Current Events One

A Roswell (Georgia) newspaper lost one its major advertisers after publishing cover art showing Democratic presidential front runner Barack Obama in a sniper’s cross hairs. The Roswell Beacon, a free weekly in Fulton county Georgia, received complaints after reports of the cover appeared on the Daily Kos blog.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

A diarist named “sprialstairs” wrote on Daily Kos, “The article itself is not offensive, but the cover is beyond the pale. As indicated by the article, there are some serious racists in the area, and Obama’s candidacy has brought out the worst in a lot of people. The last thing we need is a newspaper to suggest assassination with an incendiary cover such as this.”

The article goes on to state:

though the paper’s publisher, John Fredericks, said editorial decisions would not be influenced by “liberal blogger thuggery.”

The intention of the art was to illustrate the accompanying story about how law enforcement was

handling the increased number of threats lodged against Obama by white supremacist groups, some of whom are based around north Fulton.

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A Turkey cartoonist who insulted a supreme court prosecutor in a cartoon has been indicted for that cartoon. If convicted, he could spend two years in prision.

A cartoonist in Turkey has been indicted for insulting a supreme court prosecutor in a cartoon that was published March 19th. The cartoonist, Ibrahim Ozdabak, drew an owl sitting on a branch, wearing a judge’s robe and hooting “Huguk! Huguk!” in an play on Turkish word for “law” (huhuk).

The cartoon did not name any judge, but the prosecutor insisted that it clearly alluded to Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the chief prosecutor of the supreme court of appeals, who had brought charges of anti-secularism against the ruling AK party two days before the cartoon appeared.

If convicted, Ibrahim could spend two years in prison. The case goes to trial in September.

Source: dailycartoonist.com

Russell T. Davies, executive producer of the BBC series “Doctor Who,” is stepping down after the 2009 series. Davies was the producer/writer responsible for brining the long running science fiction show back to television in 2005 after its 16-year hiatus.

Writer Steven Moffat is to take
over for Davies as lead writer and executive producer for the revived
show’s fifth season to be broadcast in 2010.

In the ten years since the launch of Viagra, 27 million satisifed men have enjoyed ‘restored sexual funtion.’

Viagra has been almost as influential as the Pill in changing attitudes and behaviour.

There is, however, a downside.

Over the past ten years, rates of infections such as gonorrhoea have increased by 227 per cent in men aged 45-64, more than four times faster than the increase in the rate among teenagers. There are similar dramatic increases in other sexual infections in the same male age group, with chlamydia increasing by 315 per cent between 1997 and 2006.

There is also the problem of the hyped up male and the less than excited partner.

After the difficult birth of her second child, Miranda, like many women, experienced a loss of libido. ‘I must have been in labour for 20 hours,’ recalls the mother-of-two from Amersham, Buckinghamshire. ‘The birth did a lot of damage to me physically and I just didn’t want my husband near me afterwards. I don’t know if I had post-natal depression as well, but things were not good.’

Dismayed by his wife’s constant rejection, Miranda’s husband of 14 years, a 39-year- old professional, began to have problems of his own.

‘The fact that I was constantly pushing him away really got to him. He went to the G, and, after various other suggestions, he came back with a supply of Viagra which, if anything, made the problems between us even worse.

‘It doesn’t work to have a man wanting sex all the time if his partner is not interested,’ says Miranda. Fortunately, the couple were able to resolve their problems.

Gwen was not so lucky.

Gwen, a 61 year-old teacher from London, lays the blame for the breakdown of her 35-year marriage at the door of Viagra.

Her problems began when her husband, a business administrator, underwent a prostate operation which left him impotent.

‘He saw several doctors and none of them suggested discussing his medical treatment with his wife,’ she said. ‘With Viagra he felt his virility had returned, but we had to make a decision about when to have sex because you have to take the drug an hour or two beforehand. I felt under pressure to co-operate even when I didn’t feel like it.

‘It was like a form of harassment, and I felt it wasn’t me he was having sex with. I was being used to fuel a fantasy I wasn’t part of.’

The couple separated and are now divorced.

However, news announced earlier this month about a ‘wonder pill’ to increase sex drives in both men and women may render the lopsidedness of Viagra moot.

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From the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up Department:

While playing a rough sex game with her partner, a Canadian woman punctured her lover’s heart while trying to carve a heart shaped symbol on his chest.

The Winnipeg Free Press said the 25-year-old woman had been sentenced to three years’ probation after she pleaded guilty to assaulting the man in February 2007.

Doctors expect the man to make a full recovery.

Both had been drinking heavily and engaging in rough sex when he asked the woman to carve the symbol, the paper said.

The victim is not pressing charges against his lover.

