Somali girl, 13, executed for being raped

I don't really feel like making any light-hearted comments on the Somali flag right now. Fly it at half staff permanently, in mourning for the whole country.

A thirteen-year old Somali girl, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, who reported being ganged raped by three men, was stoned to death this past Monday.  The public execution was ordered by Islamic militants who accused her of adultery; it was held in a stadium and attended by 1000 spectators.  Amnesty International and Somali media, who initially said Duhulow was 23, provided information on the execution, which took place in the nation’s third largest city, Kismayo.

Somalia is probably the only country on our planet that can give North Korea a challenge in the “most screwed up country” competition.  Since warlords overthrew the country’s dictator in 1991 it’s had virtually no government; it’s among both the most violent and poorest nations on Earth—a quarter of all Somali children die before the age of five.  Recently, Islamic militants, with Al Aqeda support, have gained strength in their fight against what government there is there.  The insurgency has killed thousands of people, gained control of Kismayo, where Aisha was killed.

The execution was carried out by about 50 men who killed another person, a young boy, during attempts by some witnesses to save her.  She was buried up to her neck in the ground before the stoning began.

At one point during the stoning, Amnesty International has been told by numerous eyewitnesses that nurses were instructed to check whether Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was still alive when buried in the ground. They removed her from the ground, declared that she was, and she was replaced in the hole where she had been buried for the stoning to continue.

According to Sheikh Hayakalah, the Sharia court judge, “the evidence came from her side and she officially confirmed her guilt, while she told us that she is happy with the punishment under Islamic law.”  Yeah.  I’ll bet.  I’ll also bet that, on Judgment Day, Sheikh Hayakalah would do anything to be a Sunday prostitute rather than who he is, the man who condemned Aisha in the name of God.

Every soul shall have a taste of death: And only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life): For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception. — Qur’an, 3:185

Cheetah escapes zoo, eats bicycle

This is not the cheetah you're looking for

For those who enjoyed my post about cheetahs on the airplane, you may also like this post, which also concerns both a cheetah and a vehicle, albeit on the other side of the pond.

The BBC and other news outlets in the United Kingdom are reporting on a 3-year old cheetah named Akea which escaped from the Hammerton Zoo.  It was discovered by 9-year old Toby Taylor in his back yard.

Toby had been playing on his bike when he saw the 6ft-long cat, capable of reaching speeds of 75mph, standing 15ft away. Dropping his bicycle, he ran 40ft to the house, where he watched the big cat sink its claws into the bike’s tyres and take a chunk out of its leather seat. “I panicked,” he said. “It looked massive, really scary. I thought it would attack me. I ran as fast as I could.”

Zoo officials came and were able to safely retrieve the cat. They dismissed the idea that Akea posed a threat, saying the hand-reared animal is “completely tame.”  Apparently the cat’s escape was facilitated by a faulty electric fence which has since been replaced.

Toby’s mom indicated the experience was “very scary.”  She added the observation that “you don’t expect a cheetah in your garden.”  Indeed not.

Cheetahs on a plane!

No, this blog entry doesn’t share a title with an upcoming Samuel L. Jackson movie; it’s about a real event!  There were cheetahs.  And they were on a plane.  And one of them was loose!  Well, okay, it was just in the cargo hold.  But still.

A cheetah in its natural environment. Curiously, this picture was uploaded to Wikipedia by user "Jacoplane."

Yahoo has the story.  Apparently, the pair of 1-year old female cheetahs were being transported in the cargo hold of a Delta Airlines flight from the Wildlife Safari Park in Winston, Oregon to the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee.  Somehow, one got out of her cage and was eventually discovered in Atlanta by a surprised baggage handler when she opened the cargo hold (and presumably closed it again very quickly).

Happily the situation was resolved favorably for all involved, human and feline.   Delta got help from the folks at the Atlanta Zoo, who tranquilized both animals and removed them from the aircraft.  There was, however, a delay in passengers getting their luggage, but fortunately none was damaged by the cats.  Note that cheetahs are the only cats that cannot retract their claws.

I’ve always liked cheetahs.  I think as a kid I just thought it was cool that they were the fastest land animal on the planet, able to run up to 77 mph according to one book I had (peregrin falcons and some other bird species can achieve much greater speeds when performing an aerial dive). Unfortunately, cheetahs suffer from very low genetic variability, the result of going through an extremely narrow population bottleneck during the last ice age about 10,000 years ago; genetic research indicates that as few as seven cheetahs that were alive at that time passed on their genes.  The animals are so genetically similar that skin grafts between unrelated cheetahs are rarely rejected.  Negative consequences of this paucity of genetic variation include trouble breeding, high mortality among cubs, and poor immune systems.  I wonder if their inability to retract their claws is also related?

In any event, to learn more about these fascinating and beautiful animals, see Wikipedia’s article thereon.  And, hopefully, more cheetahs won’t be getting loose on planes anytime soon.

News and thoughts on California’s Proposition 8

MSNBC reports that the contest to pass or defeat California’s Proposition 8 is the second most expensive political battle in the country this year, trailing only the bajillions of dollars being spent by McCain and Obama—but mostly Obama—in their battle for the White House.  Proposition 8, which I previously blogged about here, would amend the California Constitution to remove the right of same-sex couples to marry.  This blog opposes the measure and hopes that Californians will defeat it at the ballot box on Tuesday.

It may be the best state flag with writing on it... but it's still got writing on it! Grrr.

The latest polls indicate that 49% of respondents intend to vote no (and support protecting the rights of same-sex couples) and 44% intend to vote yes (and remove the marriage rights of same-sex couples); the remainder are undecided.  Apparently, most people who are undecided in the final days of such campaigns on controversial social issues tend to vote no.  So, the smarter money would be on the measure not passing, though it is sure to be close.  Incidentally, Intrade speculators are indeed putting their money on it not passing; current market consensus is that it has about a 25% chance of success.

