today

A way to restore lost memories by natural 'rewiring' of brain cells ? Maybe, but Alzheimer's has many papers but little progress.

Anyway .... researchers first placed the mice in a tank of water and trained them to find their way to a platform sunk just below the surface. After the mice had developed a long-term memory of the job, Tsai's team then induced p25 (a protein) in the rodents, which led to loss of neurons, learning ability and memory.

The mice were placed in a setting full of toys and wheels. When the stimulated mice were retested, the researchers found they did better at the memory task than before. "If memories can be recovered then that suggests they were never erased and indicates that perceived memory loss is likely to be due to an inability to retrieve memories," Tsai said.

After exploring the biological mechanism behind the improvement in mice placed in the enriched environment, the researchers took mice that had lost long-term memory and injected them with a drug that inhibited histone deacetylase, or HDAC. Tsai said that HDAC inhibitors appear to cause naturally the rewiring of neurons. i.e. the mice were better able to find the platform in the water.

Lucknow, Apr 28: Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh today ruled out any post poll alliance with either Samajwadi Party (SP) or Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh where Assembly elections are being held, nd said that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is already probing corruption cases against those leaders.

"The leaders of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samajwadi Party contesting elections for the post of chief minister ship have cases of corruption lodged against them. CBI is investigating them, so the people also wants that their leaders should be clean," said Singh after casting his vote here.

Terming the reports of the BJP contemplating to tie up with any of the two parties, as a ploy by his political detractors to confuse the voters, Singh said, "The rising graph of the BJP is causing discomfort to them,'' and exuded confidence of getting full majority in the State polls.

Six politicians awaiting trial on murder or abduction charges in lawless northern Uttar Pradesh state have been using "cell" phones to campaign for re-election from prison, police said yesterday.

All six will be moved to prisons with equipment to jam mobile phone calls, said Mahesh Chand Sinha, a deputy inspector-general of state police.

Uttar Pradesh is considered one of India's most lawless provinces. According to the independent poll monitoring group Uttar Pradesh Election Watch, at least 100 members of the outgoing legislature are facing criminal charges - 73 of them facing trial on murder and kidnapping charges.

Rahul Gandhi today said that the migration of youth from Uttar Pradesh needs to be curbed He said: “UP is in a pathetic condition. In the last 15 years, India has progressed while the state went backwards."

On Sunday, Rahul said the State is a perfect example of 'gundaraj' or thievery.

IMO: That is certainly true, but the electorate have to be careful that they make the right choices. After Rajiv Gandhi, the corruption and the Tamil wars, it is clear that that a careful choice has to be made.

Naxals have called for a boycott of polls in parts of Uttar Pradesh, but the lesser evil may be Rahul.

"These elections are meant for capitalists and their goons. The rights of the common people are being overlooked. None of the democratic parties are bothered about the common man then why should we be concerned about it. We want elections that are meant for the common people and would work for them," Rakesh, a Naxal activist with an assumed name, said somewhere in a remote area in Nagwa village of Sonebhadra District.

IMO: After Buddha in Kolkata, who is to doubt that they have a point.

Dell recently announced that due to customer demand (in the USA), they would once more be making XP available, pre-installed, on their computers. Dimension E520 and E521 desktops, and Inspiron 1501, E1405, E1505, and E1705 notebooks. US customers only so far, and pre-install until Jan. 31, 2008 only.

Vista sales are "far from impressive" it seems. Most people seem to think it brings more problems and no obvious real advantage. "Unmaintainable" is the current buzz word for Vista, brief details here and here.

IMO: Leave Vista alone until system updates are proven successful, and some of the bugs removed, and then only on a brand new system with at least 4Gb of RAM as things stand. Then the 'Aero' may run well.

Tobias has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an ambitious effort to overhaul how the U.S. government manages "foreign aid", as it is called in Washington.

It was said "Condi absolutely loves him."

Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, the sources said.

According to the Iranian News. One of the kingpins of the racket, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, has her "back to the wall," and threatens to reveal more than 15,000 telephone records of her clients.

IMO: I recall the Profumo scandal in the UK (which involved very senior UK politicians, property scamsters of the Alan Sugar variety, Russian spies and Israelis of that ilk) and appreciate that there appears to be a large and very real element of security risk on these matters. Particularly nowadays in the USA where there is an enormous amount of "born-again Christian" posturing and the like.

"The Observer" today says, rightly IMO:

"The fate of this government will not be determined by the elections this Thursday. It will be decided by how Gordon Brown performs when he gets his chance. By this time next year, he will either be confounding his admirers by blowing his moment or he will be astonishing the doubters by seizing it to restore Labour's fortunes."

A European Union official has warned Turkey's military to stay out of politics after it expressed concern about the election of a new president. Olli Rehn, the EU expansion affairs commissioner said Saturday that the election was a "test case" for the Turkish military's respect for democracy.

Turkey was founded in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a military general, in what had been the Ottoman Sultanate.

Ataturk was determined that this mainly Muslim nation would be a modern, secular country, and he introduced wide-ranging reforms, including the emancipation of women, the introduction of western dress, legal code and alphabet, and the abolition of Islamic institutions.

Turkey's ruling elite and the powerful military have seen it as their job to protect what Ataturk set up. The staunchly secular elite of Turkey believes a president whose wife wears an Islamic headscarf would have Ataturk turning in his grave.

The military statement listed a series of public events where it said Islam had encroached on secular traditions. It also expressed concern over the brutal slayings of three Christians in the eastern city of Malatya earlier this month.

IMO: I agree with the Ataturk viewpoint and certainly not with some dodgy Brussels Eurocrat who could soon lose his job. But, it confirms my sentiments that Turkey is a long way from being an appropriate member of the EU yet. This would be NEVER AT ANY PRICE, if some unreasonable Islamists have their way. Not what I want. The whole matter is beginning to confirm suspicions that the EU is not up to its task, and needs a lot of improvement. Most of the people in (for example) the UK, France and Holland do not like the EU in its present form, AFAIK. If incompetence continues to rule in the EU, people may vote with their feet. After two Franco-German wars on a world scale, it will be with reluctance.

Many experts believe that Iran is developing a missile with a range between 1,200-1,900 miles, which would enable it to hit much of Europe. Iran's apparent nuclear bomb program is sponsored by nuclear assistance given by Russia. For this reason a shield from missiles in Europe could make sense, as could Russia's apparent intolerance of it.

The news that Russia may suspend its compliance with the amended 1999 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) is nothing new, given that for the past two years, senior Russian diplomats have repeatedly threatened to withdraw from that treaty completely.

It may also be significant that Putin's announcement was made at a time when both Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Prime Minister Zurab Noghaideli are abroad, and shortly after Saakashvili unveiled plans for "resolving" the conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia by offering terms that both sides are almost certain to reject. Such a rejection could in turn be adduced as fueling the Georgian argument that as diplomatic means have failed, the only way to bring those regions back under the control of the central Georgian government is by force. Putin's April 26 statement could herald a Russian military buildup in the North Caucasus intended to deter Tbilisi from any such military incursion.

Elements of the proposed U.S. missile shield to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic will be used to track Russian military activities, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Friday.

IMO: Why should Russian military activities not be tracked in an open society ? And to avoid blown up by Iranian bombs sounds like a good idea, for Europe anyway.