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It’s like resisting a piece of candy.

That’s how a therapist in Odwaga tells patients to resist their homosexual urges.

“When you want a candy for example, you can resist and have it later,” said Lena Wojdan, a psychologist at the center. “And you can trade it for a piece of chocolate.”

Using a combination of prayer, therapy, and chastity, as well as traditional gender roles (woman are taught to cook, men to play football); the Center hopes to ‘cure’ homosexuality.

The Catholic Church has created rehabilitation centers in Poland to rehabilitate gay people and “get them back on the right path.”

According to Marta Abramowicz of the Campaign Against Homophobia, when the therapy doesn’t work, the patients become depressed and suicidal.

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Council leader David Parsons fumed: “I’m not happy that we have gone a million pounds over on the bypass and then found no great crested newts.

Leicestershire County Council spent £1million dollars (US$1.9 million) and delayed a road building project for three months in order to protect a rare newt on the site. Problem was there weren’t any crested newts on the site.

The action was taken on the strength of a report from environmental experts, which found there could have been between one and 10 of the 6in amphibians on the site.

An angered Parsons wrote the the Minister concerned who replied that “it’s because of European Union Regulations.

Workers were even required to inspect the traps twice a day once temperatures rose above 41F (5C).

But Derek Needham, council engineering manager, confirmed: “We have caught a number of normal newts but no great crested newts.”

Imagine the surprise of a bereaving family when, at the final viewing of a loved one, they found the wrong woman in the coffin. Imagine their trauma when the bereaving family discovers their loved was buried in the wrong grave.

Mary Jane Janet Ryan, 85, was exhumed and

eventually given a fitting farewell at St John’s Catholic Church in Frankston (Victoria), and was then interred at Frankston Cemetery.

This is the second time in 7 years this funeral home made the same mistake.

The funeral was arranged by funeral directors Edward (Ted) Bull, whose website promises “pre-arranged funerals, cremations and burials with no nasty surprises”.

The family-run company was responsible for a similar case of mistaken identity in 2001.

On that occasion, Ted Bull’s son, Chris, mixed up two coffin lids and sent the wrong bodies to two different funerals in South Dandenong, with one man due to be cremated an hour after the other’s burial.

After the Ryan mix-up was corrected, she was had ‘a beautiful service’.

A family spokesman would not say they would initiate legal action, though the spokesman hinted that the funeral director had waived the fees.

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Is it caused by a bacteria or fungus?

To the nearly 10,000 families suffering from the symptoms Morgellons disease, it doesn’t matter. The disease, blamed on everything from alien abductions and government conspiracies, to genetically altered foods carries a litany of physical and psychological symptoms.

(C)ommonly reported symptoms include:

* Multi-colored fiber-like strands or crystals protruding out of skin

* Fatigue

* A feeling of parasites or worms crawling under skin

* Black specks in lesions that do not heal

* Joint swelling and/or hair loss

* Memory loss or general brain fog with difficulty concentrating

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a US$338,000 grant to Kaiser Permanente to research Morgellons

an affliction it refers to as a “skin condition.”

Even this classification is under debate.

Dr. Ahmed Kilani, president and CEO of Clongen Laboratories and a specialist in infectious disease detection, told WND the illness is much more than a mere skin condition.

“It spreads between individuals,” he said. “Unlike infection, this is something much more serious. People die from complications because the disease is more than skin deep. It’s not just a skin condition that causes lesions. It goes into the stomach and impacts the G.I. tract and causes brain conditions.”

Many scientists and researchers do not belive Morgellon is a disease, but rather a ‘fabricated illness’. Kilani believes this is wrong, claiming ‘10 calls’ a day from people ‘who identify themseleves as having the symptoms.’

…I have met people from all walks of life: High-powered attorneys, physicians, nurses, actors, actresses, athletes. They go nuts after awhile. They become socially rejected because of the way they look. The whole thing is just a disaster.”

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Lori Drew, the 49 year old mother who perpetrated the MySpace hoax that lead to Megan Meir’s suicide has been indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges for her role in the hoax.

According to prosecutors, Drew created a fake MySpace page as a ruse to determine whether Megan Meier, 13, was making derogatory remarks about her daughter, with whom Neier was feuding.

According to the indictment says that that Drew posed as a 16 year old boy who liked Meier. After leading Meier on for a length of time,Drew, still acting like as the teenage suitor told Meier the world would be better without her.

Later that day, Meier hung herself in a closet at her family’s O’Fallon,Missouri home. When Drew learned of the suicide, the indictment charges, she caused the fake MySpace page to be deleted and directed a juvenile who knew of the hoax to “keep her mouth shut.”

Source: The Smoking Gun