Perry gives the middle finger to international law

By Calvin Palmer

Humberto Leal Garcia Jr had is life brought to an end last night by officials of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. His execution had been authorized by Gov Rick Perry despite pleas from President Obama and President George W. Bush to grant a stay of execution in order to comply with the Vienna Convention.

Leal, a Mexican citizen, had not been informed of his consular rights during his questioning by police, following the 1994 rape and murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda in San Antonio. While there is no doubt concerning Leal’s guilt of the crime, his rights were clearly violated.

Perry’s stance on law and order seems only to apply if he agrees with the law in question. His action does little to enhance America’s standing in the international community when he gives the equivalent of the middle finger to the Court of International Justice.

Perry is Pro Life and yet he signs execution orders with alarming regularity. Life is an absolute and not a relative. But there you go, right-wing inconsistency and hypocrisy writ large.

Perry could argue that he was saving Texas the cost of keeping 38-year-old Leal in prison for the rest of his natural life. Seeing as how Perry has presided over a $30 billion state deficit, despite cutting public services to the bone. I suppose every dollar counts just as long as it doesn’t come out of his pocket and his quality of life remains unaffected.

Perry’s tough stance on the death penalty would seem to satisfy the penchant for bloodlust exhibited by a great many Republicans and its tea party acolytes. It is the kind of bloodlust that saw seven people shot and killed in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on the same day Leal was executed.

It will come as no surprise to find that Perry stands firmly behind the right to bear arms and signed a bill this year allowing concealed weapons to be carried on Texas college campuses.

I bet those victims of yesterday’s Michigan shooting rampage wish there had been tighter control on gun ownership. I doubt the shooter, Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, would have killed those seven people with his bare hands.

Death don’t have no mercy in this land.

Poor health becomes a tired excuse for alleged war criminals

By Calvin Palmer

Lawyers for alleged war criminal former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic attempted to halt his extradition on the grounds of ill health.

“I don’t think the trial will take place. He will not live to the start of the trial,” said Milos Saljic, Mladic’s lawyer. “I will make the appeal to prolong things a little bit, so the extradition does not take place right away.”

Mr Saljic has demanded new medical examinations for his client, aged 69, to test his mental faculties and ability to defend himself in a foreign, international tribunal.

“He is in an alarming state and needs to be examined by an independent team of experts. We think he is not able to be in court and talk about his case because of his neurological problems,” he said.

“He has had three strokes so it is a miracle he is alive anyway. He still speaks incoherently.”

The legal challenge to stop Mladic’s extradition to a UN war crimes tribunal after his arrest last Thursday was rejected today by three judges in a Belgrade court.

Bruno Vekaric, the deputy Serbian war crimes prosecutor, said that Gen. Mladic would be deported to the Netherlands “as soon as possible”.

He is charged with war crimes and genocide for atrocities carried out by troops under his command during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, indictments that include the 44-month shelling of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre.

It seems a common ploy for alleged war criminals to play the ill-health card.

Lawyers for John Demjanjuk, of Seven Hills, Ohio, tried tin 2009 to stop the extradition of the then 89-year-old to Germany to face trial as an accessory to the deaths of 29,000 inmates at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943 on the grounds of his poor health and being too frail to travel.

Surprisingly, Demjanjuk not only survived the trip to Munich but also stayed alive for his 18-month long trial during which he appeared in a wheelchair and at times a stretcher.

Demjanjuk, 91, was eventually found guilty on May 12 and sentenced to five years in prison. Judge Ralph Alt released him, pending appeal, which could take six months.

The German newspaper Bild last week published photographs of Demjanjuk walking outside the German nursing home in Bad Feilnbach, near Rosenheim, southern Germany, where he now lives under the headline, “The Bad Guy’s Miracle Recovery.”

John Demjanjuk Jr. denounced the newspaper’s “sensationalism” and said his father has always been able to walk short distances on good days and that his medical condition is well documented.

I just wish lawyers for alleged war criminals would come up with a different excuse for halting extradition. They could argue their client wants to see America’s Got Talent 2011 or, if they are really a sad case, the Wimbledon tennis championships!

And if Mladic’s lawyer is so convinced his client “will not live to the start of the trial”, perhaps he could also let us in on the winning numbers of this week’s lottery and practice under the name of Mystic Milos!

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and Associated Press.]

Palin’s response to Arizona shooting fails to mention condemnation

By Calvin Palmer

As an Englishman living in America, I find yesterday’s shooting in Arizona of an elected representative both appalling and tragic.

Little is known about the suspected gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, from Tucson, Arizona, who killed six people and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life after she was shot in the head at point-blank range.

