Police shoot an (armed, apparently threatening) man in a wheelchair"At least 10 gunshots" were used to kill this man, after police pointed shotguns and handguns at him and repeatedly yelled at him to put his own handgun down. That seems to be how it works in America. You get shouted at for a while, and if you don't do what the police want you to ( Read more... )

I don't know why I still read the BBC News web site.

Its science-and-technology reporting varies from the naive to the merely facile, and I can feel its strict single-sentence-per-paragraph policy killing off my synapses ( Read more... )

Now here's some interesting news. A Swiss animal-rights charity, the "Foundation for the Animal in Law", has sued seven animal breeders under animal-protection law, on the grounds that the breeding selects for characteristics which are inherently cruel ( Read more... )

The President of Ireland speaks his mind with passion, clarity, forthrightness and a tremendous amount of authority. What an absolutely blinding guy!

Click to view

Amazing. You may have read that some deranged twit managed to singe his leg pretty badly on a plane the other day-about on a par with the agonising stupidity of all many recent "terrorist attacks". I mean, for the love of Pete, man, how difficult would it be to make up double the mix, take half of it out in the desert and check that it it ( Read more... )

http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu/loup-abattu-chasseur-30-km-vol-oiseau-geneve-2009-02-16Read more... )

Pottering around mattlazycat's kitchen, making tea before a leisurely departure in the general direction of Heathrow Airport, I found myself listening to a debate on the recent extension of maternity leave to one year. I fairly quickly ignored the debate (one protagonist was the kind of irrational babbling twit whose excesses undo much of the good work of ( Read more... )

The prevailing mood of many of my British friends is currently pretty acerbic towards their government and their society. And, as someone who left Britain several years ago with little intent of returning, I can appreciate that the country has its fair share of faults.

Now, scruff is a kittycat with impeccable judgement in sensible news, so I can't ( Read more... )

From Rolling Stone via schneier: China's implementation of the surveillance society.This is why we need to be immediately wary of our governments' surveillance plans. Personally I trust the German state about as much as I trust any government in this world, but even they (personified by that arsehole Schäuble) have plans that would allow a less ( Read more... )

Following an entry from rustyfox, I've just been reading the heartrending story of the thirteen-year-old girl who committed suicide after being bullied on MySpace.

What really stopped me dead, though, was one of the comments:

Manny wrote on Feb 13, 2008 2:42 PM ( Read more... )