First this one here:
My friend, the wonderful sf writer Peter Watts was beaten without provocation and arrested by US border guards on Tuesday. I heard about it early Wednesday morning in London and called Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She worked her contacts to get in touch with civil rights lawyers in Michigan, and we mobilized with Caitlin Sweet (Peter’s partner) and David Nickle (Peter’s friend) and Peter was arraigned and bailed out later that day.
But now Peter faces a felony rap for “assaulting a federal officer” (Peter and the witness in the car say he didn’t do a thing, and I believe them). Defending this charge will cost a fortune, and an inadequate defense could cost Peter his home, his livelihood and his liberty.
Peter’s friends are raising money for his legal defense. I just sent him CAD$1,000, because this is absolutely my biggest nightmare: imprisoned in a foreign country for a trumped-up offense against untouchable border cops. I would want my friends to help me out if it ever happened to me. —- Read the rest at Boing Boing.Net
I am not sure why, but something is fishy about the man’s story. The truth of the matter is, when a border officer tells you to do something; you are supposed to do it and not ask questions. I hate to say it. But this sounds like one of those stories that is common among the libertarians; where a border agent tells the person to do something, and they keep giving agent shit, until they finally have to use force to get the person to do what they are told. Here is a perfect example. I might catch hell for saying this; but I think this guy got what was coming to him for being stupid enough to not comply with the border agent’s commands.
Also, from the stack. A story from the far right online publication WorldNetDaily:
An international human rights organization today announced it will pursue a civil lawsuit on behalf of parents who want to control their children’s education and withhold them from explicit sex education and play-acting classes required by the German government.
Joel Thornton of the International Human Rights Group told WND the government in Salzkotten, Germany, is sending the fathers of the children to jail for terms of one week because they have refused to turn their children over to school officials for mandated sex classes.
According to a report from Richard Guenther, European director for the IHRG, eight families of Christians have decided to withhold their children from required sex education classes in Salzkotten.
Sex education classes in Germany are explicit, and the issue is one of the major reasons why families – and not just Christian families – choose to homeschool their children even though the government has maintained its illegality since the days of Hitler.
As much as I would like to dismiss this a far right propaganda; I cannot. I have been following the stories about Germany’s treatment of people who choose to home school their kids, and quite frankly, some of the stuff that I have read is downright frightening. I highly suggest that you read the rest of this article, because it is an interesting read.