Mumbai April 27, 2007 : The Mumbai police have decided to hit on-the-run gangsters where it hurts the most. In an attempt to bring foreign-based criminals to budge, the police are now targeting their relatives back home. Sources said they believe applying constant pressure on the kith and kin of the underworld members would bring them to their knees.

The instance of Haseena Parkar, sister of Dawood Ibrahim, is just an example. Several slum redevelopment schemes in key localities are allegedly being actively sought out by her using Dawood’s name and the gang’s musclepower.”

Dawood henchman Chhota Shakeel was also similarly targeted with the arrest of his one-time girlfriends Rubina Sayyed and Tabassum Shaikh. Suresh Manchekar’s wife Supriya and mother-in-law Laxmi were arrested after they were allegedly found carrying on his gang’s activity after he was killed.

Arun Gawli’s wife Asha was arrested in a criminal case during the reign of the Shiv Sena — BJP in Maharashtra to dissuade him from launching his political party.

The police said relatives of gangsters attracted police actions when they found it difficult to resist the lure of easy money by just dropping the name of their more “infamous relatives”. Deepak Nikhalje and Sujatha are another case in point. Deepak worked closely with his brother’s wife Sujatha and extorted money from city-based developers

IMO: It is almost like a UK ex street trader wanting to run the BBC and dropping the name of 'Gordon Brown'. In fact this did happen recently. 'Gordon Brown' if he comes to office, is believed to intend to continue the mafia linked casino rackets set up by Tessa Jowell so he can extort funds from these operators at the eventual expense of the innocent British public. We can only hope that the present police enquiries into his crony Blair may have a sobering effect on these plans. Hopefully at least 'Lord' Levy will go to jail, like Joe Kagan and Rudy Sternberg did before him. Unfortunately another Labor criminal gang leader "Captain" Bob Maxwell was executed before they caught him.

Gere embraced 31-year-old Shetty - winner of Britain's "Celebrity Big Brother" reality show - and planted several kisses on her cheek in front of thousands of onlookers at the Aids function in the Indian capital New Delhi earlier this month.

Arrest warrants were issued in the Rajasthan state capital of Jaipur following a public interest plea filed last week by resident Poonam Chand Bhandari accusing the pair of obscenity.

Obscenity is punishable by a maximum of two years' imprisonment and a fine of 2,000 rupees ($45) in India.

Hindus burned effigies of 57-year-old Gere in India's entertainment hub of Mumbai and organized street rallies in New Delhi after the actor's obscene display.

Morals are too loose in the UK and America and violence and corruption even extend to the cloth. Actor Hugh Grant was also arrested in the UK over claims he attacked a photographer by throwing a tub of food at him. A clergyman who admitted trying to con two elderly worshippers out of almost £300,000 (over Rs 24,000,000) has avoided jail. And there are six more articles today on the BBC website about various Anglican clergyman buggering children. They have no excuse, most of them are married and they are well aware of AIDS. The UK and US are becoming vile bastions of corruption.

IMO: I would give Gere and Shetty the two year prison sentence as such people set a thoroughly bad example, and persons of their status should know better, particularly at such an event.

MUMBAI: Only four local trains ran from 10.55 pm on Saturday March 31st to 7.30 am on Sunday between Borivali and Virar following a mega block at Bhayandar due to quadrupling of tracks. This work was approved in December 1995. The present track situation between Borivili and Vasai is considered by many as grossly inadequate to meet the present day traffic. Hence, the project for quadrupling the tracks was taken up in 1995.

IMO: 12 years is a bit slow but I think the populous Eastern Suburbs line in Sydney, Australia took over 50 years to get to the present stage. A lot of that time trams, then buses and cars were used.

But in Mumbai the best choice is certainly the train and early completion can be hoped for. There is a protest committee about the slowness here. 70 organizations formed Pravas Adhikaar Andolan Samiti under DYFI leadership.

DYFI say, amongst other things: "Criminal negligence towards local train travelers' trauma is continuing at Railway administration, Central Government and State Government levels. This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.... We have to galvanize the people’s movement ... The official policy is to give minimum facilities to us for extracting maximum profit. If we leave them alone, the ruling establishment will delay Borivili-Virar track quadrupling project for many more years. But if we fight unitedly and democratically, the authorities are forced to bring changes. [someone said: "without filling their own pockets"] This is the experience of this movement."

Russia had stated earlier that Iran is still a long way from being a nuclear power and now Israel, possibly also keen enough to belittle that possibility says : "Iran is far from attaining the technology threshold and this country is not close to getting it, contrary to statements by its leadership."

If the estimates are correct, it means the US has plenty a time to seek a diplomatic alternative to its sabre-rattling according to Gary Samore, vice-president of US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations.

There are several problems with these sanguine views. Firstly, this kind of optimism has usually underrated the ability of nuclear scientists to think fast with a gun held to their head by a mad dictator and/or a large pot of money proffered by the same. In this sense, scientists are often unlike American politicians who would simply lie as usual in those circumstances. That brings me to the second point. The net result of US Democratic policy has often been a patched-up slow mishmash (e.g. consider the Clinton version of the NHS) - I mean that from the POV of the US Congress, there is a relatively short time to deal with Iran in a diplomatic way, even given a proposed 'favorable' timescale.

The Russians assessed some of the other problems with Iran but probably their timescale was grossly optimistic and the Israelis presumably don't care. The US Republicans now seem even to some of their own voters rather like 'the boy who cried wolf'. This time the wolf may be at the door and bunkerbuster nukes may be the only answer when something has to be done.

The main reasons for Iraq to be (or to apparently prepare to be) a nuclear power seem to be vanity and greed. Do the Iranians really want to go on existing at all ? I think there seem to be too many mad corrupt guys like Bolton and Wolfowitz around for it to happen.

IMO: Cannot we hope for sensible and fully comprehensive UN weapons inspections of Iran ?

The Air Force’s top officer said Wednesday that if nearly $1 billion in personnel funds taken from the service to pay for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t restored by the end of the summer, Airmen and civilian employees might not get their pay.

The prime reason for budgetary problems seems to be based on the budget inconsistencies of the previous US Republican adminisration, not on future hoped for plans of new Democratic administration. In short, someone earlier has cooked the books, it appears. This position has been proclaimed loudly for a long time and the chickens are now coming home to roost.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael “Buzz” Moseley said that the money is coming out of the military personnel account earmarked for the last four months of the year.

“Somebody’s going to have to pay us back,” Moseley said. “You have to pay people every day when they come to work.”

IMO: It seems unfair that the military big wigs may not pay the soldiers who go out and may get killed.

CHENNAI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch an Israeli satellite, called Polaris, through a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in August from Sriharikota. The satellite, weighing 300 kg, can take pictures of the earth through cloud and rain, 24 hours of the day. Informed sources said the Israelis wanted a "core-alone" configuration of the PSLV to put Polaris in orbit and the launch in August. In the core-alone vehicle, the six strap-on booster motors are not used. The core-alone PSLV weighs 230 tonnes.

ISRO will also fly an ultra-violet astronomy telescope from Israel on board ISRO's GSAT-4 that will be launched by the indigenous GSLV (Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle) from Sriharikota. The ultra-violet astronomy telescope is called TAUVEX (Tel Aviv University Ultra-violet Experiment.)

