Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­ated Press, Ms. Gib­bons has been found guilty and sen­tenced to prison and depor­ta­tion. No word on whip­ping. More to come. . . Update: 15 days impris­on­ment. Update II: Accord­ing to The Daily Mail, the prison where Ms. Gib­bons is to spend her 15 day sen­tence was designed to hold 200 women, and cur­rently houses 1,500 women and chil­dren. On the other hand, Sudanese offi­cials are rumored to have started pro­cess­ing depor­ta­tion papers for this week­end, sug­gest­ing she may be sent home early. Update III: Accord­ing to Ratio­nal Jenn, Fox News, &c., pro­test­ers are demand­ing Gib­bons’ exe­cu­tion. Accord­ing to CNN, her time served [ . . . ]

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British National Gillian Gib­bons, who teaches chil­dren in Sudan, has been arrested and charged with offend­ing reli­gion. She had been held with­out charges for sev­eral days. Today, Sudanese offi­cials filed for­mal charges. She faces a poten­tial sen­tence, if con­victed, of 40 lashes, a year in prison, or a hefty fine. She came under sus­pi­cion after the chil­dren in her class voted to name the classroom’s new stuffed bear mas­cot “Mohammed.” Nam­ing a stuffed bear “Mohammed” is appar­ently offen­sive to Islam, and Sudan has laws against offend­ing a reli­gion. Allegedly, Sudan’s anti-​​​​blasphemy law is religion-​​​​neutral. The class­room con­tained both Mus­lim and non-​​​​Muslim stu­dents. Sudan is 70% [ . . . ]

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Ari Arm­strong, the Soft­ware Nerd, and Gus Van Horn have recently dis­cussed so-​​​​called “Blue Laws.” Ari dis­cusses the Den­ver Post’s edi­to­r­ial sup­port for a Col­orado leg­isla­tive push to over­turn that state’s Sun­day alco­hol sales pro­hi­bi­tions. Soft­ware Nerd men­tions the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Gal­lagher v. Crown Kosher Super Mar­ket of Mass., Inc., 366 U.S. 617 (1961). Gal­lagher is one of three cases on Blue Laws (specif­i­cally Sun­day Clos­ing laws, requir­ing cer­tain busi­nesses to close on Sun­days, often includ­ing alco­hol and liquor retail­ers), decided on the same day in 1961. Gal­lagher and Braun­feld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961) both con­cern Blue Laws [ . . . ]

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Jorja Fox, who plays Sara Sidle on CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Inves­ti­ga­tion, is leav­ing the show! Tonight was her final appear­ance! Appar­ently this is old hat, and had I been pay­ing any atten­tion to the Inter­nets, I would have know this since August. Still, it is quite disappointing.