Senate seen approving housing rescue bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate was expected to approve as soon as Wednesday the biggest government program yet to tackle a deep housing market slump feared to be dragging the economy into recession.

The legislation would create a $300 billion fund to help up to 400,000 troubled homeowners refinance costly, exotic mortgages into more affordable, government-backed loans. It easily cleared a Senate test vote by an 83-9 vote on Tuesday.

Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran
Bush Administration Weighs Striking Iran’s Nuclear Complex, Which Could Trigger 3rd War In Region

Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear complex.

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn’t want to wait for a new administration. “The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize,” Oren said. “Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran.”

Israel’s message is simple: If you don’t, we will. Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone. “Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers,” Oren said. “The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.”

A borough council has banned the term “brainstorming” – and replaced it with “THOUGHT SHOWERS”.

Bosses fear the phrase to describe idea sessions may offend epileptics or the mentally ill. Staff have been sent memos about the change – and even sent on training courses. But charities representing epileptics have branded the move political correctness gone mad.

Margaret Thomas, of the National Society for Epilepsy, said: “Brainstorming is a clear and descriptive phrase. “Alternatives such as ‘thought shower’ or ‘blue-sky thinking’ are ambiguous to say the least.

“Any implication that the word ‘brainstorming’ is offensive to epileptics takes political correctness too far.”

Epilepsy causes seizures, like a “storm” of activity in the brain.

Richard Colwill, of mental health charity SANE, said: “This ban goes too far. Few would be genuinely offended by the word ‘brainstorming’ in the context of council meetings.”

An insider at Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in Kent said: “No one took it seriously at first, but they’re certainly keen to wipe out the word once and for all.” A spokesman said: “We take diversity awareness very seriously. The majority of staff have taken part in training and been asked to use the term ‘thought showers’.”

Court overturns father’s grounding of 12-year-old

A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl’s grounding, overturning her father’s punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the internet, his lawyer said. The girl had taken her father to Quebec Superior Court after he refused to allow her to go on a school trip for chatting on websites he tried to block, and then posting “inappropriate” pictures of herself online using a friend’s computer.

The father’s lawyer Kim Beaudoin said the disciplinary measures were for the girl’s “own protection” and is appealing the ruling.

“She’s a child,” Beaudoin said. “At her age, children test their limits and it’s up to their parents to set boundaries. I started an appeal of the decision today to reestablish parental authority, and to ensure that this case doesn’t set a precedent,” she said. Otherwise, said Beaudoin, “parents are going to be walking on egg shells from now on”.

“I think most children respect their parents and would never go so far as to take them to court, but it’s clear that some would and we have to ask ourselves how far this will go.”

According to court documents, the girl’s internet transgression was just the latest in a string of broken house rules. Even so, Justice Suzanne Tessier found her punishment too severe.

Beaudoin noted the girl used a court-appointed lawyer in her parents’ 10-year custody dispute to launch her landmark case against her dad.

Vatican bans Dan Brown film Angels & Demons from Rome churches

The Vatican has banned the makers of Angels & Demons, the latest Dan Brown thriller to be filmed, from shooting scenes not only in the Vatican but in any church in Rome on the ground that it is “an offence against God” and “wounds common religious feelings”.

Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, head of the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Affairs, said that the author had “turned the Gospels upside down to poison the faith. It would be unacceptable to transform churches into film sets so that his blasphemous novels can be made into mendacious films in the name of business.”

Father Marco Fibbi, spokesman for the diocese of Rome, said: “Normally we read the script, but this time it was not necessary. The name Dan Brown was enough.” The Vatican fiercely condemned both the novel The Da Vinci Code and its film version, which starred Tom Hanks as the Harvard professor Robert Langdon.

Key scenes are set in the Vatican and two Rome churches, Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. In both churches cardinals are murdered and mutilated with mysterious marks and symbols. Father Antonio Truda, parish priest at Santa Maria del Popolo, said that there was “no question” of allowing scenes to be shot there. “It’s bad enough having to put up with tour guides explaining the scene to tourists,” he said.

The Vatican asked the faithful to boycott the film of The Da Vinci Code, which Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Archbishop of Genoa and now, as Secretary of State, the right-hand man of Pope Benedict XVI, described as a “phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions” and “a pot-pourri of lies”. The film was also contested bitterly by the arch-conservative Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, represented in the film by a ruthless killer monk, although it has no monks.

“phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions” and “a pot-pourri of lies”? Sounds like a good description for organized religion. Colour me cynical :)

Source: The Times

ORANGE COUNTy, Fla. — A 13-year-old girl’s sexual shenanigans have put a second man behind bars. Morris Williams, 22, told the judge he thought the girl was 18-years-old, but he found out Tuesday that ignorance is not a defense.

Morris Williams’ mother wailed as he went off to jail. The judge asked for media not to show 13-year-old Alisha Dean’s face in court, but her pictures are all over her MySpace page and they portray a sexy, 19-year-old divorced woman.

“She told me she had just turned 18,” Williams said.

Williams said Dean picked him up on the street and after a few conversations they had sex. When he heard she was not 18, he went to her father.

“He was like ‘well, she’s 13,'” Williams said of a conversation with Dean’s father.

Williams said he never did it again, but Dean has done it before with 24-year-old Darwin Mills. Mills was sentenced to five years in prison. Dean’s father wanted Williams to join Mills there. Williams will serve six years probation with the first year in jail. The other five years he will have to wear an ankle monitor. His attorney says he will come back to court to ask again for a shorter sentence.

“One of the reasons for the law is the fact that minors have poor judgment,” said Jerry Dean, the girl’s father.

Williams’ father believes the jail sentence sends the wrong message to Alisha.

“I guess we just sit back and count how many after this,” Henry Smith asked after his step-son was sentenced to jail.

Alisha’s public Myspace is now down, but it wasn’t, even when the case went to court yesterday. The suggestive material was enough to make grown women blush. A couple of her videos show the minor child shaking her womanly booty like she’s working the pole. It’s totally believable to me that young men might not realize the girl’s age if she lied about it. Furthermore, Jerry Dean openly admitted that Alisha continues to stay out late and hadn’t deleted the Myspace that listed her as an adult. Even now, her private page says she’s 16 – three years older than she really is.

Inhabitants of Oak Lawn, Ill. apparently have a hard time understanding the meaning of the large red octagons posted on street corners through the city.

So in an effort to get people to actually stop, the city installed smaller signs below their larger, legal counterparts to get motorists attention while providing them a half-hearted chuckle. The extra signs correlated with the “Stop” written above, with slogans including “and smell the roses,” “right there pilgrim” and “means you’re not moving.”

While residents and the town’s mayor found them funny, the Illinois Department of Transportation was less than enthused and claims that the signs violate the Fed’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. That means that federal funding for projects in the city could be put on hold, so $1,700 worth of signs were pulled down. Booooooooooooo!

Generations of schoolchildren have complained of the inaccessibility of Shakespeare’s classic works.

However, with the help of a British satirist, the Ali G generation will have no trouble relating to Hamlet’s woes when they read: “Dere was somefing minging in de State of Denmark.”

In Martin Baum’s updated version of 15 of Shakespeare’s classic plays in “yoof speak”, the Danish prince, who is re-named ‘Amlet, asks: “To be or not to be, innit?”, and Romeo pines for his “fit bitch Jools”.

Mr Baum’s chav-speak Shakespeare, which takes its title from ‘Amlet’s query, includes titles such as Macbeff, Much Ado About Sod All, De ‘Appy Bitches of Windsor, De Taming of de Bitch, Two Geezas Of Verona and All’s Sweet That Ends Sweet, Innit.

Following the well-trodden path of modern interpretations of the Bard’s works, Mr Baum, 48, says his versions, while abridged, remain true to the original formats of Shakespeare’s classics, retaining “the important sexist, duplicitous, cross-dressing and violent moments that made William Shakespeare well wicked.”

Mr Baum’s version of Romeo and Juliet sets the scene for the star-crossed lovers with: “Verona was de turf of de feuding Montagues and de Capulet families.

“And coz they was always brawling and stuff, de prince of Verona told them to cool it or else they was gonna get well mashed if they carried on larging it with each other.”

If the Bard was living today, Mr Baum writes on his website, he would “still be writing in the Globe turf, getting loads of respect from the Stratford upon Avon massive and producing works of pure genius.”

Respect.

Source: The Telegraph

PS: I’ve just noticed that the Telegraph has links to directly submit stories to FARK. Wicked :)