Author: Ophelia Benson

So those bastards in Iran were having a little joke. Ashtiani isn’t free at all.

Contrary to a vast publicity campaign by Western media that confessed murderer Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has been released, a team of broadcast production team with the Iran-based Press TV has arranged with Iran’s judicial authorities to follow Ashtiani to her house to produce a visual recount of the crime at the murder scene.

Well that’s the right way to determine guilt: take a tv crew to someone’s house and force her to agree with you that she’s guilty guilty guilty.

 Bastards bastards bastards.

In much less good news, our friend and fellow-troublemaker Josh Slocum had a very serious heart attack a couple of days ago. He’s fine now, he assures us, but it was Bad and Scary and Horrible, and he’s only a youngster. So send him your affection and raillery and friendly insults and other helpful things.

Sakineh Ashtiani is free.

Her son is free, her lawyer is free, two German journalists who were arrested Monday for trying to interview her are free.

Her release is a triumph for an intensive international campaign launched by her son Sajad Ghaderzadeh…Ecstatic campaigners hailed the news. “This is the happiest day in my life,” said Mina Ahadi of the International Committee against Stoning (Icas).

So maybe international pressure does work.

The reaction to the NASA-arsenic based life story makes a nice study guide to epistemology and how scientists think and how various distorting influences (like media priorities and funding needs) can bollix things up. PZ set us straight last week almost before the ink was dry, Rosie Redfield wrote a scathing analysis on Saturday, Carl Zimmer talked to a dozen experts on Monday.

Almost unanimously, they think the NASA scientists have failed to make their case. “It would be really cool if such a bug existed,” said San Diego State University’s Forest Rohwer, a microbiologist who looks for new species of bacteria and viruses in coral reefs. But, he added, “none of the arguments are very convincing on their own.” That was about as positive as the critics could get. “This paper should not have been published,” said Shelley Copley of the University of Colorado.

Read the whole article for details; read Redfield’s post; read Jerry Coyne’s post including comments, most of which are from people who know something relevant.