[Quote:]

Eleven police forces were today threatened with legal action if they fail to investigate allegations that UK airports are being used as secret stop-overs by CIA jets transferring terror suspects to torture camps.

The human rights group Liberty has called on the chief constables of forces from Prestwick, near Glasgow, to Bournemouth to investigate claims that the airports are facilitating kidnap and torture – which is illegal under British and European Union law.

The move follows international concern over the CIA’s failure to confirm or deny suggestions that it has illegally abducted terrorist suspects and flown them between a network of clandestine detention centres – so-called “black sites” – for interrogation under torture.

[..]

Flight records show that at least 210 private jets carrying detainees apparently leased by shell companies attached to the CIA have stopped over in the UK since September 2001.

[Quote:]

Christenen moeten niet bang zijn voor het islamitische geloof. De grootste bedreiging voor de christelijke grondslagen van onze samenleving komt niet van moslims, maar van ‘dogmatisch seculiere humanisten’.

Tweede Kamerlid André Rouvoet van de ChristenUnie riep gisteravond zijn gehoor in Joure op om “zich geen angst te laten aanpraten voor onze medemensen”.

De fractievoorzitter sprak voor zestig man in De Koepel. Een aantal van hen toonde zich ongerust over de islam. Een toehoorder stelde dat ze de islamiet ziet als de antichrist. Rouvoet toonde zich echter meer bezorgd over de “bijna religieuze kruistocht tegen alles wat met religie te maken heeft” van D66.

‘dre heeft kennelijk goed naar de amerikaanse taferelen gekeken. Ben benieuwd wanneer evolutie op school een probleem wordt..

[Quote:]

Er komt voorlopig geen kopieerheffing op MP3-spelers en videorecorders met een harde schijf. Minister Donner (Justitie) zei woensdag in de Tweede Kamer er op te vertrouwen dat de Stichting Onderhandelingen Thuiskopievergoeding (SONT) hiertoe niet binnenkort zal besluiten.

Daarover was verontrusting ontstaan nadat er binnen de SONT, waar belanghebbenden aan tafel zitten, een compromis leek te zijn bereikt over een heffing die kan oplopen tot 25 euro per apparaat.

Minister Donner én de Tweede Kamer denken dat het niet zinvol is om per land een vergoeding voor musici in te voeren, omdat de apparaten makkelijk via internet in een land kunnen worden aangeschaft waar zo’n heffing niet bestaat. Volgens Donner zit ook SONT op de lijn om eerst te wachten op een voorstel van de Europese Commissie.

Daarmee stelde hij de linkse oppositie en D66 niet helemaal gerust. “Geen besluit van de SONT om te heffen is niet hetzelfde als een besluit om niet te heffen”, aldus Van der Laan (D66).

[..]

Donner wil niet nu al aan de SONT opleggen dat er nooit een heffing op apparaten mag komen. De Kamer én de regering hebben zelf besloten dat de belanghebbenden er zelf moeten zien uit te komen.

Pas als deze zelfregulering niet goed werkt is er volgens Donner reden om te “corrigeren.”.

Wel, we hebben allemaal gezien hoe goed bijvoorbeeld Sony is in de zelfregulering. Kennelijk is dat dan weer géén reden om te “corrigeren”…

[Quote:]

A San Diego businessman under investigation in the bribery case of former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham is a well-known GOP fundraiser whose generosity to key members of Congress came at the same time his company saw large increases in its government contracts, public records show.

Brent Wilkes, the founder of defense contractor ADCS Inc., gave more than $840,000 in contributions to 32 House members or candidates, campaign-finance records show. He flew Republican lawmakers on his private jet and hired lobbyists with close ties to those lawmakers.

Wilkes’ charitable foundation, which aids sick children and military families, honored congressmen at black-tie banquets and donated to their favorite causes. Wilkes was also a “Pioneer” for
President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, meaning he raised at least $100,000.

With help from two committee chairmen, ADCS got more than $90 million in government contracts since its founding in 1995, helping propel Wilkes from an obscure businessman to a millionaire prominent in Republican circles.

[Quote:]

The US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to print stories written by US soldiers in an effort to polish the image of the American mission in
Iraq, a US newspaper reported.

US military “information operations” troops have written the articles, which are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based defense contractor, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Many articles are presented to Iraqi newspapers as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists, the daily said, citing documents it obtained and unnamed US military officials.

[..]

“Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we’re breaking all the first principles of democracy when we’re doing it,” a senior Pentagon official who opposes the planting of stories was quoted as saying.