Antrix Corporation has also won a contract for ISRO to put in orbit a cluster of six micro satellites from Canada. These six micro-satellites totally weigh 26 kg. A PSLV core-alone configuration will again be used to put these satellites in orbit. They will ride piggyback on ISRO's Cartosat-2A, which will be used for mapping purposes.

Agile satellite is also working well. Signals from it have been acquired by the Italian Space Agency's ground station at Malindi in Kenya. It had now been placed in a sun-pointing mode.

Baroness Butler-Sloss was the second coroner in the role.

Baroness Butler-Sloss is to step down in June as coroner for the inquests into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, it has been announced. Lady Butler-Sloss said she lacked the experience required to deal with an inquest with a jury.

A three-year inquiry conducted by former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Stevens concluded that Princess Diana had died in a tragic accident and that there had been no conspiracy and no cover-up.

Mr Al Fayed is the father of one of the crash vistims. He alleges the August 1997 Paris road crash which claimed the couple's lives was part of a secret plot by the British establishment. The hearings are expected to last between four and eight months.

Mr Al Fayed is also the obvious person to blame for the deaths as he presed alcohol and other abusive pleasures on all concerned, and alcohol seems to have been the immediate cause of the deaths.

It has long been said that Diana had in fact previously had an actual interest in a non white neurosurgeon but little real interest in the other crash victim, Al Fayed's son. Apparently the Al Fayed granchildren are permitted to use a helicopter to obtain alcohol when the local English shop will not serve them as they are under age.

A jury will probably be stacked by one side or the other.

IMO: Al Fayed's ideas seem to be absurd, but because of the doubts of most people about the corrupt lying UK establishment, particularly after the feelings of many, including the UN and the BBC, on the so called 'suicide' of Dr. Kelly when he disagreed with Tony Blair, action is not as absurd as it could be. [others say: or Paul Wellstone. For example Ninam says : ".. we do know.. that Wellstone emerged as the most visible obstacle standing in the way of a draconian political agenda by an unelected government [ i.e. Bush's]. And now he is conveniently gone". Same as Omar Torrijos, Mickey Leland, John Heinz and John Tower.]

The drug, called PTC124, will be revolutionary if it makes it all the way to chemists' shelves because it is a pill that could be used to correct aberrations programmed at a genetic level.

If its success is repeated in human trials, it could be useful to treat an estimated 15 per cent of patients suffering from up to 1800 different genetic diseases. Preliminary results, published online by Nature magazine, were encouraging.

New preclinical data published online in the current edition of the journal Nature show that PTC124, an investigational new drug designed to bypass nonsense mutations, was efficacious in a preclinical model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). It is estimated that approximately 13 percent of the cases of DMD are due to nonsense mutations. PTC Therapeutics, Inc., which discovered and is developing PTC124, has catalogued over 1,800 distinct genetic disorders where nonsense mutations are the cause of the disease in a significant percentage of patients. Nonsense mutations inactivate gene function and are known to cause anywhere from five to 70 percent of the individual cases of most inherited diseases, such as cystic fibrosis (10%) and Hurler's syndrome (70%).

IMO: For many, many years such successful gene therapy has been expected, so it is about time we had some results. Too much effort and money has been wasted instead on useless wars and terrorism, and overall both politicians and terrorists lose by their activities. Only a few cheap crooks and status-seekers like Tony Blair gain and important scientists don't get enough chances.

Washington - US lawmakers Monday agreed on legislation that could start bringing troops home from Iraq as early as July 1 and would complete the pullout by March 31, 2008, setting up a veto showdown with President George W Bush.

Whilst intentions in some US/UK quarters were good, faulty planning and plans for the present situation, which I and others mentioned the possibility of well in advance of the US/UK Iraq war could lead to an early pull out. Better advance preparation of the war was needed. Most people asumed the US could have coped with the present war somehow, but the US did not.

IMO: Yes, it is likely to be the ''ol cut and run' option. At least India had more sense than to be involved.

The well-known commentator Robert Fisk says "Any political filth or personal libel can be hurled at the innocent " and what is more in an article in the Independent he gives examples. Now this fact is probably well known to readers of usenet, well aware of trolls and simple lies, but possibly not to the sort of degree that Fisk details. It has got to the point where anyone who says anything at all nowadays, rightly or wrongly, has to face the fact that "nowadays everybody is potentially a David Bohm" and may be banished from humankind for ever and have their life ruined. And we do not have to look anywhere near as far as Danish cartoons to find this out.

Fisk cites in some detail the attempted persecution of Taner Akcam and states that Akram said "Allegations against me, posted by the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Turkish Forum and 'Tall Armenia Tale' (a Holocaust denial website) have been copy-pasted and recycled through innumerable websites and e-groups ever since I arrived in America. By now, my name in close proximity to the English word 'terrorist' turns up in well over 10,000 web pages."

Now what this has meant is, as Fisk notes "How much smut are the US and Canadian immigration authorities taking off the internet? And how much of it is now going to be flung at us when we queue at airports to go about our lawful business? "

Now it is possible to fight back against this sort of thing, as Rwanda tried to do when Turkey forced closure of a U.N. photo exhibition on the Rwandan Genocide. "There is no question that the Rwandan exhibition will be reopened at the U.N. along with the reference to the Armenian Genocide. By taking it down temporarily to get rid of that (brief) reference, Turkish officials have once again inadvertently publicized the Armenian Genocide to a worldwide audience, much beyond the four walls of the U.N."

In fact I have no particular complaint about Turkey and think there are many reasons for Ataturk to be admired, though clearly Armenian genocide is not one of them. But at the same time, the idea of the repressive regime of Tony Blair forcing the UK to side with (Armenian) genocide deniers, as seems to be the position of Turkey at this time, leaves me totally nonplussed. And certainly people like Robert Maxwell and 'Dame' Shirley Porter do no credit to UK politics or to UK politicians, particularly not to the Labor party. At the end of the day, spin and megaphone diplomacy by those gaining from the undoubted facts of Jewish and probably Armenian genocide places no Jew or Turk in a good light. Neither country should conceivably be made any serious offer to join the EU, for example, indeed the EU is bad enough already.

We can only hope that Blair, for example, may eventually meet his just deserts, as did Poulson. Indeed Blair strikes me as a kind of inferior Poulson, with ideas based on out of date economics at that. The South American style argument that "the other lot are far worse" is hardly satisfying.

Says the "Japan Times" His involvement in the Iraq war was worrisome for many observers and many World Bank employees, and his push to accelerate lending to Iraq and open a branch office in Baghdad was seen as an attempt to push the Bush administration's agenda. IMO that is a matter that is essentially ultra vires for a person in his position.

In addition, the shills and Bushies Wolfowitz brought with him to the bank clashed with regular World Bank personnel. Also, Wolfowitz has championed an anticorruption campaign among recipients of World Bank loans that has worried many donors. They are concerned that it will politicize the institution. Obviously bankers do not or should not want corruption, but his own methods have not been clean to the point where the bank's governors last year rejected Mr. Wolfowitz's original plan; and he is still trying to get some plan adopted.

Last weekend, finance officials from the World Bank and member governments issued a communique expressing "great concern" about the bank's future.In less diplomatic terms, in effect they said he was total crap and should leave, but in the way that kind of schnorrer does, he hangs on for more money and influence.

As the Japan Times says, how can the world's lending institution demand higher standards from its loan recipients than it does from its top executive?

