Graving Pizza Leads to Arrest of Dangerous Criminal

Rick Halman is one of Holland’s most dangerous criminals, accused of brutally murdering Sven Westendorp, hardcore Ajax fan, owner of Ticket Unlimited and graffiti artist. He is also suspected of having murdered 24-jarige Bilal el H. in October last year.

After murdering Westendorp, Halman went into hiding. During a raid at one of his hideouts, police found weapons, more than 13,000 XTC pills, almost three kilo of amphetamines, and 30,000 euro. He became one of the most wanted criminals, considered to be armed and extremely dangerous.

The police had a house in Hilversum under surveillance where they expected Halman to hide out. The boys in blue observed delivery of food and dinks, but also noticed that nobody left the house.

In good “The Closer”-style, police saw a man entering the house last Friday at 1am with a pizza. The visitor left shortly after without the pizza box. Police quickly concluded that there must be another individual on the premises and raided the place. They found Halman lying on a mattress in a closed room with covered windows. He did not resist arrest.

No details about the pizza toppings was released.

Verdict of the European Court - Incest Is Prohibited

The European Court decided that the prohibition of filial love (aka incest) is legitimate. A young man from Saxony (in Germany) had filed the complaint. He sired four children by his sister; two are handicapped. He is currently serving three years of his prison sentence.

Siblings have medically speaking a high risk of begetting a handicapped child. That is also one of the reasons for the incest article in the Criminal Code. According to some lawyers, this contradicts the spirit of the law concerning equal treatment. “In such a case, it should also be forbidden for handicapped people to become offspring,” one of them stated. Really?!

For now, prohibiting sibling love is not infringing on anyone's Human Rights. As such, the young German father is correctly serving three years in jail.

The sister (and ex-lover) of the father does not want to have anything to do with her brother. “It’s OK that incest is a felony,” she said. “I don’t have any guilt. I was very young and wanted to be loved. But I would never do it again. I do not want to have to deal with my brother ever again.”

The 28-year old mother denies that she is fighting the 35-year old father for custody of their 6-year old daughter. The girl is the only of the four incest children still living with the mother.

"We only communicate via our lawyers. There are no visiting rights; he is not allowed to visit our daughter. She also does not want to see him," declared the mother. "I do not want another fight about my kids. I do not want Social Services to also take away my youngest." Her three other children are being raised by foster families.

As a lawyer and a human being, I personally applaud the decision of the European Court – not in the least for the well-being of the children....

Justice Department Is Still Going After EBook Price Fixing

The Justice Department is conducting a lengthy investigation of the agency model for ebook pricing. It has now come to a point that it is threatening to sue the "Agency Five" publishers and Apple "for allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books, according to people familiar with the matter."

The Justice Department believes that Apple and the publishers acted in concert to raise prices across the industry, and is prepared to sue them for violating federal antitrust laws.

Under the Sherman Act, corporations face a maximum fine of $100 million for violations. In addition, collusion among competitors may constitute violations of the mail or wire fraud statute, the false statements statute, or other federal felony statutes.

One possible solution would be to preserve the agency model but allow some discounts by booksellers. William Lynch, CEO of Barnes and Noble, is said to have that the agency model promoted a marketplace that provides consumers with choices, arguing that without it a single player (the one that can afford to lose money, using what some argue is predatory pricing) would have an even more dominant market share.

The Justice Department maintains that proving illegal price-fixing "does not require us to show that the conspirators entered into a formal written or express agreement. Price fixing, bid rigging, and other collusive agreements can be established either by direct evidence, such as the testimony of a participant, or by circumstantial evidence, such as suspicious bid patterns, travel and expense reports, telephone records, and business diary entries."

There has been tension in the interpretation of the Sherman Act ever since the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling in the Leegin Creative Leather Products case. The Court reversed almost 100 years of judicial precedent that found vertical price restraints were illegal per se, and substituted a "rule of reason" and recognized retail price maintenance can in some cases have a "procompetitive effect that are in the consumer's best interest."

How will it end? We just have to wait and see......