I am disappointed and distraught that Proposition 8’s main supporters are, with no exceptions that I know of, all part of my own religious tradition, Christianity.  Formerly, Christians like William Wilburforce—who successfully lobbied against the slave trade—and Martin Luther King, Jr.—who championed civil rights—were all about expanding human freedom; it’s unfortunate that that’s not the case in the present instance.  It is furthermore unfortunate that Prop 8 supporters and others similarly minded people—when they address the issue at all—make such flimsy arguments about why the parts of the Mosaic Code that they want to impose on other people must still be followed but the parts that they don’t want to be held to don’t apply any more.  I think they also damage their standing with their claims about the alleged harms of permitting same-sex marriage, which, at best, are all out of proportion to the evidence and, more commonly, are in direct contradiction to it.

Andrew Sullivan has interesting blog posts here and here on the enourmous amount of money that Later Day Saints (Mormons) are donating to the pro-8 cause.  Though they’re only about 1.5-1.8% of the state’s population, apparently about 30-40% of all pro-8 money is coming from Mormons (not all of them in-state).  The second Sullivan piece indicates that the total might be as high as 77%, but that figure seems insufficiently sourced and is pretty unbelievable to me.  He writes that LDS efforts are “about consolidating the Mormon church into the wider Christianist movement. If the Mormons can prove their anti-gay mettle, they will be less subject to suspicion from evanglicals.”  He quotes another gentleman who says that “For whatever reason, [Mormons are] trying to get some respect from other religions. … They’ve always been looked down upon by the Christians, the Catholics, and evangelicals” but would gain credibility if the marriage succeeds.  An interesting analysis.

The LDS Church is by no means monolithic, however (few religions are).  Mormons for Marriage have an excellent website explaining why they respectfully oppose Proposition 8 and are actively working to promote marriage rights.  (It strikes me as Orwellian how so many groups that are against marriage rights for certain people get themselves considered the “pro marriage” side.)  Check out their site; it’s very well organized and contains lots of information.

I feel that it’s very likely that by 2030 same-sex marriage will be legally available to most, if not all, Americans.  This current opposition is another one of those things some Christians think is a really good idea (and others think is really bad) that the church is going to have to come to terms with  and eventually apologize for.  Sort of like slavery, the inquisition, and the crusades.  Though I will say that taking away a person’s right to marry is nowhere near as bad as taking away his or her life or freedom.  Society is making progress; we’ve decided that it’s not okay to kill or enslave people and now are discussing if it’s okay to let them marry.

Anyway, here are some No On Prop 8 ads that imitate Apple’s “I’m a PC/I’m a Mac” ads.  Even if you disagree with the points raised, you may find them amusing.  I especially like the second one which features the Constitution of California, who’s a lot more attractive than I thought she’d be, given that she’s one of the longest state constitutions in the country, albeit nowhere near as long as the monstrosity that Alabama uses.

California polls close at 8:00 pm local time, 11:00 pm eastern time.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this initiative.

Thoughts on progressive taxation, redistributing wealth

Here is a quick, multiple choice, quiz.  First, consider the following quote:

The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

Now, who said that?

(A) Karl Marx
(B) Vladimir Lenin
(C) John Maynard Keynes
(D) Adam Smith

I’ll get to the answer shortly. I bring it up due to recent discussions on the “redistribution of wealth” in the context of the imminent presidential election.  Specifically, John McCain criticizing Barack Obama for wanting to “spread the wealth around” and such.  But, as a recent Slate article points out,

Government redistributes wealth to some extent by its very existence, since it’s impractical for citizens to pay for or benefit from it in equal proportion, even if that were desirable. So long as you have a system of taxation and a spending on public goods like education and roads, some people will do better in the bargain than others.

The same article points out that McCain himself supports all sorts of programs that unquestionably distribute wealth, including inter alia Social Security, Medicare, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.  And he opposed President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts on the grounds that they unfairly favored the rich.  (He has since changed his mind.)  And then there’s McCain’s hero, Theodore Roosevelt, who said this:

We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. … The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

Slate argues, in another article, that McCain should either stop calling Teddy Roosevelt his hero or should stop calling Obama a Socialist. T. R., after all, supported the 16th Amendment which authorized progressive income taxes.  That first Slate piece then critiques claims that, while McCain’s redistributive policies are okay, Obama’s are far different and go too far.  But if you’ve read that article you already know that.

McCain might call this man a Socialist for wanting to redistribute the wealth of nations

And you also know the answer to the question which lead off this post.  So, who did say that people “ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities”?  Was it Karl Marx?  Or Lenin? Hopefully you didn’t guess either of them; they weren’t very big on any sort of private revenue at all, let alone protecting it with the state, whose existence Marx disdained.  So it must have been Keynes, right?  Nope.  The correct answer is (D) Adam Smith. The quote is straight from The Wealth of Nations—Book V, Chapter II, Part 2 to be precise.  If, like me, you own the Modern Library edition you’ll find it on page 888.  I was pleased to see that I’d underlined that particular passage when I had last read the work.

Anyway, arguments against progressive taxation have long seemed a bit inconsistent to me.  Bill Gates must pay at least tens of thousands of times as much as I do in income taxes. But does he get tens of thousands of times more use out of the Interstate Highway System?  Does the U.S. Army protect his freedoms a million times more than they do mine?  Sure, he’s got more property to protect, but we’d both be about equally upset if the Canadians invaded and destroyed our homes.   So, unless you want a poll tax, where everyone pays the same dollar figure regardless of income, or to have everything based on user fees, you are in favor of redistributing wealth.  But, don’t worry, you’re in good company.