was to testify. Michigan has no rules governing how judges must handle religious attire in court. In metro Detroit, which has one of the country's largest Arab-American populations, a small minority of Muslim women -- primarily those of Yemeni descent -- wear the niqab.
Frank S. Ravitch, a law professor at Michigan State University who specializes in First Amendment religion issues, said the key question will be whether Paruk would apply the same standard to all witnesses. "If this is seen as a generally applicable law, then her chances of winning are much slimmer," he said. "But ... if this is just a rule the judge made up in her case, then the state's going to have to show a ... really compelling reason for denying her request for an exemption."
#3
banning veils is a bit too much , nanny states need to remember they are countrys that supposedly respect individual freedoms, like wearing whatever clothing you want. It's not adressed in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, its an understood assumption that free people can choose to wear whatever clothing they want.
#4
SG Not true at all. There can be restrictions put on clothing by lots of people.
Nor Shoes, No Service (sound familiar). Courts can set reasonable rules. Showing your face is a reasonable rule. In this case how can the defendant face the accuser if said accuser hides behind a mask, hmmmmmm?
#13
It's not adressed in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution, its an understood assumption that free people can choose to wear whatever clothing they want.
And yet you have a Constitutional right to confront witnesses against you. It's in the Sixth Amendment:
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right... to be confronted with the witnesses against him"
Now, how can you confront a witness whose identity cannot be demonstrated? Someone who's wearing a full-facial covering?
The judge recognized this issue:
"In the past, Paruk has noted that not all Muslims consider the niqab a religious symbol. He also has said he sought to accommodate Muhammad by letting her wear the veil except when she was to testify."
Seems like a reasonable restriction to me. If you're going to testify, you have to clearly be the witness called. We have to be able to see your face and clearly hear your voice.
Would it be acceptable for a Klansman to take the stand in his pointed hood?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/29/2007 17:17 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Would it be acceptable for a Klansman to take the stand in his pointed hood?
#15
#5 What utter bullshit. When one enters a bank, a court room, or a voting booth, one doesn't have a "right" to wear a ski mask.
Or A Klan Hood.
Try wearing a Bikini To Court, See what happens.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/29/2007 19:47 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Now, how can you confront a witness whose identity cannot be demonstrated?
Give RC a kewpie doll! I'm obliged to remove my Fedora in a court of law. I don't get to argue about for even a second. This is just another example of Muslim's seeking preferential treatment. The judge should ask to see this woman's driver's license. I'll dollars to doughnuts that she's not wearing a veil in the photo. If she was willing to comply on that occassion, she has no right to complain about other legal procedings that require her to be unveiled.
I would go so far as to say that a burqa or niqab should not be allowed inside any law enforcement facility. The opportunity for disguise and smuggling of weapons is far to great. In reality, we need to ban all public wearing of the burqa and niqab, but I'll settle for incremental measures if that's what it takes.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil rose more than $1 on Wednesday as escalating tensions between the West and Iran stoked crude supply concerns from the world's No 4 exporter. Rumors of a naval clash between Iran and U.S. or British military forces, quickly denied by Washington and London, briefly pushed U.S. crude up around 8 percent to $68 per barrel late Tuesday.
U.S. crude last traded up $1.17 at $64.10 a barrel. It slipped off its early peak of $64.96 after U.S. weekly inventory data showed a smaller-than-expected draw in U.S. gasoline stocks last week. London Brent crude was up $1.34 at $65.94 a barrel. The rise extended a six-day rally that has added about 10 percent to prices, pushing them nearer the danger zone for consumer nations who fear they could stymie economic growth.
U.S. officials denied market rumors of a clash with Iran, while Britain denied another rumor that it had sent troops to release 15 British sailors and Marines being held by Iran. "Although it didn't happen this time, people think it could happen," said Christopher Bellew of Bache Financial of concerns that conflict had broken out between Iran and the West.
Equity markets fell on the Iran tensions and took another dive after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said uncertainties about the U.S. economic outlook had increased.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/29/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
The process of neutering Iran should involve appropriating sufficient quantities of their oil reserves to compensate for all of the costs involved in kicking their worthless @ss in the first place. Right down to recharging our national strategic reserves for gits and shiggles.
While we're at it, let's also collect on the long overdue tabs for our Tehran embassy, the Lebanese Marine Barracks, Khobar Towers and every last single bit of terrorist meddling that we can bill these shitheads for. I'm talking about each and every medical bill, repair cost and replacement tab for all that we've had to throw against these putrid rotters. We deserve nothing less for finally putting an end to the biggest threat this world's seen in ages.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Bangladesh’s High Court has ordered the electoral roll be scrapped after a January election was postponed amidst complaints the voters’ list was stacked with fake entries. The US-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs has said 12.2 million names were included on the original list either by mistake or in duplication. Former prime minister Sheikh Hasinas Awami League said the now-scrapped list had 14 million “ghost” names on it. Bangladesh is now being run by an army-backed interim government headed by former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed. He has said a new election schedule would only be announced once critical electoral reforms, including a new voters’ list, were in place.
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev dismissed five senior officials Wednesday and invited opponents to take up their jobs, but opposition leaders rejected the offer and urged him to resign. "We are inviting new people. Let's work together," Prime Minister Azim Isabekov, Bakiyev's long-serving aide, told reporters. "The government wants new forces, new people, new ideas. ... We want the republic to be stable. We want society and political forces to put forward their candidates." 
A Muslim woman filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against a Hamtramck judge because he dismissed her small claims case after she refused his order to remove her veil while testifying.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil rose more than $1 on Wednesday as escalating tensions between the West and Iran stoked crude supply concerns from the world's No 4 exporter. Rumors of a naval clash between Iran and U.S. or British military forces, quickly denied by Washington and London, briefly pushed U.S. crude up around 8 percent to $68 per barrel late Tuesday.