IMO: Wolfowitz the schnorrer should go or be frogmarched out of the Bank, and thrown out into the street.

Mrs Gandhi condemned the “needless loss of life” at Nandigram, which, she said, “brings into focus certain inequitable policies being pursued in the name of economic progress.” And, then she asserts: “The issue is not industrialisation, it is the forcible acquisition of fertile land from villagers who do not wish to part with it.

Meanwhile, car workers are taking part in an indefinite strike at the Hindustan Motors factory in Uttarpara, in the Indian state of West Bengal and were brutally assaulted by police last week. Officers armed with long truncheons attacked pickets and arrested union activists who have been taking action for more than a month. This was the latest episode in a struggle that is fuelling growing anger with the Communist-led government in the state.

On the Singur issue, the Calcutta High Court will hear all the cases related to land acquisition by the West Bengal government in Singur for Tata Motors small car project from April 27.

An 81-year-old woman, once described by a judge as "the original neighbour from hell", was jailed for six months today. The defense stated that the source of Evans' dispute was flooding at her home in Park Crescent which was kept under control by constant pumping operations. This prevented her from selling her home, he said, and she blamed this on whoever was living next door.

It seems plausible that a confused elderly lady, who had clearly been told many lies, could reasonably be expected to act in the way that she did and that the water company who could presumably sweeten the courts with bribes, was the real offender. Much easier to send an old lady to jail than to expect a water company to meet its obligations.

IMO: It is what we have come to expect in the UK, the corrupt benefit and the rest go to the wall regardless.

[others say: 6 months for a poor old lady in an obviously decrepit state, (even from the prosecution evidence itself where she seems to imagine witchcraft), is most unfair].

Typical comment: "(..after the first shooting... ) the police and the university authorities met nearly two hours later and only after 2hrs and 11 minutes have elapsed do they finally get around to sending out a vague warning BY EMAIL. Email, I ask you. Hardly the best choice for a potentially time critical warning."

IMO: Seems to me that a Tannoy announcement could have been made clearly around campus within SECONDS of the first incident. The police drove round the campus with speakers, apparently after the killings ended. One problem is, early Tannoy announcements could lead to many hoaxes. Apparently when the Irish Roman Catholic murders were so common in the UK, there were extremely frequent hoax callers at places like Heathrow Airport. But these are all problems to be resolved.

I had bothered to read the much of the stuff about the UK Iran hostages, seems it was most amusing, according to the London 'Times', quite an interesting read for once.

Arthur Batchelor, the youngest of the group at 20, revealed that he had been tormented by his captors flicking their fingers against his neck and calling him Mr Bean, the buffoon played by Rowan Atkinson. They had also taken his iPod.

“All I could make out in their language were the words ‘Mr Bean’,” he said. “They were laughing at me . . . making me feel about three inches tall.”

Faye Turney, 25, recalled of her captivity: “I cried my eyes out. I asked the guards about my friends but all they did was laugh at me.”

According to the Tories, selling Navy stories to the Press was "a catastrophic mistake that (Denis Browne aka 'Swiss Toni') would have to reverse instantly".

IMO: It almost makes you feel that you want to take a job with the Iranian Navy, could be better than the British Navy anyway, not that that says much.

Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has credited the Nehru-Gandhi family with India's independence as well as Bangladesh's creation, fuelling an angry response from the Opposition here and a mild reaction in Islamabad.

“He only thinks of his family and thinks history has been written by the Gandhis. In fact, he includes Mahatma Gandhi too in this,” BJP party spokesman Prakash Javadekar maintained. “If they (Congress) takes credit for Pakistan's division, then they should also take the blame for the partition of India. They don't see the country beyond the family and are so involved in the game that all their (other party) bearers become unimportant. “Does that mean (former prime ministers) Lal Bahadur Shastri and (P V) Narasimha Rao were nobodies? Talking about a party is okay as it represents a hierarchy. Here, the talk is all about family,” Javadekar contended.

Now it is to be UP for Rahul Gandhi, apparently. "Once my family decides on something, it doesn’t go back. Whether it’s about India’s freedom, dividing Pakistan or taking India to the 21st century" — Rahul Gandhi

Opening his campaign for the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today projected Rahul Gandhi as the state’s new leader, saying he is its future.

IMO: Well Rahul Gandhi is still young and young people tend to parrot their elders and make inane remarks. But some would say that we have had enough of that sort of talk already from the Gandhi family. OTOH UP could certainly do with improvement, by whoever. Possibly it is worthwhile if someone actually tries to 'improve' it, in a way acceptable to the locals there anyway. We can only hope for improvement, whatever the voters decide, or allegedly decide.

"Fister or bust" says the Inquirer, could be a mildly obscene pun on the OS. I am not sure what they mean by that but I doubt if it is intended to be complimentary to Microsoft. According to the Microsoft diktat, The OEM version of XP Professional goes next January... At that point, the box-shifters will have no choice. All Vista from then on.

Microsoft's position is not one that is likely to be universally welcomed. The price of progress people, so suck it up.

But Direct2Dell said "Dell recognizes the needs of small business customers and understands that more time is needed to transition to a new operating system."

Microsoft dropped by Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs recently removed Microsoft from its annual ‘Elite Conviction Buy List’, noting that while the stock was still worth buying, it no longer had the same allure as before. "Vista may be the last big operating system developed by the company," Goldman Sachs has said.

IMO: If so, no wonder that they wish to foist Vista on everyone.

Microsoft recently found itself in a lawsuit that charged it with deceptive practices by letting PC-makers put a `Vista Capable’ sticker on PCs -- even when some buyers wouldn't be able to run the new operating system's most-promoted features. The suit claims that Microsoft unfairly labeled PCs as `Windows Vista Capable’ even when the computers could run only the most basic form of the OS. Moreover, many of the machines with the label cannot or poorly run Home Premium, the least expensive version of Vista. The suit noted that Home Basic lacks many of the features, among them the new Aero interface, that Microsoft had heavily advertised as reasons why users should migrate to Vista.

Vista faces huge compatibility and performance issues. Users have been complaining that Vista takes too long to start and shutdown, so also the application loading takes longer than Windows XP. These are highly important factors if you use a computer a lot. And, the Gen-Next operating system has been rather slow on the uptake among a majority of professional PC users.

IMO: I would be probably happiest with a slightly updated W98, and in effect use even XP under protest. According to likely volatile RAM requirements, there are no computers easily available, say at the reasonable PCWorld, which have enough volatile RAM yet, although one assumes that their 'Vista -capable' range will run Vista well enough for the undemanding. It is a sad prospect and one hopes that such measures as the use of plugin USB RAM (presumably using Vista Superfetch), now available relatively inexpensively, may eventually at least fill in as a stopgap on the RAM front.And then there is hardware compatability - do not even consider buying a Vista software update for your existing machine, people have tried that. Hopefully time will sort out the Vista problems.

Current info here, others write:
"For the past several years, I have used doubleclick as the canonical example in malware problems to solve: how to block all cookies from doubleclick. How to block IP traffic from all members of doubleclick internet domains. And so on. So what am I going to do now? Block all of Google? The bastards!"
"Yep, there are other search engines available."

