Simple mindedness

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The release of more photos of prisoner abuse by US soldiers is "of no benefit" and may inflame opinion against the US, President Barack Obama has said.

I have photographs of my next door neighbour abusing your daughter. You already know that he's done this because I've already shown you the worst ones. Of course, you are already aware that he broke into your home, trashed it, killed your mother and stole all your life savings and he's now busy throwing his weight around at a house down the road. But I have taken the decision not to release any more images of abuse because to do so might enrage you and thereby threaten the safety of my next door neighbour and his family.

I am certain that, even though you have already seen graphic and disturbing images of abuse and even though you have suffered at the hands of this man and even though you know of others who are still suffering at his hands, by witholding the remaining images I am ensuring that you won't have any feelings of anger, animosity or revenge against him or his family.

Obama gets needled

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Obama Bans Funding for Needle Exchange
President Obama's budget released Thursday takes a step backward from a controversial political position he had taken during the presidential campaign. Obama, during the primary campaign, pledged his support of needle exchange programs to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. When he took over the White House, the administration website affirmed: "The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users." Yet Obama's budget includes language that bans spending federal money on needle-exchange programs.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said the administration isn't yet ready to lift the ban - but Obama still supports needle exchange."We have not removed the ban in our budget proposal because we want to work with Congress and the American public to build support for this change," he said. "We are committed to doing this as part of a National HIV/AIDS strategy and are confident that we can build support for these scientifically-based programs."

It's not rocket science

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Report: Hawaii has lowest gun death rate
Hawaii, with its strong gun laws and low rate of gun ownership, has the lowest gun death rate in the nation, the Washington D.C.-based gun control group Violence Policy Center said Wednesday.

The islands had a per capita gun death rate of 2.58 per 100,000 people in 2006, according to the center's analysis, based on the most recently available national data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The national average was 10.3, it said.

Only 9.7 percent of Hawaii households own guns, compared with 45.6 percent in Louisiana, which topped the nation in per capita gun deaths at 19.5, the center said.

"More guns means more gun death and injury. Fewer guns means less gun death and injury. It's a simple equation," said Kristen Rand, the center's legislative director.

Once a King, always a King...

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...but once a night is enough.

Gossip with Tony Blair about the sex lives of opponents
MPs yesterday opened an inquiry into special advisers following the bad behaviour of Gordon Brown's SPAD, Damian McBride.Yesterday's hearing was organised by the Public Administration Committee, whose chairman Tony Wright (Lab, Cannock Chase) is a pious eunuch. That is, he holds views about our out-of-control ruling class but keeps firing blanks. For witnesses yesterday Mr Wright had summoned: Lance Price, a former spin doctor to Tony Blair; Jonathan Baume, who runs the top civil servants' trade union; former Whitehall permanent secretary Sir Richard Mottram; and a Times journalist, Peter Riddell, who is a genial, experienced colleague but, I think he would accept, would never qualify as one of Fleet Street's feared contrarians.

Eloquent Mr Price disclosed that he and Tony Blair were known sometimes to gossip about the sex lives and mental health of Labour's political opponents. Can this be the same Tony Blair who invented the human rights act and stoked the equality industry, at whose core is an idea of individual privacy and the wickedness of judging others by their sexuality? It sure can, folks!

If the crime is big enough...

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US ex-soldier guilty of Iraq rape
A jury in the US state of Kentucky has found a former private soldier guilty of the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family. Steven Green, 24, faces a possible death sentence for his crimes.
Meanwhile an accomplice to the rape of an entire country was NOT facing the death penalty: Tony Blair has become the most expensive public speaker in the world, with his earnings since leaving Downing Street thought to have topped £12 million

Everyone's gone to the moon...

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Africans must go to the moon
Entebbe, Uganda - Africans must travel to the moon to investigate what developed nations have been doing in outer space, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Saturday.

"The Americans have gone to the moon. And the Russians. The Chinese and Indians will go there soon. Africans are the only ones who are stuck here," Museveni said, addressing a meeting of the Uganda Law Society in Entebbe.

"We must also go there and say: 'What are you people doing up here?'."