There are 72 bands hidden in this street scene: you can download a higher-res version at Virgin’s Web site.

[Quote:]

. On Dec. 12, the Federal District Court in Los Angeles will hear a lawsuit filed by a consortium of Christian high schools against the University of California system for refusing to credit some of their courses when their students apply for admission.

Among those courses are “Christianity’s Influence in American History” and “Christianity and American Literature,” both of which draw on textbooks published by Bob Jones University of Greenville, S.C., which describes itself as having stood for “the absolute authority of the Bible since 1927.”

The plaintiffs, the Association of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 schools in California, and the Calvary Chapel Christian School of Murrieta, Calif., contend that their students are being discriminated against because of their religious beliefs. The university system counters that it has the right to set its own standards. Here are excerpts from the disputed texts.

“United States History for Christian Schools,” written by Timothy Keesee and Mark Sidwell (Bob Jones University, 2001), says this about Thomas Jefferson.

American believers can appreciate Jefferson’s rich contribution to the development of their nation, but they must beware of his view of Christ as a good teacher but not the incarnate son of God. As the Apostle John said, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (I John 2:22).

Slavery, which most historians look at politically or economically, is seen as “an excellent example of the far-reaching consequences of sin.”
The sin in this case was greed – greed on the part of African tribal leaders, on the part of slave traders and on the part of slave owners, all of whom allowed their love for profit to outweigh their love for their fellow man. The consequences of such greed and racism extended across society and far into the future. It resulted in untold suffering-most obviously for the black race but for the white race as well. … The Lord has never exaggerated in warning us of sin’s devastating consequences – for us and for our descendants (Exodus 34:7).

Not only does it imply the African leaders were as bad as the whites involved in the slave trade (and certainly they weren’t innocent), but by ordering it that way there’s the subtle implication of their being the most responsible/culpable.

These people are good at what they do. They’re evil, they’re nasty, and they’re smart.

There’s more examples in the article. There’s six students who are filing the suit, although they didn’t even apply to UC. It looks like the fundamentalists are beginning to realize their crap will keep them out of college and are starting to work on changing the state university admission policies. Be very worried about the future of education in the USA.

What’s next? “Physics for Christian Schools”?

E=mc2

Where:

E is energy
m is mass
c is speed of light in a vacuum Christ

Thus, class, we see in this equation the enormous power of Christ which we can unleash upon the heathen world through relativity.

[Quote:]

A failed test of Mercedes’ new radar braking system that resulted in a three-car pile-up last week has been exposed as a sham for the benefit of television that went horribly wrong. Mercedes engineers knew the radar technology wouldn’t work in the steel warehouse the demo was supposed to take place in but they were bullied into “simulating” the test by AutoBild journalist, Michael Specht, according to reports.

Specht conspired with the Mercedes engineers to brake manually, faking the effects of the system. Since drivers wouldn’t be able to see the cars in front of them because of smoke used to mimic driving on a foggy night, a block of wood was used to mark the point where drivers should brake. This plan went awry because the suspension fitted to the Mercedes S-class cars meant the drivers (one of whom was Specht) failed to notice running over the wood, leading to a pile-up.

All this was filmed in front of the rolling cameras of Stern TV, whose staff thought the failure was genuine and reported it as such. But Specht was carrying audio recording equipment which revealed his subterfuge. Specht was fired from MotorBild while a number of Mercedes engineers also face possible disciplinary action, the UK’s Channel 4 reports. Motoring websites have more news on the fiasco which leaves open the disturbing question of what would have happened if the faked tests has succeeded, a scenario that might have created false confidence in the safety technology.

footage was on the Jeremy Clarkson show on BBC2, “Top Gear” of this test. No word about the test being fake during that clip..

[Quote:]

In a telegram on November 21, 1943, Winston Churchill defined a fundamental difference between the Anglo-American way of war and that of our enemies. Churchill wrote: “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”

Perhaps Tony Blair and George W. Bush regard Winston Churchill as a bleeding heart lefty. But what Churchill’s view represents is an old, very basic principle of Anglo-American warfare and justice: fight war with ferocity, but never lose your democratic soul. Meet the enemy on the battlefield with force, but always treat prisoners humanely in captivity. This is never an easy balance, of course. In the numbing smog of conflict, we make mistakes.

Q-Unit: Greatest Hits is an outstanding collection of mashups of 50 Cent and Queen. The mocked-up album covers alone are worth it, but I think I’ve listened to “Crazy Little P.I.M.P. Called Love” about three times already this morning.

