Responsible when it isn't your fault.

Makes all the sense in the world. A Saudi man has been sentenced to four months in prison and 50 lashes "for failing to try and prevent a friend from taking a fatal drug overdose." He won't be appealing the court's decision and has "confessed to having been with his friend and letting him take the lethal overdose." The short article does not specify what the drug was or how it was administered. Using that kind of logic I am responsible for my Sister's broken clavicle many years ago. She got on a bicycle that was too big for her [it was my Brother's bike] and ended up going down a hill and braking with the front brake instead of the rear brake or something like that. The result was her going over the handle bars and breaking her collar bone. I was the only one at home with her at the time. I should have stopped her. I didn't. It is my fault. I'm sorry that I laughed so hard when it happened didn't prevent you from getting in that bike accident. Dear Brother is also sorry I did not stop you. You screwed up his $500.00 bike big time. Wait. That's my fault, too.

In my never-ending quest to only blog "about how violent Saudis are" [read the comment an anonymous but "proud arabic (sic) woman" left] I found this: A woman has been sentenced to one-and-a half years in prison and will be given 300 lashes "for filing false complaints against government officials." [I think we can all agree that 300 lashes is pretty dayum "violent."] The complaints, whatever they were, are not detailed, but if it is true and she filed false complaints then she deserves a just punishment.* The woman's husband is demanding "the immediate release of his wife describing her detention as illegal." How is it that the woman is currently detained, in jail, with their baby? Why doesn't the husband have the baby? And why is it that in this particular case the husband has been identified by name? If the woman is not released immediately her husband plans to "file a case against them." Them, being the authorities. The verdict threatens to "strip her of her Saudi nationality" if she ever does whatever she did again. Hmmph. What nationality is the husband and what nationality is the woman, originally? "The woman was also charged with making visits to government offices, over a case against her husband, without the company of a legal male guardian." [Emphasis, mine.] Phfft. Who says women don't have rights, here?!

Ut-oh. Crime of the century. The police are on it, "seeking to locate the whereabouts of a second man" involved with stealing blankets. Yes. Stealing blankets. One man, a foreign national, has been detained. "A police spokesman said that investigations with [him] would continue to 'establish the motives behind the theft of the blankets.'" Perhaps he was cold. Does that help?

*Lest someone think that I believe it is only over in the Sandbox that it would be possible for a woman to file false complaints, that is not so. Off the top of my head I can think of at least one hugely false complaint filed by a woman in the States, Crystal Gail Mangum. Was she ever punished for what she did? A year and a half in prison and 300 lashes would not have punished her severely enough.