The version being tested spots deadly blood clots. The infrascanner uses harmless "near-infra-red" light - like that in a TV remote control. The light beam penetrates the skull up to three centimetres. A blood clot absorbs near-infra-red light differently to normal brain tissue and the signal is bounced back to the scanner.

Road injuries occur very frequently in India. When the source of the injury is rapidly detected by the inexpensive scanner, often enough a simple hole can be drilled in the skull at the right place and the clot washed away.

The method is noninvasional, the device could virtually be made at home and could be used for other types of scan as well.

IMO: Sounds interesting for the experimenter.

Most U.K. people by now are aware of the Sally Clark case, involving typical UK legal corruption, bent judges and so-called 'expert' witnesses, and the unecessary destruction by the UK courts of a decent home and family, mainly, it appears, as part of a frantic effort by the legal and medical professions to save face for their own corrupt representatives. I would say that is typical of the corrupt UK courts under the vile Blair Government, with its dodgy and illconsidered policies.

JR Soc Med 2003;96:105 : after the event and the death of Sally Clark, we now have this take on the matter. "A prominent loser in this sad business, which culminated at the end of January, was the credibility of expert medical witnesses. One presented erroneous statistical evidence that damaged the defence, while another withheld pathological evidence that might have helped it. These errors formed the grounds for successive appeals, the second of which was successful—but only after Mrs Clark had been in prison for three years." ..." In the face of all these uncertainties, when giving evidence to the police or to the court doctors would be wise to acknowledge the limitations in their understanding. They should present all relevant facts in a balanced manner, offer opinions only within their sphere of expertise and take care not to overstate their case. Wrong conclusions in either direction may be disastrous: failure to detect maltreatment can result in the death of another child, while unjustified prosecution can wreck a life and a family."

IMO: The horse has bolted, and the stable door is still not properly closed. But I suppose it is nice to hear that at least somebody has noticed those facts.

Rachael Bell, 17, is still too scared to face her family after advertising her house party online - only for 200 'guests' to wreck the £230,000 luxury home. "It was just an absolute nightmare. It was so surreal. You just can't imagine anything like it happening. 'We didn't recognise the people and didn't know what was going on so we bolted the door - but they just started climbing through the window".

Police were needed to disperse the crowds at the Easter Monday spree that forced Rachael to flee her home and go into hiding. Her parents Allan and Elaine Bell say they are now looking for temporary accommodation. When the party got totally out of control, some neighbours brandished golf clubs as they tried to chase the revellers away.

Last night the Durham Police denied they were at fault for the party getting out of control. A spokesman said: “This was a private house party. Forcibly breaking up the party was not a serious option." That excuse sounds like nonsense, in the circumstances, rather like a Private Eye skit..

World Bank president's alleged affair with Shaha Ali Riza is only one factor. Neighbours in the predominantly Democratic neighbourhood near American University, where Ms Riza lives, complained to The Washington Post of late night visits from Mr Wolfowitz and his 24-hour security detail. "It's an international neighborhood and he's the icon for a fabulously expensive, tragic war. It's the one thing we talk about now," one told the newspaper.

Riza has seen her salary rise by more than $60,000 ("grossly out of line with the rules") since her move to the State Department, where she is still paid by the bank, more than the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Mr Wolfowitz has been criticised for marginalising long-standing bank officials and compromising the apolitical role of the bank by surrounding himself with aides closely identified with the Bush Administration.

The campaign against corruption has been criticised by bank supporters, including the UK, for being vague and sparing problematic American allies, such as Tajikistan, while suspending aid to projects in places like India and Kenya. Last September, Mr Wolfowitz received an unprecedented rebuke from the bank's ruling development committee, which forced him to water down the proposals.

In a strongly worded editorial, the Financial Times also told Mr Wolfowitz to stand down. Calling the controversy "lethal" to the bank's credibility, the paper's leader column said: "In the interests of the bank itself, he should resign. If he does not, the board must ask him to go."

IMO: Sack the worthless scumbag. We do not pay for our money to be wasted by his sort.

While Lee Iacocca's new book, "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?", deals with the Bush adminstration, the similarities between the US and UK administration seem frightening. The former Ford and Chrysler president excoriates the Bush administration for its total failure to lead the country well, laying out the case that America has turned into a corrupt kleptocracy that is more concerned with lining the pockets of political donors than strengthening the nation and keeping it secure, just like the UK Labor and Tory leaders.

Iacocca says: "Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?"

IMO: Yeah, just like the UK. In fact it is worse over here, as most of the public nowadays seem to be a bunch of selfish drunks as well, screaming for more money and to hell with the economy, the elderly and the poor, while the politicans themselves are mainly a bunch of overblown parasites, like fat blowflies who deserve squashing. Lets hope Gordon Brown at least will reign in this folly, but that seems unlikely. One thing needed is more rational and up to date political and economic theory as I've said for years.

Forbes says: The judge could also slap a fine on Hurley, eating into her tidy earnings from 'Hello'.

And it looks like Tourism Minister Ambika Soni may have to alter her pitch. At a travel promotional event in Berlin last month, she sold India as a destination for wedding tourism, highlighting the much-publicized Hurley-Nayar nuptials. But, the Minister could not be expected to assume argumentative drunkenness or sacrilege, as these thing are not the norm in decent Hindu society. You only have to look outside provincal UK pubs late at night to see plenty of those things in the corrupt decadent UK. And that is not tolerance, it is practically tantamount to civil unrest and frequently leads to essential prosecution, hence one reason for the high UK crime rate.

IMO: As a frequent resident of Mumbai it is my view that there is no good reason why sacred Hindu customs should be defiled for the sake of filthy lucre. Why does Hurley want this illegal marriage anyway, she already has had a Christian marriage and a further Hindu marriage is illegal anyway. I did not trouble to look it up in the law book but if already married, such a marriage for Hurley is illegal and null and void. OTOH Hindus are decent, humane people and there seems no reason why wedding tourism could not be popular in India if local customs are fulfilled. Also there is no reason, AFAIK, why a proper Christian marriage should not subsequently be blessed by a Hindu pundit as long as bride and groom are both properly behaved, e.g. don't drink alcohol and do take off their shoes in the temple. These protocols can easily be explained and respected. FOR PRACTICAL CEREMONIAL PURPOSES this should seem about the same as what Ambika Soni offered to wedding tourists, especially if they are foreigners. The net result if properly worked out could well be much like RC marriages used to be in the old days in the UK. where there was a RC ceremony but but there had to be formal registration, unlike in the C. of E. Another nice place to get married is Bali in Indonesia, also largely Hindu.

Russia says: Iran's nuclear bark is worse than its bite, but what is the Security Council supposed to do? Few experts doubt that Iran's uranium-enrichment program would do irreparable damage to the non-proliferation regime. If it goes unpunished, it will encourage other countries to follow suit, especially states on the nuclear threshold such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Argentina and Brazil. They are not going to listen to Tehran's assurances on the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

But, RUSSIA HOPES, "The Iranians are unable to independently build a fuel cluster for a nuclear plant, which means it cannot produce fuel for such a plant," said representatives of Techsnabexport, Russia's state nuclear materials exporter.

IMO: Yeah, this vain hope reminds us of Soviet propanda exercises, which seemed largely laughable. Marxism failed because of lack of Western support and bad science. Here we have wishful thinking again by Russia.