(via)

[Quote:]

For Sony BMG Music Entertainment, it has become a public-relations nightmare — and it shows no signs of abating. On Oct. 31, computer-systems expert Mark Russinovich posted a message on his blog revealing that Sony BMG had placed anti-piracy software on music CDs that was difficult to detect and that made customers’ PCs vulnerable to hacker attacks (see BW Online, 11/17/05, “Sony’s Copyright Overreach”).

Since then, Sony BMG has been the subject of countless unflattering news reports and has been vilified in the blogosphere. On Nov. 21, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit alleging that the label is violating the state’s consumer-protection laws, and New York’s bulldog attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, also is looking into the matter (see BW Online, 11/29/05, “Spitzer Gets on Sony BMG’s Case”).

The flap has raised questions as to what Sony BMG knew — and when the joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Germany’s Bertelsmann knew it. Computer-security experts say the company’s response is a cautionary tale for other entertainment companies hoping to make use of copyright-protection software.

Sony BMG is in a catfight with a well-known computer-security outfit that became aware of the software problem on Sept. 30 and notified the music company on Oct. 4 — nearly a month before the issue blew up. F-Secure, a Finland-based antivirus company that prides itself on being the first to spot new malware outbreaks, says Sony BMG didn’t understand the software it was introducing to people’s computers and was slow to react.

By far the funniest part of the Business Week article, if your sense of “funny” is twisted enough, is the final paragraph:

The best lesson that Sony BMG — and the music industry — can take away is to be more vigilant when it comes to the software they ask customers to load onto computers.

Because, dear Business Week, Sony didn’t bother to ask the customer to load anything – they did it without permission. That’s like saying the parrot should be acting less dead.

Oh, and here’s one from the Sony Corporate Dictionary:

“as quickly as they could” == “as slowly as they could get away with.”

[Quote:]

The United States has told the European Union it needs more time to respond to media reports that the CIA set up secret jails in some European nations and transported terror suspects by covert flights, the top EU justice official said Monday.

Obviously, if the Bush administration did not create secret torture prisons, then there would be no need for “more time to respond.” If you’re going to embarrass the country, at least take the time to lie to the world about it semi-convincingly, huh?

[Quote:]

Aspiring rock gods can at last create their own guitar solos – without ever having to pick up a real instrument, thanks to a group of Finnish computer science students.

The Virtual Air Guitar project, developed at the Helsinki University of Technology, adds genuine electric guitar sounds to the passionately played air guitar.

Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a “player”, the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.

[Quote:]

When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don’t see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.

too long to quote…

[Quote:]

Arme landen zijn nog steeds de dupe van wereldwijde handelsregels die in het voordeel zijn van rijke landen. We bieden vandaag gratis muziek aan om aandacht te vragen voor onze Big Noise petitie tegen deze oneerlijke handelsregels. Teken deze petitie voor een rechtvaardige wereld zonder armoede!

Eh, nee, dank je. Ik wil die met DRM beschadigde Sony crap nog niet eens kado hebben. Eigenlijk ben ik diep teleurgesteld dat de Novib het geen enkel probleem vindt om samen te werken met een bedrijf dat zo om denkt te kunnen gaan met mijn computer.

Novib is een van de zeer weinige goede doelen die van mij geld krijgen.. ik denk dat ik dat toch maar moet herzien..

[Quote:]

Miami police announced Monday they will stage random shows of force at hotels, banks and other public places to keep terrorists guessing and remind people to be vigilant.

Deputy Police Chief Frank Fernandez said officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats.

“This is an in-your-face type of strategy. It’s letting the terrorists know we are out there,” Fernandez said.

[..]

“People are definitely going to notice it,” Fernandez said. “We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don’t want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears.”

The goal of terrorism is to achive politcal change by making the population terrified. I guess the goals of a Police State aren’t any different..

[Quote:]

In an earlier post I described how MediaMax, a CD DRM system used by Sony-BMG and other record labels, behaves like spyware. (MediaMax is not the same as XCP, the technology that Sony-BMG has recalled; Sony-BMG is still shipping MediaMax discs.) MediaMax phones home whenever you play a protected CD, automatically installs over 12 MB of software before even displaying an End User License Agreement, and fails to include an uninstaller.

Part of the software that MediaMax installs is a driver meant to interfere with ripping and copying from protected discs. I had believed that MediaMax didn’t permanently activate this driver—set it to run whenever the computer starts—unless the user accepted the license agreement. As it turns out, this belief was wrong, and things are even worse that I had thought.

