News: Saddam, sex 'crimes'

Today's Gulf Times has an interesting article on the local Mixed reaction to Saddam verdict. There's little consensus on Saddam, but enormous consensus on the general suckitude of the United States.

Since I am endlessly fascinated/horrified by Qatar's prosecution of consensual sex acts, there are many items of interest in today's Court Roundup. Most interesting, I think, is the story called "Illicit Relations," which informs us that a Turkish man faces death by stoning because he and his Filipina girlfriend admitted to adultery. (The woman involved is not up for the death penalty; since she's Christian, shari'ah doesn't apply to her.) "Legal sources" say that, in similar cases in the past, the guilty parties have been persuaded to retract their confessions so they don't have to be executed.

Living here makes me feel very strongly about the separation of the public and private spheres. It's a little embarrassing, I feel, when a government's laws are so invasive that it has to ask people to lie about their personal lives so it isn't forced to punish them.

help! book on Christianity

A few months ago I read an LJ entry that discussed a book on the author's problems with Christianity. My LJ friend listed maybe 10 such problems; the only one I remember stated that progressive Christianity isn't any more useful than traditional Christianity, because it interprets Christianity in the light of an external value system and therefore adds nothing that can't be found outside religion.

If anybody knows what the heck book I'm talking about, please let me know.

CMU 'terrorists'

Pardon three posts in one day, but this needs to be shared:

Heinz Field arrests spur terror response

Two CMU(-Pittsburgh) students tried to climb a fence into Heinz Field in the middle of the night, apparently to shoot an amateur music video. They were arrested on suspicion of terrorism and are being held in Allegheny County Jail for $1 million bond each.

They're from Long Island and Morgan Hill, and one is an honor roll student. They were driving a Lexus SUV. Oh yeah, and they coincidentally aren't white. Hmm. I wonder if that's at all related to the response.