The new dodgy globalisation policies can't handle Iran. Dominique (in "Market Economies and Natural Laws") for example, gives some of the answers but certainly has not come to grips with it all.

For a short time Ahmadinejad can cover up for his failures in other fields than nukes - lies and minor success only in his societal aspirations even if some of his efforts are praiseworthy - but not for long. He is trying to blackmail the world. Maybe the world in a cowardly way can afford to pay off North Korea. But not Ahmadinejad, his price is too high. Whether he knows it or not, Ahmadinejad is going the way of all greedy blackmailers - he wants too much.

When I was a small child I had a war game called "Catch the Kaiser - strafe him". Well, Kaiser Bill was a bad man and he was indeed strafed. Ahmadinejad may or may not be a bad man but for survival he and his sort should be removed ASAP, by the USA/UK or preferably by the UN, which still commands limited support despite its pusillanimous behaviour. I note the Bushies and ex-Bushies have not yet found enough pleasure and profit in removing Ahmadinejad, but the rest of us need to do something about the situation.

IMO: What Russia can do is to side with the West for once to eliminate the problem. [Someone said: 'Give Ahmadinejad a nice Polonium sushi" - IMO today's world is not quite that simple.]

The august London Times, not normally the doyenne of the incredible, a day or two ago put forward this shocking possibility. The idea is still mentioned in M&C "Blair could be persuaded to remain in the job he still enjoys. Although Blair`s own approval ratings are low and polls suggest that he would face defeat at the next election, they are significantly better than Brown`s".

What would happen to the NHS ? Well UK patients being given harmful and life threatening drugs just to meet targets, because of the flawed economics of both major UK parties.

The so called public-private partnership may soon descend to the worst excesses of US medicine under the pseudoTory Blair. What is that ? I'll tell you, according to respected reports from MSNBC: "Staffing was so inadequate at a California senior center that a rat crawled into an Alzheimer's patient's mouth and died there before staff noticed, a lawsuit claims."

I have worked in such institutions and I tell you "Unless improvements are made to economic policy by both major parties in the UK - it will routinely happen here.

So if you want a rat to crawl into your father's mouth, or even into your own, and die there on the NHS - vote for loony Blair or druggy Cameron.

IMO: In those circumstances, the poor rat has all my sympathy.

April 10, 2007: According to the London Telegraph, which is admittedly not a normal source of Hindu law but occasionally has excelled on the Hollywood gossip front, particularly in the days when it was run by notorious criminal Conrad Black, Hollywood star Liz Hurley faces a three year jail term for breaching Hindu custom.

Wedding pictures the star sold to Hello! magazine for $5 million might be used to prosecute Liz Hurley, combined with evidence from her new father-in-law.

A devout Hindu, Vishnu Khandelwal, who is thought never to have met the couple, has begun legal proceedings saying their lavish wedding broke with Hindu custom.

Among the allegations are that Hurley refused to take off her shoes when they arrived at the marriage mandap (marriage place) and that she drank alcohol.

As a person interested in Hindu law, I can confirm that Hurley should not have done these things. Pictures of the pair kissing in Hello! will be used to show that they failed to "behave soberly'', while it was noted that kissing is also against Hindu culture.

"We are using the Hello! pictures to prove our case,'' prosecuting lawyer HM Saraswat said. Hurley's father-in-law Vinod Nayar has also contacted the prosecutor saying he has help regarding the case. "He wants to disclose some important facts,'' Mr Saraswat said. Mr Nayar famously disowned his son and daughter-in-law last week after claiming he and other Indian guests at the wedding were made to feel like a "second class citizens'' in comparison to European guests at the lavish do.

If found guilty of a "deliberate and malicious act'' against the religion, both Hurley and her husband Arun face a three-year jail sentence. The pair could also face an unlimited fine - putting a sizeable hole in their Hello! advance - by the judge presiding over the case if he decides there is a prime facie case to answer. It seems that they could be charged under section 295A of the Indian penal code, detailing an intention to outrage the feelings of Hindus by insulting their religious and ritualistic beliefs.

I dare say, from the thankfully little I have heard of Hurley, that HM Saraswat may have yet more evidence for such a case.

IMO: It all sounds a bit like contrived gossip but it could be said that the more of Hello! money that goes to the righteous Hindu poor, the better. Anyone who has looked at the worthless (but presumably mainly legal) rag Hello! can form that opinion, in my view.

Thousands of men with prostate cancer are being given unnecessary and potentially harmful drug treatment to clear hospital waiting lists, according to a leading cancer specialist.

Oncologist Chris Hamilton claims the "crazy" system of Government targets means prostate patients often head the queue for radiotherapy treatment - even when they don't need it - ahead of other cancer patients.

But hospitals face penalties if cancer patients are not given treatment within four weeks, he said.

IMO: This bizarre behaviour is caused by the incorrect philosophy adopted by the Government as I have often pointed out. IT WOULD NOT BE BETTER WITH THE TORIES, POSSIBLY WORSE. as they have also fallen for similar economic pseudoscience

One advantage in going to the moon (helium 3 moon map here) may be helium 3 mining for use in neutron bombs and cheap nuclear fusion plants. The first can kill us all, the second provide energy for the next few centuries if we are lucky. Pravda in 2005 for example, said "A few kilograms of the lunar substance will be enough to start a thermonuclear electric power station". And many like Kulcinski believe nuclear fusion reactors, which will likely be hopefully much better that fission reactors as an energy source, may well be possible in relatively few years.

US trends in federal spending on research in the last few decades have not been good. In a world where China and India are steadily stepping up their government R&D spending, this is a bad trend. To quote Professor Kulcinski, “The US is coasting on our past research and cheap labor.” NASA doesn’t trust DOE to fund and get a helium-3 reactor working if they commit the resources to get the helium-3. Hopefully access to the helium-3 will come as a byproduct of returning to the Moon, and as the DOE sees the return to the Moon advancing, they will be willing to put more money into helium-3 fusion research.

Tritium required for strategic purposes has to be produced artificially, and there are two ways to do this, the second pioneered in Mumbai, both involving nuclear reactions with neutrons: in the first method, neutrons are made to strike a target of lithium or aluminum metal, which gives tritium and other by-products; the second method involves a neutron reaction with helium-3 which gives tritium and hydrogen as by-products.

Many will say helium 3 is the fuel of tomorrow, a little more here as an 'executive summary', which of course I cannot vouch for the accuracy of.

Be that as it may, India is focussing on important societal programs in space which will for example expand the network for telemedicine, tele-education and village resource centres, in other words Indian space exploration will hopefully continue to make profits and sustain and help the poor and needy, not just help politicians to create needless wars for their personal pleasure and profit, by the sufferings of millions.

Cybercrooks had been using a "critical" Windows vulnerability to attack Windows PCs, including those running Vista.

Microsoft had to rush out a patch, breaking its normal patch cycle. Microsoft's patch is causing trouble for some users because it is not compatible with software that runs audio and networking components from Realtek Semiconductor.

Mozilla is looking at delivering its own remedy for the cursor flaw. The Firefox work-around could come as a welcome option to those users who, for whatever reason, don't install Microsoft's fix.

IMO: Here's one reader's workaround for Mozilla .. "..use IE 7 for the time being".

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has just admitted Afghanistan as its eighth member-state. Iran has been also invited to SAARC as an observer. Iran's new status is seen as a statement of the importance it enjoys in the region --in sharp contrast to Western efforts to isolate Tehran.

