News – Weekending News

Middle East

The prisoners released by Israel return to the West Bank. Abbas tosses out the ‘H’ word, again eroding my waning respect for him.

Israel is having a problem with the Harry Potter book launch. Some bookstores in the country are going to open on the Sabbath to sell on release day, which is forbidden during the holy day.

Africa

Add: Just noticed the note of the broken link. A quick look around didn’t find that story, but I did find this follow up: Ancient Darfur lake ‘is dried up’

Nigeria’s government delays their lawsuit against drug company Pfizer in order to add on more charges to the 7 billion dollar case.

Uganda’s ruling party declares military service as compulsory for all citizens.

The UN security council will meet soon to discuss the issue of child soldiers in Chad. Hopefully they’ll do more than just talk.

Asia/Pacific

China shuts down three companies and arrests many over the recent food and drug scandals as of late. Still working fervently to regain the trust lost. Which is good to see.

I do think Australia’s terror laws need a good, hard looking into. They shouldn’t be able to twist things to go against their own judiciary.

Europe

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov blames Gordon Brown’s takeover of the UK parliament for their current disagreement on extradition of a suspect over Alexander Litvinenko’s murder.

The Danish military has been evacuating Iraqis that have worked with their forces, offering them asylum in Denmark over fears they might be targeted when their troops are pulled out.

Americas

The US pledges a million bucks to help Central America and Mexico combat their gang problems. Something that’s deeply within our interests, considering how much it spills over into our country.

On our side of the coin, Bush combat’s concern over imports. Why buy those unknown, uncertain overseas brand names when you can get a trusted American brand name and reasonably expect your purchase to be untainted.

Could the recent NIE be a precursor to a resurgence of the domestic surveillance debate? Seems that if someone truly wished, they could extend this so called war on terror as long as desired.

An amusing Romney ad critique.

General

A sixtieth moon is found near Saturn. Just far too many for any one planet.

A study reveals that Britain’s islands became separated from mainland Europe by a catastrophic flood hundreds of thousands of years ago. One can only guess how the area would have developed had that stretch of land remained linked with the rest of the continent.

Researchers believe that the evolution of upright walking occurred because it eats up less energy than walking on all fours.

A peek at the iPhone’s legal contract. Pretty standard, but huge.

The dark side of Youtube. Being the biggest and the best means you can set the tone.

The Blogs look at the indictment of Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, a controversial piece in the New Republic and the Emmy nominations.

Today’s Papers has report that Iraq’s largest Sunni political group announced that it was ending its boycott of parliament, how U.S. forces in Iraq are increasingly coming to “handshake agreements” with Iraqi insurgents to get them to fight against al-Qaida in Iraq, word that the Bush administration will now argue that the Justice Department simply doesn’t have the power to pursue contempt charges once the president has claimed executive privilege and more in the one page news.

Amusements

Fark cliche busted again (with mugshot goodness) – The comments on it are amusing as well.

Climbing into a hippo exhibit and throwing rocks at it is not the best way to impress chicks

German police spring into action after report from woman of a dangerous masked criminal trying to steal van. Turns out the criminal was a large toy beaver

Nebraska senator known as “Hair Force One” blames his new ‘do on hair rinse gone wrong (with before and after pics)

Kentucky Christian group showing up at drug court cases to make sure offenders get what they “deserve”. Bonus: a judge named Cletus is quoted

Politician sends drug dealer profanity-laced letter. The Smoking Gun is there

Mom wants schools to ban books filled with sin. There goes my trigonometry textbook

Detroit cop accused of replacing $2.4 million worth of cocaine from the evidence locker with powdered doughnuts. That’s some fine police work there, Lou

Why do Americans keep receiving Nigerian money transfer scams in their email? Because Americans keep falling for them

Seagull fingered filching Doritos. Dude… wait, what?

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Theme: Create an Olympic logo for a city you think should get to be a host city (summer or winter).

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop this excited Professor

Fark Photoshop Challenge: <A HREF="http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2909336″>Photoshop this Linux trashcan