“Thousands of Iranian women have been cautioned over their poor Islamic dress this week and several hundred arrested in the capital Tehran in the most fierce crackdown on what’s known as ‘bad hijab’ for more than a decade … One shopkeeper selling evening dresses told us the moral police had ordered him to saw off [...]

“Proponents of the academy allude to some benevolent purpose behind the absolutely ridiculous babble in almost every academic book above the high school level … Is the author using his obscure vocabulary to help you better understand the subject at hand, or is it exactly the opposite?” One of my major dislikes about my entire [...]

Time has a fascinating article on a recent outbreak of Ebola amongst gorilla populations. Until recently, scientists could not understand why a short-lived disease was spreading so fast and so far in gorilla populations. It has since been realised that it was due to differences between gorilla species, and as a result it looks like [...]

“The more serious lie at the centre of the controversy is the implication that the World Bank was an institution that had impeccable ethical credentials…” Naomi Klein (of “No Logo” fame) on the recent Paul Wolfowitz scandal, arguing that the World Bank is not the philanthropic poverty-reducing organisation it claims to be. Guardian article here.

This disturbing photo shows a naked child from Buduburam Refugee Camp crouching on the ground, holding a gun in his hand – a stark and chilling contrast. From Flickr, here. Reproduced by kind permission of Gianluca Di Santo of White Tara, here.

“One of the major problems in information security is that individuals, and many corporations, cannot tell the difference between good and bad security products. This means that in market terms the companies that invest in developing quality products are unable to compete with poor products that are lower priced.” An interesting point about information security [...]

A Vancouver psychotherapist has been banned for life from entering the US after a random stop-and-search at the Canadian border. The customs official googled his name and found a 2001 journal article he wrote, in which he describes two times he has taken LSD. I could maybe understand it if he had admitted to illegally [...]

Public-interest groups in the US are to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the recently-announced Google acquisition of Internet ad network DoubleClick. In addition to its current data on (amongst other things) users’ searches, e-mail and Google ads, the search giant would also have access to DoubleClick’s vast repository of information on [...]

“The truth is that Mr Yeltsin’s legacy proved to be a bitter pill, from which Russia is still suffering … Mr Yeltsin’s and Vladimir Putin’s Russia are inverse images of each other, and our failure to see the link between them continues to bedevil our relations with Moscow. In the end, Boris Yeltsin proved more [...]

“A bad jail wastes a body quickly. When I entered Cell 6 at Gwanda police station, I was fit. After five days in a concrete and iron-bar tank, with no food and only a few sips of water, my skin was flaking and my clothes were slipping off. A prison blanket had given me lice. [...]

Thanks to Paul for permission to reproduce this The original post is on Devil Duck’s Pond, here.

“If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship … As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by [...]

“The UK is covertly trying to oust the head of the world’s main anti-bribery watchdog to prevent criticism of ministers and Britain’s biggest arms company, BAE, the Guardian has learned.” The UK government halted an investigation into bribery to protect ministers and BAE, and now it’s time to face the music. Tactics such as smear [...]

“Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula – sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide – and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns.” The BBC reports on [...]

“Washington today said it would ‘respect’ the Iraqi prime minister’s opposition to the construction of a wall sealing off a Sunni neighbourhood in Baghdad … However, Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq, refused to confirm whether building work would stop.” Quite how Washington can “respect” the opinion of Iraq’s leader if they do refuse [...]

“New Ofcom guidelines will force call-TV quizzes to have ‘reasonable’ solutions that are not ‘unfairly obscure’, following a rash of complaints about contests with seemingly impossible answers … A game on the Quiz Call channel was also censured after viewers were asked to name a ‘thing in Australia’ that began with ‘Alice’ followed by seven [...]

This striking image by Thzami Gamour Rinpoche superimposes an inter-racial kiss at a gay pride festival on top of a neo-Nazi march. The image, released under Creative Commons on Flickr, is here.

The Guardian reported yesterday on an ActionAid report which says that while supermarkets increasingly try to promote their ethical credentials, they are locking suppliers into appalling pay and conditions. In India, for example, women earn as little as 30p per day processing cashews, suffering permanent damage to hands from corrosive acids. In Bangladesh, workers earn [...]

“Open WiFi networks represent a potential maelstrom of scum and villainy, according to some people. SCO chairman Ralph Yarro recently told the Utah legislature that the state should regulate WiFi networks, even to the point of banning free and unintentionally open networks. (He’s also the guy who proposed moving porn off of port 80.)” An [...]

“…If that sounds bad, then spare a thought for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who lost her virginity to Angel, accidentally lifting the Kalderash curse placed on him. This caused him to lose his soul and set out to destroy Buffy and the world. Which, you have to admit, is even worse than the condom breaking.” [...]