South Asia has so far been a laggard as far as regional cooperation is concerned. But after the Delhi summit, the prospects for such cooperation have improved.

India’s foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee claimed at the wrap-up news conference at the end of the 14th SAARC jumboree that “this was the smoothest, least contentious summit ever”, many more details here.

Mumbai, April 7 (PTI): Nine-year-old lioness Jimmy looks up quizzically from a mid-afternoon snooze - "is it mealtime already?". Her leopard friend greets the passing zoo official with only a tip-of-the-tail-wag. "It can't be time yet", she knows. Jimmy and her friends, ensconced at historic Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan (VJBU), are to be shaken up soon, in the first-ever major overall revamp of their surroundings.

Byculla Zoo, is being transformed into a "global entity in keeping with trends in the country". Ambitious "imports" include zebras and giraffes.

The 52-acre plot handed over to BMC in 1873, will be regraphed continent-wise with efforts to locate the animals in surroundings close to their natural habitats. Also the zoo's topography which at present resembles a game reserve will receive a "beautification treatment" with the placement of a waterbody in the centre, better cages, educative mapping and varied flora.

Meanwhile, zoo officials say, "the idea is to better sensitise people to our four and two legged friends... we want it to be an interactive process, of education and better awareness, of harmony and inner peace".

The plan is to commence with six daily flights on a 15-seater helicopter. This will be a scheduled passenger service, by utilising the Mahalaxmi and Pune racecourses.

An Indian Air Force (IAF) base, currently no additional civil flights are allowed at the Pune airport between 6 am and 10 pm. “Pune is a growing metropolis and desperately requires air connectivity. With IAF continuing to block additional civil flights , we cannot capitalise on this opportunity. But that does not destroy the demand,” said Mallya. He is likely to purchase the choppers from Eurocopter or Augusta.

IMO: Lohegaon airport is about 10km from Pune railway station (reasonably central). Many people do not think much of it. But for global warming, we might encourage expansion for Lohegaon or suggest an additonal airport.

A former street market trader with little experience of broadcasting has been made BBC chairman.

Officially BBC chairmen are appointed by the Queen, but the job is effectively gifted by culture minister and alleged Mafia associate Tessa Jowell, who has already squandered more than the national product of Iceland on one sporting event, namely a much publicised but limited lifestyle value Olympics.

Lyons, a self-made man who began as a street market trader, will set the strategic direction of the BBC via the Trust, which came into being in January, replacing the board of governors. His four-year contract is worth £140,000 ($266,000) a year.

Apparently he is a crony of Gordon Brown (believed to be next UK Prime Minister) and rarely watches television.

The last chairman but one, Gavyn Davies, was forced to resign in a row over the BBC's coverage of the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, while in November Michael Grade quit for a better paid and, arguably, more interesting job running ITV.

From the BBC 's point of view they presumably feel that this is a safe choice as he can always be changed if Brown doesn't rate. But on the face of it we certainly seem to be getting a bunch of dumbed-down and often inappropriate leaders.

IMO: I went to several street markets yesterday including the Nag's Head and Alfie's (not strictly a street market but roughly the same idea) but in fairness, for all their possible merits, I did not note any obvious heads for the BBC there.

[Commented 6/4/07 : To sum it up, murderers, drug addicts, drunks, and market traders are running the place.]

The Lebanon Star states: "Syria is not the only party to blame for the fact that it has grossly misread Washington; the Bush administration's refusal to communicate with its adversaries has done nothing to help set the record straight. For the past six years, George W. Bush and his administration have talked only indirectly to Syrian leaders. And most of this oblique communication comes in the form of stern but seemingly contradictory warnings to "support democracy" in Lebanon, but back a US crackdown on Hamas, the party that was democratically elected to office in Palestine. Talk about mixed messages. Even more baffling are the unofficial phrases of the kind that Bush uttered at a G8 lunch last year: "Syria needs to stop this shit." "
Though the Star also describes Syrian reactions to Pelosi as "reading like really bad fiction", hopefully Pelosi may be able to rectify the situation.

In a hopefully similar way, Blair has at least made some level of friendly contact with Iran and got the hostages back, whatever the overall views about the whole situation may be. As I said in an earlier blog there was created by the whole matter a sensible opportunity for face to face negotiations, and the overall approach by Blair had already led to some success, from his standpoint, in Ulster.

Perhaps Blair's general approach to such matters is more appropriate to international affairs than for dealing with internal policy. Internally in the UK he is not confronting potential enemies, but his own voters and perhaps (following the Wilson/Falkender internal problems) he has unthinkingly assumed that the Labor Party is the enemy of the UK voters. This may well be implied Tory policy, and seems to have been for years, but is unworthy of any Left-thinking (though often not Left-acting) Goverment.

IMO: Remedies to the internal UK situation will not just involve focus groups and the like, but a rethinking of Labor strategy as I repeatedly point out here.

Seems McKinnon, apparently hardly the obvious Mafia hacker or even a shill or stooge, described himself as a "bumbling nerd". The 40-year-old computer enthusiast from north London apparently hacked into dozens of US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense computers, as well as 16 Nasa computers.

If accurate, it all seems to show.

(1) US defenses against hacking are appallingly bad, more than likely - its hardly likely to be all 'honeytraps' that McKinnon has allegedly penetrated. Chilling, and a partial justification for white hat hacking attempts. Seems Mckinnon was looking for 'flying saucers' (!!??).

(2) It seems a little excessive in the circumstances that McKinnon faces up to life in jail in the USA for little more than rather childish games on his home suburban UK computer. He is after all a UK citizen. Although it does seem that through its efforts in pushing casinos over here, the USA is trying to turn UK into a sort of pre-Castro Cuba, through Tony B. Liar, surely things have not gone that far yet.

In the meantime, UK Home Secretary John Reid has split the UK Home Office in two and we can reasonably question whether he will now 'move on' or will he in some way remedy its faults. If he does not put the work in to remedy the UK Home Office's (agreed) faults, maybe he has done much more damage to US/UK security than McKinnon.

IMO: Should John Reid be sent to jail for life also if he does not put the Home Office right. At least he has been well paid to do so. Maybe his extradition to the US should be sought if he does not live up to his (politician's) promises.

David Tennant loves having farting competitions in the Tardis. The actor, 36, says that he takes on co-star John Barrowman who plays Captain Jack in trumping contests.

Speaking on tonight’s Graham Norton Show, he laughed: “We get very competitive about farting in the Tardis. Farting before performing is a kind of exorcism. John feels the same way. It’s our Glasgow heritage.”

However, David joked that Freema Agyeman, who plays new assistant Martha Jones, isn’t impressed. David added: “Freema really didn’t like it, which spurred us on.”

IMO: Disgusting. If this is true, surely that makes BBC1 obvious racist bullies. People have to work in those needlessly vile conditions. In the UK there are remedies for this sort of thing, under New Labour.

But the Taiwanese are not so easy going. Shen Pao-ni a former Olympic Games team swimmer, on Tuesday had her jail sentence reduced from nine years to 14 months by the Taiwan High Court, which ruled that Shen did not commit a sexual offense when she sodomized a man with a stick. Along with two men, Seng inserted a stick in the victim's anus. We do not know if that stopped him farting.