Loughner was described by a doctor who treated some of the victims at the scene as a young white man with a “determined look on his face” and wearing dark clothing.

Congresswoman Giffords had narrowly beaten off tough challenge in November’s congressional elections by a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate. She had previously received death threats and her offices had been shot at.

Tea Party idol Sarah Palin in the run-up to the election published a “target map” on her web site using images of gun sights to identify 20 Democrats, including Miss Giffords.

But enough people in Arizona had the good sense to re-elect Giffords to her third term in Congress.

In an interview after the vandalism, Giffords referred to the animosity against her.

“We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list,” she said, “but the thing is, the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realise that there are consequences to that action.”

Her father Spencer Giffords, 75, when asked if his daughter had any enemies, told reporters, “Yeah, the whole Tea Party.”

Palin has issued a brief statement.

“My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona,” she said.

“On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”

If that is the best that someone who hopes to become President of the United States can say about this shocking incident then I fear for America’s future. It is a prime example of insincere sincerity, an unfortunate trait of many ultra-conservatives.

The inclusion of Todd and her family smacks of delusions of grandeur but is in keeping with their ignorant white trash status. No surprise there.

President Obama said the attack was “an unspeakable tragedy” and added: “We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society.

“I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Rep Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers.”

The newly-elected Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, said: “I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff. An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve.”

Notice how the President and House Speaker used words like “unspeakable” and “senseless” in their statements.

Condemnation is notable by its absence in the statement by Palin, which simply proves she truly represents gutter politics and is unfit to hold high office.

[Based on reports by The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian.]

Baby killed by Florida mother for interrupting computer game

By Calvin Palmer

A Florida mother charged with the murder of her three-month-old son by shaking him to death pleaded guilty today to second-degree murder

Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, of Arlington, Jacksonville, was arrested in January after the death of Dylan Lee Edmondson.

The Florida Times-Union reported that Tobias had told police she had been playing a computer game called Farmville on the social networking Web site, Facebook, when Dylan started crying. She said she shook the baby before calling 911 and his head “could have” hit the computer.

“I think what sparked her was … the baby’s crying,” said Lt Larry Schmitt of Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office homicide unit.”It was enough to apparently put her over the edge.”

Tobias also told police after the first shake, she laid Dylan on a living-room couch and went to smoke a cigarette to “gain her composure”. She said the family dog knocked the boy off the couch, causing him to cry. She said she picked him up and shook him again, causing him to stop breathing, at which point she called 911.

The baby was taken to Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital with injuries to his head and a broken leg. He was pronounced dead 24 hours later. The autopsy found abusive head trauma.

Tobias entered her plea today before Circuit Judge Adrian G. Soud. She faces a minimum sentence of 25 years.

Judge Soud offered no promises on what he will order during a sentencing hearing scheduled for December.

Outside the courtroom, Prosecutor Richard Mantei said the plea by Tobias will help avoid the family reliving the tragedy during a jury trial.

[Based on a report by The Florida Times Union.]

Man faces charges after 15-inch penis tattooed on friend’s back

By Calvin Palmer

A man in Queensland, Australia, has found out that his friend is not quite the friend he thought him to be.

The 25-year-old ended up with a tattoo featuring a 15-inch (40-cm) penis on his back, together with a misspelled slogan implying that he is gay.

Police have charged a 21-year-old man from Bundamba, near Ipswich, with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one offence relating to the public safety act. He will appear in Ipswich Magistrates Court on November 15.

Police say the man, who is not a professional tattooist, talked his friend into having the tattoo while the friend was visiting him at home.

After the 25-year-old victim got home, he was horrified to discover the tattoo was far from what he expected.

The tattooing followed a disagreement between the pair that culminated with the Bundamba man taking offence at something the victim said.

Detective Constable Paul Malcolm of Ipswich police said the victim was extremely upset.

“Apparently he went round to the other bloke’s house and somehow in the course of the conversation the subject of tattoos came up,” Malcolm said.

“The victim wasn’t interested at first but he was talked into it and he said he wanted a Yin and Yang symbol with some dragons.

“He rolled him on to his stomach and the bloke started doing the tattoo and there was another bloke standing there watching saying, ‘Mate, it’s looking really good’.

“When he got home he showed it to the person he lives with and she said: ‘I don’t think it’s the tattoo you were after’.”

The man was also allegedly punched and thrown out of the Bundamba man’s house after he was tattooed.

Removal of the tattoo by laser treatment could cost up to A$2,000 ($1,968, £1,243).

[Based on a report by The Ipswich Advertiser.]

