ROUGH JUSTICE

Mother sets fire to her daughter's gloating rapist

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries after 11 days in hospital.

Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca. While there, he passed his victim's mother in the street and allegedly taunted her about the attack. He is said to have called out "How's your daughter?," before heading into a crowded bar.

Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar. A witness said: "She pulled the bottle she was carrying from under her arm and began to tip it over him. At first I didn't realise what was happening, but then I smelt the petrol. I jumped up and tried to grab her, but when she struck a match I got clear. She watched as flames engulfed him, before walking out.

At a hearing following her arrest, a crowd of supporters cheered her and called 'Bravo'.

TASER TORTURE

Tasers a form of torture, says UN

TASER electronic stun guns are a form of torture that can kill, a UN committee has declared after several recent deaths in North America. "The use of these weapons causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture,'' the UN's Committee against Torture said.

"In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events,'' the committee of 10 experts said. Three men, all in their early 20s, were reported to have died in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being Tasered by Canadian police.

The man, Robert Dziekanski, 40, fell to the ground and died after the police officers piled on top of him. There have been three deaths in Canada after the use of Tasers over the past five weeks. The company that makes the weapons has said that similar deaths have been shown by "medical science and forensic analysis'' to be "attributable to other factors and not the low-energy electrical discharge of the Taser". The UN committee made its comments in recommendations to Portugal, which has bought the newest Taser X26 stun gun for use by police.

The Taser X26 can have a grave physical and mental impact on those targeted, which violates the UN's Convention against Torture, the experts said.

OCTOPUSSY

Miss Suleman, before giving birth to her litter of eight.

Vivid's Sordid Plans for Nadya 'Octomom' Suleman

Nadya "Octomom" Suleman has been offered $1 million to star in a porn video.
Now Fox News' Pop Tarts has learned the "disgusting" details of what they want Octomom to do. They want Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets in January, to have sex in eight different scenes with eight different men.

[Someone at Fox is disgusted by this hot news story! Would it be the same if it concerned a Fox subsidiary? Fair and balanced.]

SHOT MONKEY

Cartoonist Sean Delonas of the Murdoch-owned NY Post is under fire for a cartoon depicting two police officers shooting a chimpanzee. The incident refers to a pet chimp which attacked a woman in Connecticut before being shot.

News Corp chief, Rupert 'Dirty Digger' Murdoch:
I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you, without a doubt, that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such. We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.

MONKEY BUSINESS

Former monkey despot Bush.

Will the shot monkey cartoon creator apologize?

A political cartoon in the New York Post Wednesday that portrayed the author of the US economic recovery plan as a monkey was denounced as offensive by black civil rights leader Al Sharpton.
The cartoon, which ran on page 12 of the tabloid, showed a policeman killing a monkey, a reference to an incident in Connecticut Monday when an officer shot dead a chimpanzee that had seriously injured a woman.
In the drawing, another police officer comments: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
Sharpton called the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys."
"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African-American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?" he asked in a statement.

Col Allan, the Post's editor-in-chief, defended the cartoon as "a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy.

BIG BROTHER

Conroy confesses: web filtering will hit 'other content'

The Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) currently prohibits both Refused Classification material and X 18+ material, meaning content depicting actual sex is treated in a manner similar to criminal content such as child pornography.
The BSA also bans R 18+ material (including simulated sex) if there is no age-based restriction.
This clumsy regime means material that is available in your average newsagent, let alone the local adult shop, is banned online and will technically be blocked under the ALP censorship trial.

The ban also perpetuates the Ruddock-era ban on alleged terrorist books imposed by the Howard Government as part of its national security-based attack on civil liberties. Academics using the internet to research terrorism-related materials may be blocked if filtering is imposed.

Nick Minchin, grilled the Australian Communications and Media Authority about the banning of an anti-abortion website. Despite his conservative credentials, Minchin correctly noted that a lot of Christian groups backing internet censorship might not be so enamoured of the idea if it was used to block their views on abortion.

Crikey!

CASINO REAL

Problem gambler laws threaten casino: owner

SkyCity Casino says tougher measures against known problem gamblers in South Australia could make its business unviable.
An inquiry on the banning of problem gamblers from venues is being held in Adelaide today.
The Independent Gambling Authority is considering whether biometric or smart card technology could be used to keep problem gamblers away from gaming venues.
But SkyCity Casino says any tougher controls would hit its revenue from other gamblers, harming its Adelaide casino business.

