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Gadhafi blames Osama bin Laden for savage clashes across Libya
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Mr. Gadhafi accused al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden of being behind the uprising in Libya, in a rambling phone call to state TV.
Charges initiated against Pope for crimes against humanity
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TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity.
Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.
Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.
They claim the Pope “is responsible for the preservation and leadership of a worldwide totalitarian regime of coercion which subjugates its members with terrifying and health-endangering threats”.
They allege he is also responsible for “the adherence to a fatal forbiddance of the use of condoms, even when the danger of HIV-Aids infection exists” and for “the establishment and maintenance of a worldwide system of cover-up of the sexual crimes committed by Catholic priests and their preferential treatment, which aids and abets ever new crimes”.
They claim the Catholic Church “acquires its members through a compulsory act, namely, through the baptism of infants that do not yet have a will of their own”. This act was “irrevocable” and is buttressed by threats of excommunication and the fires of hell.
Christchurch earthquake – The Big Picture
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With hundreds still missing, and 75 already confirmed dead, rescuers struggled to find survivors on the second night after a devastating earthquake struck Christchurch, New Zealand’s second largest city Tuesday. Buildings crumbled into the streets after the 6.3 magnitude earthquake, which geologists consider an aftershock to a 7.1 earthquake that caused no casualties in September. Tuesday’s temblor was more devastating and deadly because it was centered only six miles from the city’s center and hit during the middle of a workday. The Government has declared a national state of emergency. Officials estimated there could be 100 people trapped in the CTV building alone. — Lane Turner (36 photos total)
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The collapsed Pyne Gould Guinness building trapped dozens of people. “We’ve been pulling 20 or 30 people out of those buildings right throughout the night,” police Superintendent Russell Gibson said Wednesday morning. (Mark Mitchell/AFP/Getty Images) #
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Despite 861.5 Percent Growth, Android Market Revenues Remain Puny
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You read the headline “Android Market grows a staggering 861.5 per cent”, and you think, “Wow, Android is really on a tear.” But then you look at the fine print, and you realize that Android Market revenues are still barely registering, and that the only reason they grew so much in 2010 was because in 2009 they were nearly non-existent.
According to a chart making the rounds from UK-based research firm IHS, Android Market revenues in 2010 came in at an estimated $102 million, up from $11 million the year before.
And how did that compare to revenues from Apple’s App Store? Apple App Store revenues came in at an estimated $1.7 billion in 2010, almost 20 times bigger than Android. And Apple App Store revenue grew at a not-too-shabby 131.9 percent rate. More importantly, Apple accounts for 83 percent of the total estimated app store revenues.
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Julian Assange to be extradited to Sweden
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange will appeal, his legal team confirmed. If this is unsuccessful, he will be extradited to Sweden in 10 days.
Tennessee bill would jail Shariah followers
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A bill in the Tennessee General Assembly would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.
Two legislators introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who’s practicing it.
[..]
“What do you mean, really, by saying I can’t abide by Shariah law?” he said. “Shariah law is telling me don’t steal. Do you want me to steal and rob a bank?”
The Attorney General’s Office had no comment.
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Are you better off today than you were four, no, forty years ago?
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Average incomes in the US grew $2,388
The Most Shocking/Depressing/Enraging Interactive Infographic You Will See Today unless you’ve been in the “top 10%” since 1969.
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Captain Picard uses Android smartphones with an unlimited data plan
Middle East
What happens after Yahoo acquires you
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Whether it’s Flickr, Delicious, MyBlogLog, or Upcoming, the post-purchase story is a similar one. Both sides talk about all the wonderful things they will do together. Then reality sets in.
Libya’s Gaddafi wages bloody war against protesters
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"The only thing we can do now is not give up, no surrender, no going back. We will die anyways, whether we like it or not. It is clear that they don’t care whether we live or not. This is genocide," said Mahry, 42.
Beddington goes to war against bad science
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Government Chief Scientific Adviser John Beddington is stepping up the war on pseudoscience with a call to his fellow government scientists to be “grossly intolerant” if science is being misused by religious or political groups.
In closing remarks to an annual conference of around 300 scientific civil servants on 3 February, in London, Beddington said that selective use of science ought to be treated in the same way as racism and homophobia. “We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality…We are not—and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this—grossly intolerant of pseudo-science, the building up of what purports to be science by the cherry-picking of the facts and the failure to use scientific evidence and the failure to use scientific method,” he said.
Beddington said he intends to take this agenda forward with his fellow chief scientists and also with the research councils. “I really believe that… we need to recognise that this is a pernicious influence, it is an increasingly pernicious influence and we need to be thinking about how we can actually deal with it.
”I really would urge you to be grossly intolerant…We should not tolerate what is potentially something that can seriously undermine our ability to address important problems.
“There are enough difficult and important problems out there without having to… deal with what is politically or morally or religiously motivated nonsense.”
Puzzle
Opt out, opt in, sell out, capitulate?
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Apple’s new App Store rules now mandate that users themselves must decide whether they want to give their own personal info to publishers when they subscribe.
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Put simply, publishers don’t want readers to opt in, because they know readers will prefer to opt out. Transparency is not a friend of publishers who for decades made a mint by selling out readers to advertisers and list brokers. Most readers may not be aware of this, but those who are don’t like it. Publishers know that and hate Apple for calling their bluff. If personal info harvesting isn’t essential for publishers’ business model and it is in the interest of readers, then why would they be against an instant referendum in the form of the opt in button?
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InduceBrowserCrashForRealz
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Oracle: ‘Eight Android files are decompiled Oracle code’
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Oracle has claimed that Google derived its Android code from the specifications for "hundreds" of Oracle’s copyrighted Java files, and that at least eight Android files are actually decompiled Oracle object code.
