Crowds of people have marched in Sudan's capital Khartoum to call for a tougher sentence for a British teacher imprisoned for insulting religion.Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed for 15 days on Thursday after allowing children in her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
Some reports said protesters had called for her to be shot. Her lawyer said she was later moved for her own safety. more and video.
[The Telegraph.] A scheme to train firefighters in major cities to look out for terrorists has raised fears that their iconic standing in American society could be damaged.Unlike police, firemen and paramedics do not need warrants to get into homes and other buildings during technical inspections of emergency facilities, making them particularly useful for spotting signs of terrorist planning.
The Homeland Security Department has been secretly testing a pilot scheme in New York in which firefighters are trained to identify suspicious material or behaviour. If successful, the programme will be extended to other large cities....
[Crooks & Liars] Case in point: drawing from a very apt analogy of Fahrenheit 451 (short clip) in which firemen went looking for questionable material (like the unacceptable notion of books that make you think) from the citizens to keep them complacent and happy, comes the news that the Department of Homeland Security has.....more courtesy of Crooks & Liars
Human Eggs v. Colorado
If you happen to be a Coloradan planning to vote in November 2008, prepare yourself not only to select a presidential candidate, but also to consider an issue that concerns even more ill-defined beings.......
A proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution would provide that the protection of inalienable rights, due process and the equality of justice as defined by the Colorado Constitution be extended to "any human being from the moment of fertilization." We're not just talking fetuses, mind you --we're also talking about their frozen, pre-fetal and, as the bill's proponents would frame it, equally unprotected yet valuable younger brethren.more
Any casual watcher of last night's Republican debate may have come away thinking that women don't have much at stake in this election......
The Democrats have Hillary as a candidate this year, which puts women front and center. For the Republicans, though, it's pretty much a choice between graying, gray or bald white men, all of whom seemed to nod in agreement on one breathtaking policy initiative for women that surfaced in last night's debate: the DIY abortion.The question from the "young lady" was: If abortion is outlawed then who is the criminal, woman, doctor, or both? This has always been the sticky question for the anti-abortion side. Do they intend to start locking up women for murder? Fascinatingly, Fred Thompson, National Right to Life's endorsed candidate, said no. He suggested that some people will be able to perform abortions at any stage of pregnancy with no fear of prosecution: women on themselves.more
A British teacher has been found guilty in Sudan of insulting religion after she allowed her primary school class to name a teddy bear Muhammad.Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, has been sentenced to 15 days in prison and will then be deported.
She had been accused on three counts of insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs.
The Foreign Office said it was extremely disappointed by the verdict after a day-long hearing in Khartoum.
The Sudanese ambassador is being called back to the Foreign Office to explain the decision. Officials there say the mood has changed as a result of the verdict.More and video.
Senator Larry Craig is having a bad year -- In June he was arrested for Lewd Conduct after hitting on an undercover police officer in an airport Men's Room. In September resigned from the Senate, then in October decided NOT to resign. AND NOW HE IS A TALKING DOLL!***We'd feel sorry for the guy it wasn't so.... to use our favorite word... STUPID!
The Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure stands about 12" tall and wears a t-shirt emblazoned with his declaration: "I Am Not Gay." His limbs are bendable, so you can put him in all sorts of poses... even the famous "wide stance" the Senator refers to.more
Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday called for intensified efforts to stop the spread of the HIV virus, saying he felt "spiritually close" to those suffering from AIDS.
"I am asking all people of goodwill to multiply efforts to stop the spread of the HIV virus, to oppose the scorn that often strikes those affected and to take care of the sick, especially the children," Benedict told his weekly public audience in connection with World AIDS Day, which was Saturday."I am spiritually close to those who suffer as a result of this terrible illness as well as to their families, in particular those struck by the loss of a close relative," the pope said. "I assure my prayers for all."source
I wonder if the wanker feels "spiritually close" to the millions of kids unnecessarily born into abject poverty and destined for a short life of misery before an early death ends their suffering.
Contemporary report on church and condoms.
Update: I must have been half asleep when I posted this, the trip was a good while ago but the story is, as it always was, about the affects of single handing over protracted periods.The emotions the sea and its power can generate can often be all-consuming.Ocean rower Debra Searle found this out while crossing 3,000 miles (4,830km) of the Atlantic between 2001 and 2002.
Aged 27 when she took the challenge, she landed in Barbados in January 2002 after setting off from Tenerife three-and-a-half months earlier in a 23ft (7m) long craft.
Debra, from Plymouth, was supposed to make the trip with her husband Andrew, until he developed a fear of the ocean after two weeks. She decided to carry on solo.more
A British teacher has been charged in Sudan with insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs.The Foreign Office has confirmed that charges have been laid against 54-year-old Gillian Gibbons, who is from Liverpool.
She was arrested in Khartoum after allowing her class of primary school pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
Lawyers say she faces six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine if convicted.
Sudanese state media said prosecutors had completed their investigation and decided to charge Mrs Gibbons under Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal code.more
The author of the book on which the new film The Golden Compass is based has hit back at critics who accuse him of peddling "candy-coated atheism".Now why would that be I wonder?
Philip Pullman dismissed as "absolute rubbish" accusations by the US-based Catholic League that the film promotes atheism and denigrates Christianity."I am a story teller," he said. " If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon."
