Magic Statistics

The Church of St John the Baptist in Pec, Serbia, has been vandalised and desecrated.  (Pec is the second largest city in the province of Kosovo.)  The church was restored last year under the auspices of the Council of Europe.  The door was broken and all the windows smashed.

The walls were inscribed with derogatory graffiti and garbage was brought in and scattered all over the courtyard. Among the graffiti are the acronyms UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army) and TMK (Kosovo Protection Corps). The door of the church was found broken and at the time when the photos were taken the police had not secured the site.

Glenn Penner of Voice of the Martyrs Canada was in the former Yugoslavia during the 1980s.  He believes that the international community is ignoring persecution of Serbian Christians by Muslims in Kosovo because of atrocities perpetrated by the former Serbian government.  This is particularly unfair because the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church spoke out against those crimes when they were committed.

I was in Albania in 1998 when NATO began flying over Kosovo and I remember the ill feelings towards the Serbs at the time.  My prayer is that we can move beyond that and try to remember that there are Christians in the region who are now suffering the consequences of their former government's deeds.

Kosovar Muslims have conducted a campaign of persecution of Christians and vandalisation of historic Orthodox sites.  Some believe that, as Muslims were once victims of ethnic cleansing, so now Muslims seek to drive Orthodox Serbs from Kosovo.

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If current trends continue, Alaska’s largest city is headed for its coldest March on record.

Perhaps instead of "Big Wild Life," Anchorage should consider the motto "Really Really Cold." The city has seen unseasonably frosty temperatures for an unusually long period, according to the National Weather Service.

It started around Feb. 18: The average low was 12 degrees, with 26 degrees the normal high. But Anchorage peaked at 25 degrees and dipped down to 8 degrees. Compared to what was to come, that was balmy. In the days between Feb. 18 and March 13, Anchorage saw an average daily temperature of just 9.2 degrees — 12.2 degrees below the 55-year average for the time.

That 9.2 degree average is tied with 1971 as the second-coldest on record for that time span. In 1956, daily temperatures averaged 7.2 degrees for the period.
. . .
If it lasts, this could be the coldest March on record, [National Weather Service spokesman David] Vonderheide said.

(All temperatures measured in Fahrenheit.)

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A man was caught on video tape crashing his SUV through the glass doors at the Augusta (Georgia) Mall and driving through the mall like he was motoring down the street.  Stephen Lowe was arrested in the parking lot and charged with DUI and other offences.  For good measure, he resisted arrest, so police had to utilise pepper spray to subdue him.

"He drove through locked glass doors. Continued through the mall and made a left turn and proceeded toward where the new food court is. When he gets to the new food court, the vehicle turns right. The vehicle then drives through those glass doors and exits the mall," Lt. Tony Walden of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office said.

The screen shot below shows the SUV cruising past the food court.  Watch the whole thing here.

In related news, an Indiana teenager caught doing 93 mph in a 45 mph zone told police he was speeding to meet the terms of a court order given to him following a previous speeding incident.

[H]e had to get back home in time to comply with the court order requiring him to ride the school bus.

The teen . . . told police that as part of his punishment from a prior speeding ticket, he was court ordered to ride the school bus.

The young man has now been charged with reckless driving.

h/t: Stupid Crimes and Misdemeanors

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A Tucson, Arizona, couple were charged with concealment of a human corpse after the body of a newborn infant was found buried in their back yard.  Their lawyers have filed for dismissal, arguing that a premature baby is not human.

The body of a 4lb, nearly full term baby boy was discovered buried inside two buckets, one filled with water, in the backyard of Regina Lockwood's Tucson home, the Arizona Daily Star reported March 14.

Lockwood and friend Nicholi Grimm have each been charged with one count of abandonment or concealment of a dead human body or parts thereof, and one count of conspiracy.

Defense lawyers Natasha Wrae and Tom Norton asked the Arizona Court of Appeals on Tuesday to dismiss the case on the grounds that as a premature baby is not considered a human being, no crime could have occurred.

Not human?  Was it a dog baby?  A cat baby?

The defence attorneys are at a distinct disadvantage in this case, for they apparently failed high-school biology.  Not so the judges.

Appeals Court Justices William Brammer, Peter Eckerstrom and Philip Espinosa responded to Wrae's plea for dismissal with an onslaught of questions, the Star reported.

"If they're not human remains, what are they?" Justice Espinosa asked.

Predictably, defence counsel dodged the question.

Wrae responded by stating that in order for a fetus to become human it must be born and it must be alive.

To what species does the dead baby belong, then?

Previous related post: US courts oppose scientific fact about abortion

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