As if the soon-to-be-ex-government's soon-to-be-ex-ID card scheme wasn't looking doomed enough already, The Register today has a detailed article about just how poorly David Blunkett's magical biometrics are likely to work in reality. (Short answer: poorly.)

Oh, and large number of council workers have been fired or reprimanded for using the DWP' ( Read more... )

Apparently Facebook and LiveJournal have received financial backing from the "colourful" Alisher Usmanov, infamous rapist, gangster, blackmailer and close personal friend of dissident-boiling Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov. (Oh, he's also famous for having Schillings send intimidating legal letters to anyone who suggests he's other than a heroic ( Read more... )

What's this? Another "terror plot" with no actual terror? Quick, we'd better deport these dangerous subversives before they magic bomb-making equipment out of thin air. Or say something embarrassing about the government.

Meanwhile, across the pond: Ah, delicious irony.

Quelle surprise: Dick Cheney has crawled out of his crypt to tell an approving Faux News that torture is just fine when he orders it. (Clearly the 182nd time's the charm when it comes to waterboarding...) Can anyone tell me why this pestilential ghoul is allowed to walk the streets instead of being in jail where he belongs?

Dear BBC: No, waterboarding is not a "controversial" nor a "harsh" "interrogation technique". It is torture, both legally and morally. This is not a partisan position, so who exactly are you attempting to mollify by avoiding the correct words? Neither is it "simulated" drowning: water enters the victim's lungs. It is actual drowning - " ( Read more... )

So first our beloved government bars our courts from releasing details of something which is already widely known - that they were complicit in the torture of Binyam Mohammed - claiming that the US government had threatened to withdraw intelligence cooperation (and thereby cause UK citizens to die at the hands of The Evil Terrorist Menace) if they ( Read more... )

It's good to see the Catholic church getting back to basics - Jew-baiting and gay-bashing. When can we start the witch-burnings, guys? I could do with a little warmth around the house.

Meanwhile, Ehud Olmert publicly vows to commit war crimes. Perhaps because we couldn't hear him do so the last time, what with all the explosions and stuff. It' ( Read more... )

Ah, Faux News. What would we do without you?

Juan Cole wins the "well-aimed understatement of the week" prize, commenting on Bush's illegal wiretapping scheme:

[T]he defense [Attorney General Michael] Mukasey suggests for telecom companies that illegally turned over consumer records to government officials who had no warrant to request them, is that they were "following orders." I think ( Read more... )

From a letter written by Cardinal Cormack Murphy O'Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, to the director of the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth, attempting to stop it offering abortions, IVF treatment and even contraception:

"There must be clarity that the hospital, being a Catholic hospital with a distinct vision of what is ( Read more... )