In the comments to our last MediaMax story, reader free980211 pointed out that the driver sometimes becomes permanently activated if the same protected CD is used more than once, even if the user never agrees to the EULA. This wasn’t apparent from my earlier tests because they were conducted under tightly controlled conditions, with each trial beginning from a fresh Windows installation and involving only carefully scripted operations. I’ve performed further tests and can now confirm that MediaMax is permanently activated in several common situations in spite of explicitly withheld consent.

[Quote:]

“It started as a hobby – I wanted to see how long they’d stay up,” says Mr Askwith.

[Quote:]

As reported by bayprairie at Our Word, the Center for Health and Gender Equality tells us that Bush has broken yet another promise to the world, reneging on his written pledge not to subject African AIDS relief funding to his Global Gag Rule. [pdf file]

In August 2003, President Bush released an Executive Order specifically exempting U.S. global AIDS funds from gag rule restrictions. “The theme of World AIDS Day 2005 is `Keep the Promise.’ In expanding the Global Gag Rule to U.S. global AIDS funding on the eve of World AIDS Day, the Administration has broken its own written commitment not to subject global AIDS funds to these onerous restrictions,” stated Jodi Jacobson, Executive Director of CHANGE.
<…>
According to conservative estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 600,000 women worldwide die each year from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, of which at least 78,000 women worldwide die as a result of complications of unsafe abortion in a desperate effort to terminate unintended pregnancies. In Kenya, where abortion is illegal, complications of unsafe abortion are a leading killer of married women in their twenties and thirties. The Kenya Family Planning Association lost U.S. funding because it refused to forgo the right to discuss the toll of unsafe abortion on the lives of women in Kenya. “Loss of this funding has severely undermined efforts to reduce unintended pregnancy in Kenya through expansion of voluntary family planning as well as to prevent HIV infections in women,” according to Dr. Godwin Mzenge, Executive Director of Family Planning Association of Kenya.
<…>
Under severe pressure from the extreme right in the Republican Party and its fundamentalist Christian base in the United States, the Administration’s global AIDS policy already includes numerous policy shifts and funding constraints that undermine effective prevention efforts.
<…>
Expansion of the Global Gag Rule comes at a time when every dollar spent on prevention needs to be spent in the most effective way possible to save lives. “But expansion of the Global Gag Rule is intended to do one thing and one thing only: It is intended to further undermine effective reproductive health and family planning programs worldwide, a goal of the extreme right in this country for over two decades,” stated Jacobson. “The net result will be increased rates of infection among women, and

the responsibility for this will fall squarely on the Bush Administration policy,” she continued.
<…>
“Expansion of the Global Gag Rule to HIV funding comes at a time when political support for the Bush Administration is waning, and when the Administration is seeking to shore up its `fundamentalist base,’” noted Jacobson. “It is perhaps no surprise,” noted Jacobson, “but this decision shows just how far this Administration will go to play politics with women’s lives.”

Wasn’t the situation in Kenya horrific enough already?

Last May, Stephen Mumo Muia, a night watchman, saw three men in a dark blue pickup truck dump something into the Ngong River, a polluted waterway on the outskirts of Nairobi. Mr. Muia said he tried to chase the men, but they slipped into the night.
In their wake, he found black plastic bags stuffed with 15 fetuses, one full-term. Mr. Muia told his employers at the International Christian Centre that he had seen men at the river before, especially during the rainy season. But there had been a drought this spring–the river was low–and these bags didn’t wash away with the current.
A prominent doctor and two nurses from a local clinic are in jail awaiting trial on charges of murder following a police investigation.

But the bags full of fetuses keep appearing. Just last month, another 20 fetuses were found in the Nairobi River, near Mathare Valley, one of the city’s largest, densest slums. That same week, two women were spotted dumping a bag into a gutter. Inside were twin fetuses, one of which was fished out by a scrawny dog and dropped at the feet of horrified churchgoers.
Provincial police Chief King’ori Mwangi told reporters, “fetuses are being found in dumps all over the city. Our officers are traumatized. They have to collect two or three abandoned fetuses every day.”
Kenya is gripped by an illegal abortion epidemic. While Kenyan church leaders demanding a crackdown on clinics square off against doctors seeking legalized abortion, many here are quietly cursing U.S. President George W. Bush and his anti-abortion policies.
<…>
“The rule has absolutely led to more illegal abortions,” says Dr. Solomon Orero, a prominent Kenyan gynecologist and reproductive rights activist. “It was like passing a death sentence on women who otherwise would have been saved.”
A recent report, titled Access Denied, by Population Action International and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, investigated the effects of the U.S. policy in Ethiopia, Kenya, Romania and Zambia and found dozens of family-planning clinics have closed, reducing a broad range of services to women and their families.
Most of these clinics were located among the poorest of the society in slums and rural areas, and the populations depended on them for other heavily subsidized health services like immunization of the children, vitamin A supplements, malaria treatment, and treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS.