The casino faces strict penalties if even a single barred gambler is found on site.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Investigation into Politkovskaya's killing to be reopened

The drawn-out state investigation and chaotic trial of her murder has from the first been criticized as a farce by Anna Politkovskaya's family and friends because the men on trial were only loosely charged with guilt in the crime.
Freed from blame were two Chechen brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov of being accomplices and former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov of helping the killer get away.
A fourth defendant, Pavel Ryaguzov, was acquitted in a separate case.
Ryaguzov, an agent of Russia's FSB security service was accused of providing the killer with Politkovskaya's address.
But the alleged gunman, a third Chechen brother Rustam Makhmudov, was never on trial and reportedly fled to Western Europe on a fake passport.
No-one has been directly linked to ordering thecontract-style killing of Politkovskaya, gunned down in front of her Moscow apartment in October 2006.

Politkovskaya was Russia's most prominent journalist, winning awards for her reporting for daily Novaya Gazeta on human rights abuses by Russian soldiers during tow wars fought by the Kremlin in Chechnya.

LOSER PAYS

JUST CHARGE THE FINE TO THE VICTIMS:

The State of Florida sold personal information from its drivers license data base to private marketing companies, including each driving citizen's name, address, and Social Security number.
It made $108 million on the sales over a four-year period -- the four years after such sales were made illegal by federal law.
When several Floridians sued, the state refused to admit wrongdoing, but agreed to settle for $10.4 million, which will be divided up this way: the drivers who sued, $3000 each. Everyone else: a $1 credit on their next car registration fee. The five law firms that worked on the suit: $2.85 million. Federal law calls for a $2500 penalty for each violation, which would have come to $39 billion. (St. Petersburg Times) ...Which would penalize citizens even more.

So how about ten years in prison for every state official who went along with the scheme?
This is True

POLICE STATE

Dame Stella Rimington, 73, stood down as the director general of the security service in 1996.

Government accused over terrorism

A former head of MI5 has accused the government of exploiting the fear of terrorism to restrict civil liberties.

Dame Stella Rimington, 73, in an interview with Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and published in the Daily Telegraph, she also attacks the approach taken by the US.
"The US has gone too far with Guantanamo and the tortures and has achieved the opposite effect - there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification."
Dame Stella has previously been critical of the government's policies, including its attempts to extend pre-charge detention for terror suspects to 42 days and the controversial plan to introduce ID cards.

"It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism - that we live in fear and under a police state," she said.

STARSHIP TROOPERS

U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship

Stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American military will begin recruiting skilled immigrants who are living in this country with temporary visas, offering them the chance to become United States citizens in as little as six months.
“The Army will gain in its strength in human capital,” General Freakley said, “and the immigrants will gain their citizenship and get on a ramp to the American dream.”

Starship Troopers: Rico, his girlfriend Carmen, and best friend Carl are all graduating from high school in Buenos Aires; Carmen and Carl both plan to enlist in the US military to become "citizens".

THE QUICKENING

Warming 'much more rapid' than climate panel predicted

DIRE warnings of future devastation sparked by global warming have not been dire enough, climate scientists warn.
Just over a year ago, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report warning of rising sea levels, expanding deserts, more intense storms and extinction of up to 30 per cent of plant and animal species.
But recent studies suggested the report significantly underestimated the potential severity of global warming over the next 100 years, a senior member of the panel warned yesterday.
"We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously in climate policy," said Chris Field, a co-ordinating lead author of the report.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? After an 8-year-old girl was abused and
murdered by her guardians, the British government put together a new
data base to list the personal details -- including name,
gender, address, and age -- of every child in the country, with
space for "sexual health" information, so that child service
agencies could know who they need to watch out for.
The new 224-million-pound (US$329 million) system will be accessible
to at least 330,000 users spread across at least 150 agencies, and
is scheduled to launch this summer.
The government has responded to security concerns by announcing that
celebrities can apply to keep details of their children out of the
system. Oh, and politicians, too. (London Telegraph)

How about a new law: any law that politicians pass has to apply to
them first. (www.thisistrue.com)

TELEPORTATION

U.S. Air Force Takes a Look at Teleportation

The USAF recently took delivery of a new study regarding the military potential of teleportation. The Teleportation Physics Study was done by Eric Davis of Warp Drive Metrics. Its purpose -

"This study was tasked with the purpose of collecting information describing the teleportation of material objects, providing a description of teleportation as it occurs in physics, its theoretical and experimental status, and a projection of potential applications. The study also consisted of a search for teleportation phenomena occurring naturally or under laboratory conditions that can be assembled into a model describing the conditions required to accomplish the transfer of objects."

SELF CENSORSHIP

Cleaning Up Australia

What are the world's geeks saying about Stephen Conroy's internet nanny scheme? Blogwatch braves the cultural cringe to find out

Tech sites in South Africa are watching proceedings with interest too, while boing boing bounces back a post entitled "Australia's Great Firewall: just like China, Syria and other 'free' countries" (ouch) from ComputerWorld which nicely sums up the double discontent:

"The fact that it will likely reduce everyone's internet performance is secondary; it will most likely incorrectly block 1 per cent of sites, and now what you are allowed to view online is determined and controlled by the state (although most likely quite inaccurately)."