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But it went a few steps further in its letter (PDF) to the court. Well-known open source watcher Florian Muller called it “the single most interesting document in this whole lawsuit to date as far as the copyright part of the case is concerned “.
Oracle says that in the case, it has identified fifty-one Java API packages – about a third of Java’s APIs – that contain numerous class files under Oracle copyright. All told, the company has pinpointed 14 Java copyrights infringed by Google, and it “expects” that case discovery will reveal more. “Thus, contrary to Google’s ‘we only took a little bit’ argument, Google derived its Android code from the specifications for hundreds of Oracle’s copyrighted Java files,” the letter reads. The emphasis is Oracle’s.
The Beatles performing Smack My Bitch Up
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$40 billion ‘missing’ from Iraq accounts
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BAGHDAD, Feb 21, 2011 (AFP) – Around $40 billion are “missing” from a post-Gulf War fund that Iraq maintains to protect the money from foreign claims, its parliamentary speaker said on Monday.
“There is missing money, we do not know where it has gone,” Osama al-Nujaifi said at a news conference in Baghdad. “The money is around $40 billion in total.”
“It may have been spent somewhere, but it does not appear in our accounts, so parliament will investigate where this money has gone.”
Nujaifi did not say when or how the discovery had been made regarding the missing money. He said two investigative committees had been formed to track down the cash.
Petraeus’s comments on coalition attack reportedly offend Karzai government
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To the shock of President Hamid Karzai’s aides, Gen. David H. Petraeus suggested Sunday at the presidential palace that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties, according to two participants at the meeting.
Prepare Spaceball 1 for immediate departure.
And change the combination on my luggage.
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Mark your calendar!
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Gabon: The forgotten protests, the blinkered media
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The global media’s attention is focused on the revolutions sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East, with Egypt – and to a lesser extent Tunisia – being most prominent. But not all revolutions are blessed with this level of attention. The West African nation of Gabon is currently also in popular revolt. What, you haven’t heard about it yet?
Warship defects to Malta
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A Libyan warship arrived in Malta on Tuesday after its crew refused to carry out orders to bomb Benghazi, the satellite network Al Jazeera reported.
A second Libyan ship has also reportedly been sighted in the area, the network reported.
You know, if W had just waited a few years, you’d have seen a similar uprising in Baghdad…
Deepak Chopra answers a question.
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Arizona jury condemns anti-immigration activist to death
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A jury on Tuesday sentenced the leader of a small Arizona group opposed to illegal immigration to die for her role in the home invasion shooting deaths of a father and his 9-year-old daughter.
The jury of 11 women and one man returned the death penalty verdict for Shawna Forde, 43, the founder and leader of the Minutemen American Defense group, for the May 30, 2009, killings of Brisenia Flores, 9, and her father, Raul Junior Flores, 29, in Arivaca, in southern Arizona.
The case now automatically goes to the Arizona Supreme Court for an appeal.
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K/G/Q(h)ad(d)(h)a(f)fi!
(top line reads “this we agree on”)
Why don’t they just use his name: معمر القذافي
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Egyptian dad names child ‘Facebook’
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A man in Egypt has named his newborn daughter "Facebook" in honor of the role the social media network played in bringing about a revolution, according to a new report.
Gamal Ibrahim, a 20-something, gave his daughter the name "to express his joy at the achievements made by the January 25 youth," according to a report in Al-Ahram, one of Egypt’s most popular newspapers.
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BP Says Settlement Terms in Spill Are Too Generous
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In the eight months since Kenneth R. Feinberg took over the $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he has been attacked by many of those filing claims and by coastal state politicians who argue that the process is opaque, arbitrary and slow. Many of them have also argued that Mr. Feinberg’s recently published estimates of future damage to those in the gulf are too optimistic, and thus his offer of compensation in a final settlement is too low.
Now he is getting complaints from another quarter: BP.
The oil giant is arguing that if anything, Mr. Feinberg’s proposed settlements are too generous. The planned payments far exceed the extent of likely future damages because they overstate the potential for future losses, the company insists in a strongly worded 24-page document that was posted on the fund’s Web site Thursday morning.
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BP has reneged on promises made in November to negotiate early payments to Louisiana to help rebuild oyster beds, repair damaged wetlands and build a fish hatchery to allow the state to respond immediately to the collapse of commercial fisheries in the wake of the BP Gulf oil spill, state officials said Monday.
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Instead, he said, the company has clearly moved from a public relations strategy to one focusing on litigation over whether damage to the state’s oyster beds was BP’s fault. The state contends that its decision to open many freshwater diversions along the Mississippi River to full blast at the height of the oil spill kept oil from entering the oyster beds, though the fresh water killed the oysters, requiring the beds to be restocked with cultch, oyster shell deposited beneath the water on which oyster larvae grow.
“Their response today was that we see no evidence of oil injuring the oysters,” Barham said. U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., had asked BP to pay $15 million for new oyster cultch, and even that would not have been enough money to restock all the beds that were damaged in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson and Lafourche parishes, he said.
BP clearly thinks the public relation storm is over, and it’s back to business as usual.
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Cartoons
What would Feynman do?
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"how well would the late Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Dr. Richard P. Feynman do in a technical interview at a software company?"
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In Italy there is a sentence of the Constitutional Court that states that any religious choice of an individual cannot be taken by anyone else than the individual himself.
Its self evident that pedobaptism (baptism of infants, that’s the technical name) is not a choice of the individual, so it is plain illegal. The sentence (n. 239/84) has never been disputed, and may be used as a non-binding precedent.
When I read this headline, I thought, finally, someone is charging the pope with covering up and aiding child rape. Instead it is a case that is gone to waste everyone’s time, and achieve nothing.