How can we do this? How can we not, when it is so clearly what Jesus Christ requires of us?  These are a few of the God-enlightened people who assure our president that the Bible tells us so.
The grandfatherly James Dobson is a leading luminary of the Christian Right and heads Focus on the Family.

On Focus’ 47-acre campus in Colorado Springs, some 1,300 employees battle against gay rights, sex education and women’s rights with an enormous annual budget of $130 million. Dobson’s radio show, dispensing homespun parenting advice along with jabs at “the militant homosexual agenda,” is heard daily on more than 9,000 radio stations worldwide, giving him an estimated listening audience of more than 200 million.
Focus’ president from 2003 to early 2005, Don Hodel, formerly served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior and head of the Christian Coalition, and now chairs the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of America’s most powerful right-wing leaders that Dobson formerly chaired.
As early as 1989, Dobson came under attack from a fellow conservative evangelical, U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who accused him of “reprehensible” and “homophobic” use of false information about how AIDS is transmitted.

When it comes to fighting AIDS in Africa, Dobson says Bush is doing a heckuva job:

“President Bush deserves praise for his leadership and efforts to provide real solutions to the millions of AIDS sufferers in Africa,” Dobson said. “We cannot continue to offer this country the same faulty ideology that has increased sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy among our own young people.”
For the uninitiated, that means no sex education and no condoms.
Tim LaHaye is best known as coauthor of the apocalyptic End Times Left Behind series, but the little woman in the LaHaye household, Beverly, takes a back seat to nobody. Beverly LaHaye is the founder and “chairman” of Concerned Women for America – whose application for consultative status at the United Nations now has been granted.

In close cooperation with the Bush administration, CWA and other Christian Right groups have gained influence in shaping U.S. positions at the UN regarding abortion, reproductive rights, the AIDS pandemic. Other members of this coalition, including United Families International, International Right to Life Federation, and American Life League, have been granted UN consultative status. Along with such other pro-family organizations as Family Research Council and Heritage Foundation, CWA has applied for consultative status. According to Jennifer Butler, associate for Global Justice Issues with the Presbyterian Church USA’s UN Office, CWA shares the view that the advent of the Bush administration brought a new sheriff to town that would support the Christian Right’s agenda at the United Nations.

The Family Research Council, headed by Tony Perkins, is one of the most powerful and well-connected “Christian” lobbying organizations in Washington, DC.

One of the most disturbing features not listed on Perkins’ resume was his involvement in securing the mailing list of Ku Klux Klansman David Duke for a Louisiana Senate campaign he managed in 1996. Four years ago, reporter Max Blumenthal revealed that <…> in 1996, while Perkins was running the campaign of longtime conservative Woodie Jenkins, the right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana, he “paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list.”
<…>
Tony Perkins is not a man given to uncertainty.
Same sex marriage? It will destroy traditional American marriages, and a constitutional amendment banning it is needed. Comprehensive sexuality education? It encourages promiscuity among America’s youth and abstinence-only sex education is needed in our public schools. Covenant marriage? It is one of the only ways to ensure that people will take their marriage vows seriously and reduce the skyrocketing divorce rate in the country. Judicial activists? Those judges who do the wrong thing need to be suitably penalized.
Money to combat AIDS in Africa? At the urging of conservative U.S. churches, several African American bishops have been rejecting aid to African AIDS victims from churches that allow gay clergy. According to a recent posting at John Aravosis’ Americablog, Perkins congratulated the bishops: “I applaud the actions of the African Anglican churches. No amount of silver is worth sacrificing your duty to your congregation and to God,” Perkins said.

These people are George W. Bush’s kind of Christians. This is what their peculiar version of the Word of God has already wrought in Kenya . . .



. . . and they are hell-bent on making sure it doesn’t change.
But just as James Dobson, Beverly LaHaye and Tony Perkins won’t have the pale tranquility of their Sabbath disturbed by seeing a scrawny dog drop an aborted fetus at their feet as they stroll out of church next Sunday morning, they don’t have to live with this, either.  And that’s just too goddamned bad.