Former FBI agent has theory proving Amanda Knox’s innocence

By Calvin Palmer

Amanda Knox is innocent, so says former FBI agent Steve Moore based on his years of experience with the bureau.

Moore argues that when someone’s throat is cut, as was the case with British student Meredith Kercher, blood spurts into the air. Kercher would have lost more than four pints of blood. The killer, or killers, would have been covered in her blood and their footprints would have left bloody trails of guilt.

“You cannot just scrub it off,” said Moore. “Blood is God’s way of identifying the man with the knife.”

Moore feels a great injustice has been committed and is trying to whip up counterparts in Italy to do the work to prove his theory is correct and Knox is innocent.

Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted last December for the murder of Meredith in the house in Perugia, Italy, she shared with Knox.

Meredith’s room was found to be full of full of the finger and footprints of Rudy Guede, a drifter, burglar and small-time drug dealer originally from the Ivory Coast. But there was not a single bloody footprint belonging to Knox or Sollecito.

Moore asserts it is “absolutely impossible” they could have been in the room when Meredith died.

“There are no footprints of theirs in the blood,” he said. “To believe the prosecution case, they would have had to have been floating on a magic carpet.”

Moore claims the lack of clarity in their mutual alibi is not the real issue. The onus is on the prosecution to justify its claims.

In a crime scene, Moore says, “the absence of evidence is evidence of absence” of the key suspects, and the prosecutors did not come close to putting Amanda and Raffaele in the room where Meredith died.

Moore is also scathing about the prosecutors’ “read” on the crime scene, which is contradicted by all the forensic evidence, as if a “group of libidinous adolescent boys had tried to imagine the most lascivious thing that they believed could have happened”.

Knox does not satisfy any of the criteria that might suggest she would harm, never mind kill, Meredith, according to Moore. “In the FBI, we took the view that the simplest explanation of a crime is almost always the best explanation,” he said.

He believes not only does Amanda not fit the psychological profile of a killer in any respect, but she also doesn’t fit the profile of a person capable of violence.

Guede, whose guilt is not in doubt, has already had his sentence cut in half, and it could be cut again, setting him free within a year or two. Knox’s supporters believe a deal has been struck.

Moore is quick to point out that he is not writing a book, not being paid as a consultant by the Knox camp in Seattle. Indeed, his mission to expose the faults in the trial has cost him his job with Pepperdine University. He was fired last month for refusing to drop his campaign.

Pepperdine University has an affiliated campus in Italy and Moore’s campaigning on behalf of Knox was causing political problems there.

So there you have it. The Italian prosecutors got it all wrong. The jury was hoodwinked into delivering the wrong verdict as part of a witch hunt, according to Moore.

It all sounds very plausible, just like the theories that the attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by the CIA. But they are just that theories and devoid of hard evidence and facts.

Is Moore privy to every police report in the Kercher case? No.

Was Moore present at the crime scene shortly after the murder was committed? No

How likely is it that Moore has personal contacts with the police force in Perugia? Unlikely.

Why is Moore the only former member of the FBI to reach these startling conclusions? My guess is personal vanity and ego.

How good an agent was Moore during his time with the FBI? No one knows of his record. It could be that he was an absolute dullard but made good coffee for the rest of the team. He is on record as saying that he quit the FBI because he was tired of foreign travel. Or could it be that he quit because he was still a field agent after 25 years with bureau and had been passed over for promotion on several occasions? We just don’t know but are expected to believe that he is right where everyone else is wrong.

Why haven’t we heard from other law enforcement officers expressing the same opinions as Moore, if they are so self evident regarding Knox’s innocence? Over to you, Inspector Knacker of Scotland Yard.

We only have Moore’s version of why he was fired by Pepperdine University. What is the university’s side of the story? Could it be that Moore was falling down on the job he was employed to do?

His quote, “Blood is God’s way of identifying the man with the knife,” brings into question his credibility both regarding his theory and his abilities as an FBI agent. Perhaps God revealed Knox’s innocence to Moore in a dream. So that explains why the FBI has such a success rate in solving all of its cases.

What we have here is a man in the throes of a mid-life crisis, no longer in a job of any importance and unable to come to terms with his reduced status? What better way to get back into the spotlight, and massage his ego, than to take up this cause célèbre.

Knox is due to appeal against her conviction for murder next month, which probably explains Moore’s timely intervention.

Stefano Maffei, a University of Parma professor of criminal procedure, says the appeal court is likely to agree with the murder conviction but find that mitigating factors outweigh the aggravated ones, which leads to a one-third reduction in sentence.

