Gordon Bennett, Bennett.

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What sort of society praises vigilantes with cricket bats? - Catherine Bennett

What sort of columnist calls a man who, having been attacked in his own home by three masked, armed, dangerous men and seen them tie up his family, rob them and quite possibly prepare to kill them all, (she even admits herself that the 'burglars' didn't appear to be motivated by robbery) and then, in the heat of the moment, attacks one of the criminals - a VIGILANTE?

Answer: A dopey Guardian twat like Catherine Bennett.

And as one of the commenters pointed out: "The fact that the rest of the gang haven't even been nicked speaks volumes about policing in this country."  Yep, leave it to the police, old chap.

Nudge, nudge, sue, sue.

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Drug giant General Electric uses libel law to gag doctor
General Electric, one of the world’s biggest corporations, is using the London libel courts to gag a senior radiologist after he raised the alarm over the potentially fatal risks of one of its drugs.

The multinational is suing Henrik Thomsen, a Danish academic, after he described his experiences of one of the company’s drugs as a medical “nightmare”. He said some kidney patients at his hospital contracted a potentially deadly condition after being administered the drug Omniscan.
Looks like an own goal by GE as this article in the S. Times goes on to point up the very risks that GE are suing the good doctor for revealing. GE claims it is suing Thomsen for accusing the company of supressing information but, as the ST piece points out:
A summary of Thomsen’s presentation for the High Court writ, provided by GE Healthcare, appears to show that it was an even-handed account of his clinical experience. When asked by The Sunday Times to highlight any part of the presentation that explicitly stated wrongdoing by GE Healthcare, a spokeswoman for the company was unable to do so. The writ states that the defamation may have been “by way of innuendo”.(Emphasis mine)

End of an era, not the end of the world

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Copenhagen was the MPs' expenses scandal writ large
In a speech last month, (Ed Miliband) said: "To make these changes requires leadership from government, but it also requires us to build and maintain consent. To take that consent for granted is a mistake and to assume we can sustain change without it would be wrong in my view too."

Just so. But if Miliband the Younger accepts this, why did he describe those who disagreed with him in the run-up to Copenhagen as "saboteurs"? To provide the context: he was attacking his political opponents, Nigel Lawson and David Davis, and was perfectly entitled to do so. None the less, his revealing choice of the word "saboteur" – disagreement equals vandalism – sent a clear signal to every member of the public who dares to wonder what all this is about, why the changes needed are so dramatic, whether the scientific consensus is as clear as ministers say it is. "Anyone who comes forward at this moment," Mr Miliband continued, "and starts saying 'We can stick our heads in the sand' is irresponsible." Again, the message was crystal-clear. You are entitled to your opinion, as long as it's mine...If you want a "green revolution" – and the evidence suggests that you don't – it must truly be from the bottom up. This Government's strategy – to sneer at the doubters – is doomed, not only because doubt is the cornerstone of democracy but because, on this specific issue, the doubters are in the majority. Copenhagen marked the end of an era: it demonstrated the poverty and self-regard of elite politics, the introspection and self-congratulation of a political class still in love with itself because nobody else will love it.
I'm not usually a fan of d'Ancona but he's hit the spot with this piece today. I particularly liked his description of the Copenhagen Conference:
...like a student union meeting, only with motorcades.
Boom, boom!

Aussiebandias

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 Australia’s great barrier
The latest episode in the long-running Great Australian Firewall saga hit the stands this week with a government announcement that it will legislate to make internet filtering compulsory for all ISPs.

The Australian Christian Lobby were instantly on the case, congratulating the government for its initiative, and politely asking if it would care to extend the degree of censorship already envisaged from RC (Refused Classification) material, out to films currently classified as X or R-rated.

The price of war

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RedBedHead: Predator Drone - $4 million. Insurgent Hacking Program - $25. Pentagon Embarrassment - Priceless
it seems that insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan were using a piece of $25 software, purchased off of the internet to intercept the video signals sent by Predator drones back to the remote pilots in the USA. This allowed them to see exactly what areas and people the deadly unmanned planes were surveying for attack. The US military is, of course, now fixing the problem but it could take a while: they have 600 of the $4 million vehicles.

Not yet in Mississippi

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An Increasing Number of Openly Gay Politicians...In the South? | Gay Rights | Change.org
Mike Huckabee. Newt Gingrich. Ron Paul. Jim DeMint. Bobby Jindal. All are southern politicians who have taken a wide range of anti-LGBT positions -- from blasting gay marriage as a threat to the family, to saying that gay people are ill-suited to be parents, to even suggesting that HIV-positive people should be locked up. But while these faces have long been the face of Southern politics, there's a new crew in town that is reframing and reshaping the political fabric in the south.

And it's a whole bunch of queer folk.

Specifically, openly LGBT politicians who have increased their numbers steadily in the South in some of the most conservative environments the United States has to offer. From Annise Parker, the newly-minted lesbian mayor of Houston, to Mark Kleinschmidt, the next mayor of Chapel Hill, there are folks breaking new ground in the world of LGBT politics.

A decade of death and destruction

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The decade in news photographs - The Big Picture - Boston.com
Call it what you will, "the noughties", "the two-thousands" or something else, the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009) is now over. Looking back on the past ten years through news photographs, it becomes clear that it was a dramatic, often brutal decade. Natural disasters, terrorist attacks and wars were by far the most dominant theme.

A woman takes her dead son into her arms, as she grieves for her six-year-old son, Dhiya Thamer, who was killed when their family car came under fire by unknown gunmen in Baqouba, capital of Iraq's Diyala province, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, in this Sept. 16, 2007 photo. The boy's ten-year old brother, Qusay, was injured in the attack as the family returned from enrolling the children in school, where Dhiya was to begin his first year. (AP Photo/Adem Hadei) #

"The internalisation of the fatwa”

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Index On Self-Censorship?

IoC chairman, Jonathan Dimbleby on why the board of Index on Censorship decided not to publish a sample from the Danish cartoon controversy to illustrate an interview in the magazine:
http://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/year_in_review1.gifIndex is not a coterie of fundamentalists who enjoy preaching to the converted in a vacuum of purist invisibility. We have a greater vision and purpose, which is to reach out to those in the United Kingdom and elsewhere who are not yet aware of how vital freedom of expression is to an open society and how easily and rapidly it can be eroded.
Kenan malik, the only board member to disssent from the decision had this to say in reply:
...pre-emptive censorship often creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. In assuming that an “offensive” work will invite violence one both entrenches the idea that the work is offensive and helps create a culture that makes violence more likely.
Read the whole post at The Spitoon

Environmentalists can fuck themselves

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'Green' vibrators promise sustainable pleasure - Yahoo! News
When world leaders in Copenhagen argue for days in knife-edge talks to save the planet, what more fitting way to relieve the tension than an environmentally-friendly vibrator?



The global sex toy industry is worth an annual 15 billion dollars (22 billion euros), and uses up a mountain of batteries in the process, many of which end up as toxic waste. But now one Irish company reckons they've got the solution to shake up the market: a vibrator they are calling the world's first-ever "green technology sex toy". The Earth Angel, described as "eight inches with a sleek white finish", is a wind-up vibrator which comes with a handle built into the base. "You just flip out the handle, grab a hold of it there, and you just wind it," said Janice O'Connor, the co-founder with her husband Chris, of Caden Enterprises which makes the gadget. "So for four minutes of doing that, you should generate enough power to give you 30 minutes of full-on, right-to-the top vibrations."