This and That

Judge issues jail threat as New York commuter misery grows:

A judge threatened the leaders of a two day old transport strike with jail as hundreds of thousands of commuters braved worsening conditions in the battle to get to work.

Fine. Throw them in the slammer.

But did they tell me wrong in high school civics when they insisted it’s the executive branch of government that enforces the law?

Not dangerous:

Group sex between consenting adults is neither prostitution nor a threat to society, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Wednesday, dismissing arguments that the sometimes raucous activities of so-called “swingers” clubs were dangerous.

In a ruling that radically changes the way Canadian courts determine what poses a threat to the population….

It took him this long to figure it out?

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush’s secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

In India, a good decision?

Adult movies will be banned from television in the Indian city of Mumbai and the state it’s in starting immediately, a two-judge panel ruled today.

And might sixty years later be too late?

A Japanese court on Tuesday ordered Nagasaki’s local government to pay a total of USD 7,076.07 in back benefits to relatives of a South Korean man who survived the 1945 atomic bomb blast at the city.

No More Taxes (as wholesale fees on cigarettes, anyway):

Minnesota will appeal a court ruling that struck down a 75-cents-per-pack wholesale fee on cigarettes that was expected to raise $400 million for the current two-year state budget, according to the governor.

Does this qualify as another good ruling?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Ten Commandments are displayed as part of what is called the Foundations of American Law and Government.

And in New York, freedom of creak:

A judge has ruled that a chiropractor reprimanded by the state last year for treating horses should not have been censured.

So how many of these rulings are cases of the judiciary taking into its hands that which it should not?

Re Leased. Leased Again. New Lease. On Life.

Hijacker

A Lebanese man serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a U.S. Navy diver has returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany, security and guerrilla officials said Tuesday.

ChemWarriors

But this past weekend, after more than 2½ years in detention, the scientists were quietly released without charges….

Most of the Koreans hauled off by the police in Hong Kong while waging an anti-globalization rally during the World Trade Organization Ministerial Meeting have been released….

Commie-Held Russian Ship

North Korea has released a Russian ship that had been held for two weeks for crossing into North Korean territorial waters….

Predator

A man who says he has been cured of the deviant sexual fantasies that drove him to assault hundreds of male hitchhikers can be released from a mental hospital, a judge ruled.

PM Sharon

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon left the hospital Tuesday, saying he is in a hurry and fit enough to get back to work after suffering a mild stroke, but aides suggested the rotund 77-year-old may not follow doctors’ orders to go on a diet.

With lots of negative-value music out there, this action against freedom ought to have a massive silver lining:

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned all Western music from Iran’s state radio and TV stations

In another display of Red Capitalism we find huge benefits to certain sick people (and I don’t mean so-called “sick-os”):

A Chinese company has begun marketing kidneys, livers and other organs from executed prisoners to sick Britons in need of transplants.

And some (seemingly?) irrational behavior by the Americans brims with good news…for their adversaries! (So much for the President’s assertions that all these folks were to be brought to justice.)

U.S. forces yesterday flew eight newly released “high-value” Iraqi detainees out of the country aboard a special military aircraft….

Next we read some marvellous news tempered with some bad news:

Teenagers’ use of illicit drugs continued to decline in 2005, with sharp drops in the use of methamphetamines and steroids, an annual national survey reported yesterday.

Misuse of household products, which some teens inhale, and prescription drugs, which teens obtain in homes or over the Internet, were areas of renewed concern, government officials said.

And how about them Generals Abizaid and Schoomaker, eh? This non-PC-comments story offers a glimmer of hope that reality might prevail. (I know, a strange sentence, but I know what I mean!)

Gen. John Abizaid spoke recently at the U.S. Naval War College and said the war on terrorism will continue for the foreseeable future, and that the real enemy is not insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan but the Islamist ideology of al Qaeda.

Freedom is on the loose according to the folks at Freedom House. (Just watch out for the contradictory use of despite below!)

The Arab world made small but noticeable steps toward greater political liberty this year, in spite of a war in Iraq and instability across the region….

And finally, from Israel a Go Get ‘Em, Bibi story:

Exit polls last night gave Benjamin Netanyahu a victory in the Likud primary, returning the former prime minister to the leadership of a party in tatters after Ariel Sharon bolted last month to make a third-party run for parliament next March.

A Washington Post story raises the specter of trouble in our own hemisphere:

Morales counts Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez among his political allies, along with leftists in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

If I’m counting correctly, that’s six countries.

Here’s more of the story:

Bolivia’s Socialist presidential candidate, Evo Morales, who has promised to become Washington’s “nightmare,” said his victory was assured in Sunday’s elections after two independent exit polls showed him with an unexpectedly strong lead.

The wide margin means Morales, a coca farmer, will likely be declared president in January. He has said he will end a U.S.-backed anti-drug campaign aimed at eradicating the country’s crop of coca, the primary ingredient in cocaine.

Which raises the question: Who’s next after Iraq?

Iran or Syria or North Korea?

Or one of the above countries in this hemisphere?

Or another spine?

“He said, ‘every time that I’m asked to speak an official sermon on base, when I leave I go back to my knees and ask God to forgive me that I did not pray in the name of His Son.”

Or another heart?

Or stronger convictions and deeper commitment?

Or all of the above?

I don’t know. I do know that it’s too easy to condemn and/or mock military chaplains like the one in this story.

About as easy as it is to be weak, spineless, and compromising in my own life.

Agence France Presse reports another wreck. Oh no!

Twenty people were killed and 77 injured in central South Africa when a bus plunged into a river, police said.

Oh.

It happened in South Africa.

Too bad. Oh well. Why must I be told such “insignificant” news?

I suppose the sensible answer is that I’m part of a global news market. So a news agency from one part of the globe reports something of significance in some other part of the planet and I get the story in yet another part of the earth.

Fine. But is there another dimension to the answer?