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Meanwhile, in Europe

While we were celebrating Thanksgiving here in the U.S.A, here are some interesting things that were happening in Europe:

Testimony has concluded in the Italian trial of American college student Amanda Knox, accused of participating in the murder of her British roommate as part of some bizarre sex game. Because of the intricacies of the Italian justice system, it’s tough to predict when we’ll get a verdict and what it will be, so stay tuned.

A father is facing the equivalent of manslaughter charges in Germany for not keeping his firearms locked up, which enabled his 15-year-old son to take the guns to school, well-stocked with ammo, and shoot several people before committing suicide. As in the case of the Missouri 15-year-old in my previous post, I guarantee there were warning signs that the kid was dangerous. So, while I believe that every parent who owns guns should prevent his/her children from accessing the guns and causing a tragedy, I’m inclined to think that it’s probably particularly-appropriate to hold the father accountable in this case.

Fugitive film director Roman Polanski has reportedly been released from a Swiss jail and will be allowed to remain under “house arrest” at his home until Swiss authorities decide whether to extradite him to the U.S.A. to face justice for allegedly drugging and having sex with a 13-year-old back in the late 1970′s and then fleeing the country to avoid prosecution. If you’re interested in this case, I wrote about it previously on 9/28/09 and 10/2/09.

And finally, as an international “summit” in Denmark on the subject of climate-change approaches, emails from a leading proponent of man-made global warming (and an advocate of combating it with draconian restrictions on economic and personal freedom) have been published in which the scientist appears to have been willing to conceal and/or alter climate data that’s contrary to his theories. Sounds like a clear case of “confirmatory bias,” in which this guy is so emotionally (and perhaps financially) invested in a particular position that he refuses to experience the “cognitive dissonance” (psychological discomfort) associated with even entertaining the possibility that his position is flawed. Now I know I’m a psychologist, not a climatologist, but I’ve been saying this for years: Just watch a History or Discovery Channel show about the history of our planet, and you’ll see that it’s been warming up and cooling off since it’s been here, and it’s been a lot warmer and cooler than it is now a lot of times before humans were even here, let alone driving cars and spraying hairspray. Therefore, I need to see a lot more conclusive proof that there’s impending doom, both caused and preventable by us, before I’m willing to consider supporting restrictions on our freedoms in response.

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