h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.eitb.com/news/world/detail/546111/berlusconis-mars-receives-venus-extension/

Berlusconi pays 70,000 euros to replace the missing penis and hands on statues of Mars and Venus.

Jean Michel Jarre and Anne Parillaud put a term to their relationship.

http://www.francesoir.fr/people/jean-michel-jarre-et-anne-parillaud-c-est-fini.57240 [fr]

I didn't know the statue of Venus was supposed to *have* a p*nis.

It was on the good ship Venus,
by God you should have seen us,
the figurehead was a nude in bed........a red hot........

The holidays of millions of Britons should be subsidised by the government, an MP says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11800847

Where's the smiley?

Maybe the voters in his district will send him on a holiday at the next election.

think you'll find most of them know how to do it already????

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11802015

Hmmm. How strange.

Some may remember the joke that was doing the rounds when the Pope visited - it was a picture of a "Pedestrians in road" sign (adult holding the hand of a child) with the caption - "Beware, the Pope is coming". Quite a few people here tittered.

Anyway Hugh Dallas, the head of Scottish football referees is under investigation because he got the same joke in a round robin e-mail and he passed it on.

Yesterday the story took a more serious turn when it was reported that he was being investigated by the Strathclyde Police Hate Crimes Unit following a complaint by a member of the public.

But I can't find the story now, even though it was on the BBC

Funny to think that a few of us on Hootoo may be guilty of hate crimes over a joke.

Wiki has a link to the story in the Daily Record http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Dallas#cite_note-46

Ah, here we go (Thanks Rudest Elf)

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/11/18/scots-referee-chief-hugh-dallas-to-be-quizzed-by-police-hate-crimes-unit-over-pope-email-86908-22722612/

CONTROVERSIAL referees chief Hugh Dallas will be quizzed by hate crimes cops over his notorious email about the Pope.

From the article wiki linked to:

"It's not seen as being malicious on Hugh's part but
it is certainly a huge lapse in judgment."

So a lapse in judgment is now a hate crime?
And since when has hating PDF-files been a crime?
Come to that, when was humour deemed a criminal activity?

Hate crimes, thought crimes... Oh lord where will it end?


~jwf~

When asked if he would have turned bin Laden over to the U.S. if Pakistani forces had captured him, Musharif replies ' I don't know whether I would have . . .'

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/11/19/musharraf-interview019.html

And, in other religious news . . .


The Pope has announced that condoms may be 'justified' in certain cases . . .

like for homosexual prostitution.


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/20/pope-condom-use-justified-cases/

I doubt that any leader of a Muslim country could have handed Bin Lauden over and survived.

The man was just too big a hero to too many people.

One of the theories as to what happened to him is that he was captured then quietly and cleanly made to not exist. He was too destabilizing anywhere he was.

High flying poultry...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11799303

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11802121

troops out of afganistan by end of 2014



karzi human rights abuses

taliban win election

karzi refuses to stand down

civil war starts

taliban win and form govt

10 years later we are back at the start again??

All of that's possibility except the last one. Afghanistan is China's problem once we've left, who runs their new suzerainty will be up to them.
NATO isn't going in anywhere for a while unless Iran attacks Syria.


In my humble opinion.

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the only way this would happen is in a proxy war between the iranina backed palestinians and the syrian backed palestinians, the winners would then get squashed by the israelies

Why would Afghanistan be China's problem once we leave? Pakistan and India are much closer, and have to deal with ripple effects from anything that happens in that country.

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and are using afganistan as a proxy battle field, funding various elements that cause problems for the other, much in the same way iran and syria are using the palestinians

if china took over i could see their solution, flood the country with troops, turn it into a charnell house and then re populate with nice, obediant, non islamic chinese farmers from areas of a similar climate.

hey they could even corner the market for poppy production and then flood the farmacuticle markets with cheap production morphine