[Quote:]

The Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigation of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has entered a highly active phase as prosecutors are beginning to move on evidence pointing to possible corruption in Congress and executive branch agencies, lawyers involved in the case said.

Prosecutors have already told one lawmaker, Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), and his former chief of staff that they are preparing a possible bribery case against them, according to two sources knowledgeable about the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 35 to 40 investigators and prosecutors on the Abramoff case are focused on at least half a dozen members of Congress, lawyers and others close to the probe said. The investigators are looking at payments made by Abramoff and his colleagues to the wives of some lawmakers and at actions taken by senior Capitol Hill aides, some of whom went to work for Abramoff at the law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, lawyers and others familiar with the probe said.

Former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R), now facing separate campaign finance charges in his home state of Texas, is one of the members under scrutiny, the sources said. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) and other members of Congress involved with Indian affairs, one of Abramoff’s key areas of interest, are also said to be among them.

A model wears a creation made mostly of chocolate during the 8th Annual Chocolate Show in New York, November 8, 2005. (Seth Wenig/Reuters)

[Quote:]

Air New Zealand and Qantas have banned men from sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights, sparking accusations of discrimination.

The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone.

Auckland man Mark Worsley says an air steward approached him after take-off on the Christchurch to Auckland flight and told him to change seats with a women sitting two rows in front. The steward said it was the airline’s policy that only women were allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children.

[Quote:]

De inmiddels wereldberoemde dominomus uit Leeuwarden is illegaal doodgeschoten. Dat stelt het ministerie van Landbouw in een brief aan De Faunabescherming. Omdat de brief niets aan duidelijkheid te wensen overlaat, zei H. Niessen van De Faunabescherming maandag te verwachten dat justitie tot vervolging overgaat.

[Quote:]

Minister-president Jan Peter Balkenende (CDA) heeft ernstige twijfels over een nieuwe Nederlandse missie naar Afghanistan. Dat hebben bronnen rond het kabinet gezegd tegen De Telegraaf. De missie naar de volgens de krant ‘levensgevaarlijke’ provincie Oeroezgan zou daarmee verder op losse schroeven komen te staan.

De premier zou zich voornamelijk zorgen maken dat in de Tweede Kamer weinig steun voor de missie bestaat. Samenwerking met de Verenigde Staten is niet vanzelfsprekend voor het merendeel van het parlement. Vorige week werd duidelijk dat niet alleen de linkse oppositie, maar ook VVD en D66 eerste opheldering willen van de VS, na berichten dat het land het internationaal recht zou schenden. Ook de steeds hardnekkiger wordende geruchten over geheime gevangenissen van de Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst CIA baren de Kamer zorgen.

(can’t find an English summary yet, but the gist is: renewal of the dutch military mission in afghanistan may not happen, partly due to concerns about US human rights violations and secret CIA prisons)

[Quote:]

Award winning comedian Ricky Gervais to present a series of weekly podcast shows that will be available for download over the internet.

The Office star will host a weekly independent talk show to be podcast by the Guardian Unlimited website.

“I want to do a radio show where I can say what I want, when I want and that’s free for anybody who can be bothered to listen,” said Gervais.

The show reunites Gervais and Stephen Merchant with producer Karl Pilkington.

Pilkington previously worked with Gervais and Merchant on their Saturday afternoon show on Xfm.

“I suppose we are trying to create an exclusive club,” Gervais told the Guardian Unlimited website. “We’d prefer this to be a few people’s favourite show than a huge same-y, ineffectual broadcast.”

Gervais and Merchant, with whom he co-wrote The Office and recent hit sitcom Extras, met in radio and co-hosted a show on commercial radio station Xfm for two years.

They returned to the London station for a six-week stint this summer.

The show will be available on the website from 5 December. Guardian Unlimited editor-in-chief Emily Bell called Gervais and Merchant’s humour “perfect for our audience, both here and in the US”.

Excellent!

[Quote:]

Representative Randy Cunningham of California resigned from Congress today after admitting to a federal judge that he had taken $2.4 million in bribes from a military contractor.

Mr. Cunningham, 63, made a brief and tearful announcement to a group of reporters outside a federal courthouse in San Diego after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery. He admitted to taking money from a military contractor in exchange for his supporting the contractor’s efforts to secure Defense Department contracts. The eight-term Republican congressman, one of the most highly decorated fighter pilots of the Vietnam War, also pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.