The world at large seems to have decided I’m either not a ‘fit and proper person’, or that I have no peer group since in all my years I’ve never been called for jury duty! Come to think of it… I can’t say I even *know* anyone who’s been called for jury duty?
If you have been called, or have been on a jury… let me know what it’s like ok??
Just curious.
On the basis of a ‘leaked’ report in Indonesia it looks more and more certain that the death sentences imposed on some of the ‘Bali Nine’ drug smugglers, *will* be carried out.
The report indicates that most of the legal arguments put forward in an effort to have the sentences of heroin couriers Matthew Norman, Si Yi Chen and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen to at least commuted have been dismissed.
These three of the convicted drug couriers decided against joining the constitutional challenge to the sentences made by Scott Rush, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
The appeals for these latter three are expected to be decided later this month.
Any form of death penalty is barbaric an I’m opposed to it from basic principles… but it’s sometimes very hard to feel sympathy for people who all bar put their head in the noose to begin with. What a pointless way to throw your life away.
I was just reading a story at news.com about a caretaker for a property owned by ‘Mission: Impossible’ star Ving Rhames. According to the story Rhames had several dogs protecting the property… some were Bull Mastiffs and and at least one was an English Bulldog. The report suggests the dogs were running loose in the grounds and attacked and killed the man.
The report also said the dogs weighed around 90 kilos each. I can’t recall seeing the breed before so was interested to know what they looked like… so I got the picture below. All I can say is damn they are *big* dogs if this is a representative sample!!! Can you imagine fighting off a few of these if they decided you’d make a nice snack??
Looks like Nicole Richie is off to the slammer for four days. But unlike her frazzled friend Paris Hilton, she did it with style marching out of the court with her head held high.
I was never a particular fan of hers, but if she takes this the way she started she’ll have lifted herself up a long way in my estimation. Admittedly when your as low in my estimation as she and her friend were to begin with this wasn’t too hard… but she did it… and that’s what counts. Isn’t it?? 
All we need now is some reasonable news about that other millionaire crash jetty Lindsay Lohan
The Saudi government has announced a suspension of her execution while negotiations are carried out on her behalf, by the Sri Lankan government and an appeal made for clemency or retrial.
All we can do is hope it succeeds and we wish her and her supporters well.
No word yet on whether this girl has been executed by Saudi Arabia or if her life has been spared.
The case which highlights the lack of justice in the Saudi Arabian Shariah justice system is one being watched closely by Amnesty Internationals and human rights organisations around the world. It’s also being closely monitored by Rizana’s family who live in poverty. They have no money to help raise an appeal, not even to offer to pay the blood money often acceptable by a ‘wronged’ family in order to secure the release of a felon.
There is no real proof Rizana actually did anything wrong other than try her best to take care of a four month old baby despite having little in the way of child care experience. At the time the baby died she had only been caring for it for two weeks. Rizana, now 19, says she was threatened by the parents and so confessed to strangling the child whereas in fact she now says, the baby was choking and she had been trying to clear it’s throat. She withdrew her ‘confession’ saying she had no translators at the police station, no legal assistance, was under duress and may not have completely understood what she was signing. Regardless of any other fact, she was only 17 at the time and a child herself in almost any other part of the world.
The whole situation is sad in the extreme, yet her passing will be just one of thousands of other pointless deaths in the Middle East. Hers will just be more public and preventable.
Sometimes it’s easier just to give in than to fight. I think when it comes to the computer… I’ll just have to give in. There are things I want to say… and this is the only place I can get some of this down somewhere it might be read by a wider audience!
For a start there are cases like that of Rizana Nafeek a young Sri Lankan girl about to be executed in Saudi Arabia for strangling a baby. She was 17 at the time of the baby’s death, had no child care experience, and at the travesty of a trial was not represented by a lawyer. She may be guilty… she may be innocent… with a trial system of the sort she was condemned in nobody will ever really know.
Either way to be executed by beheading is a barbaric end to a young girls life and more especially so when it could well be for the fault of others. I hope the Saudi government will accept there might have been errors in the case and allow her to live. At the very least she should be given a fair trial.
There’s more on this horrific story here in the UK Telegraph.
With one of the stars of The Simple Life already behind bars (Paris Hilton) we are now watching the other part of the duo beginning *her* court case for driving whilst drinking.
Nicole Ritchie is up in court for a second time on a DUI charge. This time she’s facing a mandatory 90 day jail term, and bearing in mind what happened to her friend, is unlikely to get off this time.
From accounts I’ve read, public opinion has turned well against the airhead bimbo brigade who seem to think that because they are ‘celebrities’ they can flout any and all of society’s rules. This is a mistaken premise and they are about to learn that the hard way.
I feel more sorry for Nicole than Paris because her start in life was far harder… nevertheless she *has* lived a lifestyle most of us will never attain and she needs to learn that with privilege comes responsibility.
Still… I hope she copes better than Paris (who seemed to have a total breakdown in prison)… and comes back a new person with a new ethic.
Paris has been thrown back in the slammer screaming and crying for her mother.
I’d promised myself not to write anything about her or her idiotic behaviour but find myself drawn like a moth to a flame. I’ve seen all sorts of comments about how sad it is and how unjust etc that she should be treated in this way.
But this isn’t some adolescent who made a mistake… she’s *26* for crying out loud and she has been around the block more than a few times!!
There is no way she can pretend she didn’t know her licence was revoked and with it any insurance cover she might have had on her car. True, had she hit, maimed, crippled or killed someone her family fortune would have saved the day… as far as paying costs and compensation are concerned anyway… but totally ignoring the law as if it doesn’t apply to you for some reason is no example to set anyone. She broke a serious law and to be serious about it, was only given a token slap on the wrist for punishment to begin with.
For her to be released from prison after three days because she didn’t like it was ludicrous and it was good to see the system pulling itself together and throwing her back inside.
Yes she’s an airhead, and a very rich one… but cars driven by drunk airheads and airheads who’ve had their licences revoke can still cause death, damage and heartache. She and her ilk need to be shown that money, fame and privilege does *not* always mean you can buy ‘justice’.
Maybe this will be the making of her… maybe not. Either way she did the crime… she does the time and should count herself lucky she didn’t get six months inside!
No doubt Ronnie Biggs was a robbing bastard and he led Scotland Yard on a merry dance for 36 years travelling around the world ending up in Brazil after a brief sojourn in Australia. Eventually, old, broke and sick, he decided to return to the UK to finish off the remaining 28 years of his sentence.
He might have thought the intervening years of exile from his home country might have earned him a reduction in his sentence… or make he thought being old and sick might sway the Home Office. In both cases he was very wrong and since his return to the UK in 2001 he’s been banged up in Belmarsh Prison getting older and sicker.
Question is… whether justice is really being served by keeping this sad old man in custody any longer? The guy will after all be 78 this year and bedridden. Surely it isn’t that much to ask that old grievances be relaxed if not forgotten and he be released to the care of his son Michael?
Restrictions can be placed on him by all means… but is it really necessary to keep him banged up? Can he *really* be any danger to society now? Or is he just being kept in out of bureaucratic vengeance for his making a fool out of the government for all those years??
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