According to Maffei, 18 Italian magistrates have reviewed the evidence in the Knox case and come to the same conclusion of culpability, which somehow ingrains the decision into the judiciary.

But in the light of Knox’s good behavior, and other sociological reasons, her sentence is likely to be reduced, he said.

The prosecution is also appealing that Knox’s sentence be increased from 26 years to life.

[Based on reports by the London Evening Standard, The Daily Telegraph and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.]

Missing girl feared dead as stepmother appears in court over fake ransom note

By Calvin Palmer

The stepmother of a 10-year-old cancer survivor who was reported missing at the weekend appeared in court today charged with obstruction of justice.

Elisa Baker, 42, of Hickory, North Carolina, showed no emotion as the charge was read out and was told she could be sentenced to up to 30 months in prison if convicted.

Missing cancer survivor Zahra Claire Baker. Picture courtesy of AP.

Zahra Claire Baker was reported missing last weekend. Elisa Baker is accused of trying to throw off investigators with a fake ransom note.

The 10-year-old had battled bone cancer, which cost her left leg. She wore a prosthetic but would tell people she lost the leg to an alligator.

Zahra also suffered from impaired hearing and wore hearing aids in both ears.

Cadaver dogs detected the presence of human remains in the cars of Elisa Baker and her husband, Adam Baker, and also at the place where he worked – Real Tree Services in Morganton, but searches have so far have failed to turn up any evidence.

Last night, Hickory police switched the investigation from missing person to homicide.

Neighbors of the Bakers have painted a gloomy picture of the life Zahra led.

Bobby Green, who helped Adam get a job with the tree trimming company, described Zahra’s mother as a mean woman who could not be trusted.

“I think she’s evil,” Green said. “She lied about everything all the time. She had a short fuse, especially with Zahra, because she was jealous of the time she spent with her father.”

Green said Elisa was physically abusive toward her stepdaughter and thinks she is behind Zahra’s disappearance. He also suspects that Adam Baker may also be involved in the crime.

Fred Causby operates Real Tree Services from his home on Hartland Road north of Morganton and hired Baker as a laborer about six months ago.

Describing Elisa Baker, Causby said, ““I think the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top. She seemed very controlling.”

Family members say they suspect Zahra’s stepmother physically abused her.

Brittany Bentley, of Granite Falls, is married to Elisa Baker’s nephew and said she would have Zahra over for weekends and knew something was wrong.

Zahra “was locked in her room, allowed five minutes out a day to eat, that was it,” Bentley said. “She was beat almost every time I was over there for just the smallest things.

Elisa would get mad. She would take it out on Zahra, things the kid didn’t deserve. She just had a horrible home life.”

Zahra was born in Wagga Wagga, Australia, and moved to North Carolina with her father last year after he met Elisa Baker on the Internet. The couple married in July.

Zahra’s mother lives in Australia but is believed not to have had any contact with her daughter since Zahra was a baby.

An air of revulsion hangs over this story. Zahra deserved a far better fate than the one that has apparently befallen her. If she could not trust and depend on people close to her, whom could she trust? To have battled and survived cancer, no easy feat by any stretch of the imagination, only to fall prey to evil, in whatever human guise, kind of leaves me sick to my stomach at the depths to which some people will descend. And for what?

[Based on reports by the Associated Press, Hickory Daily Record and Sydney Morning Herald.]

Medical journal endorses sale of cannabis in shops

By Calvin Palmer

An editorial in the British Medical Journal is likely to make Tea Party members knock over the milk jug and splutter with righteous moral indignation.

It was their great hero President Ronald Reagan who launched the all-out war on drugs and successive administrations have fought the good fight but to no avail.

The editorial suggests that that the sale of cannabis should be licensed like alcohol because banning it had not worked.

Banning cannabis has increased drug-related violence because enforcement made “the illicit market a richer prize for criminal groups to fight over”.

An 18-fold increase in the anti-drugs budget in the US to $18billion between 1981 and 2002 had failed to stem the market for the drug.

In fact cannabis related drugs arrests in the US increased from 350,000 in 1990 to more than 800,000 a year by 2006, with seizures quintupling to 1.1million kilograms.

The editorial was written by Professor Robin Room of Melbourne University, Australia.

“In some places, state-controlled instruments — such as licensing regimes, inspectors, and sales outlets run by the Government — are still in place for alcohol and these could be extended to cover cannabis,” Room wrote.

He argues state-run outlets could provide “workable and well controlled retail outlets for cannabis”.

Room draws the parallel between alcohol prohibition, which was adopted by 11 countries between 1914 and 1920, and the ban on cannabis.