The film also stars James Bond actor Daniel Craig and is based on the first part of Mr Pullman's best-selling His Dark Materials children's trilogy.In the book - set in an imaginary world - the heroine Lyra fights against the Magisterium, an evil organisation some have interpreted as based on the Catholic Church.more and watch the short video
Canada's Border Services Agency says it will change its operation at Vancouver airport following the death of an immigrant stunned with a police Taser.Robert Dziekanski's final moments were captured on video by another traveller and the recording sparked outrage when it was broadcast two weeks ago.
Mr Dziekanski, 40, was Polish and spoke no English. He was declared dead at the scene by an emergency medical team.
It is the first time the agency has spoken about the 14 October incident.more
With the push of a button, Shockwave deploys multiple TASER Cartridges oriented across an area arc to provide full coverage to simultaneously incapacitate multiple personnel standing within that region. The baseline Shockwave unit is a command activated, 6-shot device that covers a 20 degree arc with the 25ft XP TASER Cartridges. When activated,......more and watch the promo video while you're there.
French reveal Plans For Taser Flying Saucer
A French businessman tells AFPhis company is working on putting TASER stun guns on a flying saucer that would zap protesters, evil-doers, and anybody else that authorities there don't like. Antoine di Zazzo, identified by AFP as "one of the biggest Taser representatives" outside the United States, said his company is "developing a mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds. He expects it to be launched next year and to be sold internationally by Taser."more There are numerous taser related links from this site.
British officials are trying to secure the release of a British schoolteacher arrested in Sudan for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad. Gillian Gibbons, of Liverpool, may face blasphemy charges for insulting Islam's Prophet. A conviction could mean six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.
The Sudan Embassy in London said the situation was a "storm in a teacup", based on a cultural misunderstanding.
British embassy officials have visited Ms Gibbons, 54, in Khartoum prison. more and video
Washington, DC AIDS activist Nicole Styles felt she had to do something to help when she learned last winter that her city has the highest AIDS infection rate in the country, with 1 person out of every 20 being affected. Since then, she has been working with Metro TeenAIDS, handing out condom kits on street corners and trying to convince young people to use them.One reason why Washington suffers from third-world rates of infection is that the federal government has done little to intervene. According to ABC's Nightline, "Many in DC suspect what seems like indifference is because 80% of those infected are African-American and most of the others gay."more and video.
Young, Black and Locked UpIncarceration is extremely costly. In California, state detention centers for young people cost $216,000 a year per child; county facilities cost about $117,000. States spend on average nearly three times as much per prisoner as they do per public school pupil. In some states, the growth in prison costs also exceeds the growth in higher education spending. When it costs more to detain a child than to provide him a Head Start, we need to seriously reassess our nation's values and priorities. While there seems to be no cap on prison spending; Head Start funding serves only half of those eligible.
One state that has gotten it right on juvenile justice is Missouri. Under the caring youth-focused leadership of Mark Steward, its former Youth Services Director, in 1983 Missouri closed all of its youth prisons and divided the state into five regions so that confined youths would be within driving distance of their homes. Each region has two facilities housing no more than 40 young people. This Department of Youth Services focuses on intensive individual counseling, academic and vocational education, and positive behavior modification. Key features of the Missouri model are its integration of mental health into all of its rehabilitation components and its comprehensive approach to treatment, which includes family therapy and counseling.more
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday......
He said the crisis was caused not just by America’s actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn on the “chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God’s purpose for humanity”........
He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. “It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that’s what the British Empire did — in India, for example.
“It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you can move on and other people will put it back together — Iraq, for example.”more
'Muhammad' teddy teacher arrested
A British school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name.
Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.
A spokesman from the British Embassy in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, said it was unclear whether she had been charged.More
Blair Feared Faith 'Nutter' LabelShurley shome mishtake!
Tony Blair avoided talking about his religious views while in office for fear of being labelled "a nutter", the former prime minister has revealed..........But while it was commonplace in the US and elsewhere for politicians to talk about their religious convictions, he added, "you talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter".
British voters imagined that leaders who were informed by religion would "commune with the man upstairs and then come back and say "'Right, I've been told the answer and that's it'.More
Jesus said:
Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
Iraqi Children Bear The Burden Of An Un-called For War
Looking at photos of Iraqi children maimed by the war makes the conflict unforgettable. Reflecting on the causes that led to that war makes it unforgivable. Slowly but steadily new information is coming out on the effects of the war on children, and how it has affected not only their health but also their quality of life and prospects for the future.
One child dies every five minutes because of the war, and many more are left with severe injuries. Of the estimated 4 million Iraqis who have been displaced in Iraq or left the country, 1.5 million are children. For the most part, they don't have access to basic health care, education, shelter or water and sanitation. They carry on their shoulders the tragic consequences of an uncalled for war.More
You can find a massive photo file here, and I mean massive, unsuitable for dialup or limited download. (Disturbing)
A plan to attack Iran swiftly and from above.
bunker-busting bombs slicing through concrete at more than a dozen nuclear sites across Iran is no longer just the idle musing of military planners and uber-hawks.
Although air strikes don't seem imminent as the U.S.-Iranian drama unfolds, planning for a bombing campaign and preparing for the geopolitical blowback has preoccupied military and political councils for months.
No one is predicting a full-blown ground war with Iran. The likeliest scenario, a blistering air war that could last as little as one night or as long as two weeks, would be designed to avoid the quagmire of invasion and regime change that now characterizes Iraq. But skepticism remains about whether any amount of bombing can substantially delay Iran's entry into the nuclear-weapons club.more