Shen was convicted and received a nine-year sentence from the Taipei District Court.

I pointed out that I didn't much like his last budget, and felt that some of the current Labor economic theory (insofar that it pretends that a 'greed-is-good-and-necessary' approach has a useful and voter-friendly scientific basis) is unsound to put it mildly. But strong attacks on him by a basically Tory and anti-voter Press have become totally unreasonable.

Here's Polly Toynbee's brief (Liberal) take on it: "Note how almost the entire press is on song for the "£5bn pensions raid" story, with a single-minded, out-to-kill consistency across every Tory paper. This "stealth raid" happened 10 years ago in public at the dispatch box, and has been industry's excuse for the retreat from company pensions ever since. There is no doubt that the £5bn played its part in the pensions crisis, but it was peanuts compared with £250bn of pension funds lost on the stock market; £5bn is a gnat bite compared with the cost of pension holders' extra longevity. It is small compared with the pension holidays that grasshopper companies stole in the good times (1988-91), as if winter never comes. The closure of final salary schemes owes more to the chilling business culture that no longer regards caring for employees as part of what a public company does now that share price is supreme.

The Times, rabid yesterday, used the Freedom of Information Act to elicit Treasury officials' advice on removing the benefit that let pension funds reclaim tax on share dividends. Other Tory chancellors had considered it and one did cut it. Revealing officials' warnings that there would be a fuss is no great scoop: there has been a fuss ever since. As Kenneth Clarke said yesterday, good chancellors don't take whatever advice they are given. Where is the "con" or "stealth"? Officials also advised that pension funds "should be able to cope with the change".etc..."

IMO: All the nonsense propaganda put out by the Tory press has convinced me that, if that is their best efforts, don't vote Tory. Particularly, not for the dodgy toker Cameron who helped ruin the Home Office. (I wonder how the Home Office turns out with Reid, incidentally).

Order-order says: Just a simple question - if the Tories think Gordon's pensions grab was wrong, will they reverse it? Will it be a manifesto commitment?

Apr 3, 2007, LONDON, England (UPI) -- British banking and insurance company Lloyds TSB Group PLC has established a bank account for businesses that follow Islamic law.

The bank started the Islamic business and corporate account after research showed three-fourths of Britain`s Muslim population was interested in Islamic financial services, the bank said in a statement.

To ensure the Islamic account fully complies with Islamic law, Lloyds TSB has consulted with a board of renowned Islamic scholars, it said. [Maybe they say who that board is somewhere and that knowledge could help - Sunni, Shia, Wahabi or what ? And that is just a few possiblities. To consider a less contentious comparison in Christianity, would a Christian Bank be Mormon, Holy Roller, Pentecostalist or even the Roman Catholic Bank of St. Gerry Adams, if something of the kind exists. Also, if the board contains public figures like for example the Sudanese born Zeinab Badawi, that could have good and bad factors in any consideration.] The account will be available to customers at all 2,000 bank branches, said Lloyds TSB, Britain`s fifth-largest bank.

I'm no expert on Islamic law and from a purely personal viewpoint could care less but is this substance or shadow, e.g. we looked at the whole idea impartially some time ago and I wondered whether such a bank should be, essentially, controlled by infidel misrepresenters of the faith like Lloyds. Sounds a bit like an amusing gimmick. It's been tried many times before in the West, by the way.

And, so did BCCI once have such a Bank, I understand....

According to other reports Lloyds has followed this up with an Islamic mortgage and investment fund, which avoids investment in companies involved in alcohol, pornography, weaponry and gambling. Like the current accounts the business account will pay or charge no interest and there will be no overdraft facility, forbidden by the Koran. Could be a good thing, generally speaking.

IMO: For those concerned with faith issues, that bank may be better than nothing, but after BCCI I would remember the old adage - "When the Greeks bring gifts, beware ".

People of the Islamic disposition may also like to know that many non Muslims (not me) are opening an account with the bank, apparently sensible enough reasons being given here.

Yes, the USA and UK between them have indeed killed well over half a million Iraqis and devastated Iraq.

OK, so in the UK it was mostly said it was "not in our name", and some also did so in the USA. But the serious World Trade Centre blast in NY to me from the start had the same smell to it as the Roman Catholic bombings in Northern Ireland and UK, if not the same religious fanatics, for in place of RC/IRA killings there were either/or/and Wahabi/ Saudi/Bush&Israeli/Alqaeda killings. Right now, things in Ulster are fairly quiet again. We were roughly sure of the cause in Northern Ireland and fixed it a little bit whilst making many unduly compromised agreements.

In the case of the NY bombings the cause is still far from certain. But certainly attempts were made to 'free Iraq' and more than 1000 times the number of deaths than in the NY bombings have so far taken place. But there is still a problem with Iran. One only has to consider present Iranian street violence to realise that if these people get nuclear bombs, the situation is going to be not just a 'cold war' more or less orchestrated from the top as in Russia, but murder and mayhem. We already have "Nukes 'R Us' Punjabistan, who agree to sell nukes to anyone, and the addition of (un-islamic) 'Jihads 'r Us' Iran we can certainly do without. Last time the Iranians tried it on to get nuke manufacture, a few bombs from Israel (not a country I like) sorted it out with some deaths and hard feelings, but 'not a lot'.

So far, Iran insists on its right to have nuclear weapons, but the priority is surely those of us who insist on having the right not to be blown up. The accursed Catholics (and may they rot eternally in hell) nearly killed me, a harmless victim., so I can see that rogue states need facing up to, and not pusillanimously hidden by alcohol, as George Bush seems to be doing. Iran has been given plenty of non nuclear bomb options already, unlike the NY victims who were given no option, and clearly nobody would be given options in this case either.

IMO: To save our own skins, lets ensure that Iran develops no nuclear weapons. Iran has been given alternative choices and anyone who insists on not preventing Iran's nuclear strategy by whatever means available for so called peaceful reasons is on the face of it much worse than say a pedophile priest insisting he is only buggering kids to make them happy. Sure there are alternative arguments but we only need to hear them if we are alive to do so. Not many will die directly from getting rid of the Iran problem right now and its removal is needed by all. The moral argument is still in favour of US/UK and they should proceed soon.

Exposure to dirt may be a way to lift mood as well as boost the immune system, UK scientists say. Lung cancer patients treated with "friendly" bacteria normally found in the soil have anecdotally reported improvements in their quality of life.

Mice exposed to the same bacteria made more of the brain's "happy" chemical serotonin, the Bristol University authors authors told the journal Neuroscience and say "They also leave us wondering if we shouldn't all spend more time playing in the dirt."

However, it is also possible that serotonin, and serotonin-boosting antidepressants, end up bolstering immunity to the point that they trigger autoimmune disease where the body attacks itself. So clearly it is best not to jump to conclusions about the merits of dirt, and probably also best to avoid excessive use of antidepressants.

Sunita will run the 26.2 miles in the Boston Marathon on April 16 from 210 miles above the earth. on a treadmill aboard the international space station. She will be harnessed to a specially designed treadmill with bungee cords. She hopes her effort will serve as an inspiration. "I encourage kids to start making physical fitness part of their daily lives," she said.

"I think a big goal like a marathon will help get this message out there." She qualified for the marathon when she completed the course in three hours 29 minutes and 57 seconds in Houston last year. She is serving a six-month stint on the international space station.