Eventually prohibition was replaced with “restrictive regulatory regimes, which restrained alcohol consumption and problems related to alcohol until these constraints were eroded by the neo-liberal free market ideologies of recent decades”.

The editorial concludes: “The challenge for researchers and policy analysts now is to flesh out the details of effective regulatory regimes, as was done at the brink of repeal of US alcohol prohibition.”

Earlier this year, Fiona Godlee, an editor of the Journal, which is run by the British Medical Association, endorsed an article by Steve Rolles, head of research at Transform, the drugs foundation, which called for an end to the war on drugs and its replacement by a legal system of regulation.

Dr Godlee said: “Rolles calls on us to envisage an alternative to the hopelessly failed war on drugs. He says, and I agree, that we must regulate drug use, not criminalize it.”

It is patently obvious that the Eisenhower-era mentality to drug use is not only hopelessly outdated but also largely irrelevant to a great many people, far-right Republicans being a notable exception.

I guess state-run cannabis outlets would be another form of big government that they detest, although they do not seem to mind big government imposing its moral views on cannabis on the rest of society and spending a boatload of tax-payers’ money trying to fight an unwinnable war.

Drug use is so widespread, a fact the Tea Party largely ignores but then its members largely ignores most aspects of American life being so engrossed in their own greed and selfishness, only two options remain open to my mind.

Either the penalty for drug possession, even a single joint, should be death by hanging — not the cosy lethal injection that makes the Tea Party feel good about itself — or drugs should be openly available to those who seek them through licensed outlets so governments can make money out of them just as they do out of alcohol and tobacco.

[Based on a report by The Daily Telegraph.]

Gunman fires shots into elementary school playground

By Calvin Palmer

An elementary school in Carlsbad, southern California, was placed on lock down this afternoon when a gunman started firing wildly into the school playground.

Two students, aged six and seven, were both shot in their right arms — the bullets passed through their arms. 

The suspect, Brendan L. O’Rourke, 41, was arrested on suspicion of six counts of attempted murder and numerous weapons violations, said Lt Kelly Cain of the Carlsbad Police Department.

“He is possibly a transient who lives in the area,” Cain said. “He is not cooperating with the investigation. He probably has some mental health issues.”

The suspect, dressed in black, turned up outside Kelly Elementary School in his car shortly before noon.  He was armed with a .357-caliber handgun and began firing into the playground from the sidewalk, Cain said.

Construction workers nearby tackled the gunman before is arrest.

One of the workers, Carlos Partida, got into his truck and was able to knock the gunman down with the vehicle. Other workers then tackled  the gunman.

The bomb squad was later called to examine a propane tank found in the suspect’s car.

Parents were subsequently notified of the incident and told to collect their children.

[Based on reports by the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.]

Student fires shots on Texas campus before killing himself in library

By Calvin Palmer

A lone gunman today fired shots on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin before entering the main  university library and shooting himself.

Colton Tooley, 19, a sophomore math major, fired shots from an AK-47 assault rifle near the Littlefield Fountain about 8:15 a.m., said Police Chief Art Acevedo.

Police officers chased Tooley who ran into the Perry-Castaneda Library and up the stairs to the sixth floor.

“That’s where he appeared to have shot himself, “ Acevedo said.

It is unclear how many shots were fired. Police said four shots were fired, but witnesses described eight to 10 shots in short bursts. There were also numerous reports that the gunman was wearing a black ski mask.

Student Robby Reeb said he was on his way to class when a person sprinted past him saying they had seen a man with a gun.

“I looked up and saw a man in a ski mask, wearing a suit, and carrying an assault rifle. And I called 911,” Reeb said.

Adjunct law professor Randall Wilhite said he had been driving to class when he saw students “scrambling behind wastebaskets, trees and monuments” and a young man sprinting along the street with a rifle.

“He was running right in front of me – and he shot what I thought were three more shots – not at me. In my direction, but not at me, clearly not at me,” Wilhite said.

The campus was locked down for the most of the morning as a search went on for a second gunman. It was later established that Tooley had acted alone.

The university remains closed for the day, and the library is being secured with a barricaded perimeter as a crime scene for the remainder of the day.

University and Austin police officials said the campus likely will reopen as normal tomorrow.

Tooley lived at home in a house on Western Drive in South Austin, which has been a center of activity this afternoon involving crime scene officials. The street is a cul-de-sac and has been blocked off by police.

The University of Texas at Austin was the scene of a notorious shooting incident in 1966 when student Charles Joseph Whitman killed 16 people and wounded nearly three dozen from the 28th floor of the university clock tower, before being killed by police.

[Based on reports by the Austin American-Statesman and BBC News.]