Good news: Iraqi who threw shoes at Bush to be released early ...

An Iraqi journalist imprisoned for throwing his shoes at former President George W. Bush will be released next month after his sentence was reduced for good behavior.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi's act of protest during Bush's visit to Iraq turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero throughout the Arab world.

"Al-Zeidi's shoes were a suitable farewell for Bush's deeds in Iraq," Sunni lawmaker Dhafir al-Ani said in welcoming the early release. "Al-Zeidi's act expressed the real feelings of the Iraqi people [and most of the rest of the world]. His anger against Bush was the result of the suffering of his countrymen."

Cheney criticizes "political" CIA probe plan ...

By Tabassum Zakaria; editing by Mohammad Zargham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney criticized President Barack Obama's ability to handle national security after the Justice Department appointed a special prosecutor to investigate CIA interrogation abuses.

Cheney, who has emerged as a vocal defender of Bush administration policies since leaving the White House, said the intelligence obtained from harsh interrogation techniques had saved lives.

"The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions," he said in a statement dated Monday.

Cheney took issue with the Obama administration's decisions this week to have a special prosecutor investigate CIA prisoner abuse cases and to have a new group handling terrorism interrogations report to the White House.

"President Obama's decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this Administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security," Cheney said.

Earlier this year, Cheney had asked the CIA to declassify two memos that he said showed the effectiveness of using harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects.

The CIA in May rejected that request, but on Monday released the documents, with classified portions blacked out.

"The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch further mass casualty attacks against the United States," Cheney said.

Wikipedia testing new method to curb false info ...

By ANDREW VANACORE, AP Business Writer

Wikipedia said it is testing a new method for curbing false information in its entries as the online encyclopedia seeks a balance between credibility and openness.

While anyone can still edit articles, the site is testing pages that require changes to be approved by an experienced Wikipedia editor before they show up. If the site's users respond well to the test run, the new restrictions will apply to all entries for living people.

The idea is to block the kind of high-profile vandalism that has marred the pages of some famous people.

Still, Wikipedia risks discouraging legitimate editing if restrictions on changes or additions become too burdensome, such that articles won't get better or keep up with events. That may be especially true on more obscure pages with fewer active volunteers to approve edits in a timely way.

Aware of the risks, Wikipedia has set the criteria for "experienced editor" status relatively low. Users who are registered for a few days can give changes the OK, said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the site.

A more uniform system for filtering changes on Wikipedia represents something of a step back from the site's original philosophy, which called for harnessing the collective knowledge of volunteer editors without any major restrictions.

But it is not the first time Wikipedia has attached some strings.

The same flagging process, for example, has been imposed on all entries in the German-language Wikipedia for more than a year.

On the English site, too, high-profile pages that are likely to be defaced, such as Michael Jackson's, have been tightly restricted.

EU launches probe into 'exploding' iPhones and iPods ...

Bruno Waterfield in Brussels and Henry Samuel in Paris for The Telegraph

European Union consumer safety watchdogs have launched an investigation into reports that Apple iPods and iPhones are "exploding" in the summer sunshine.

Officials have acted after a series of cases in Britain, France, Holland and Sweden in which Apple's digital music players and mobile phones have allegedly spontaneously combusted or exploded.

In the latest incident, Romain Kolega, a French teenager, was injured when his girlfriend's iPhone was said to have exploded into shards after beginning to "crackle and pop like a deep-fryer".

That report followed a British case earlier this month involving an iPod Touch music player belonging to Ellie Stanborough, an 11-year old Liverpool girl.

In July, a Dutch man, named only as Pieter C, claimed that he had left his iPhone in his car for 15 minutes only to return to find that it had caught fire and severely damaged the passenger seat of his vehicle.

An iPod has also been implicated in a Swedish fire this June when a stationary Saab was completely engulfed in flames, almost incinerating the owner's dog.

"We have asked Apple to share with us any information they might have because of press reports of problems relating to iPhones and iPods," said a European Commission official.

The Commission has sent out an alert on its Rapex product safety system requesting the EU's 27 member states for any details or further incidents involving iPods or iPhones.

Apple claims it has ruled out any widespread safety problem with the 200 million iPods and 26 million iPhones sold in Europe, but is carrying out a full investigation into the reported cases.

"Apple have come back to us and said that these are isolated incidents and they do not consider that there is a general problem," said the Commission official.

An Apple spokesman said: "We are aware of these reports and we are waiting to receive the units from the customers. Until we have the full details, we don't have anything further to add."

Mr Kolega, 18, claimed last week that he received a minor eye injury after he picked up his girlfriend's crackling iPhone.

"I felt something like a grain of sand in my eye. It must have been a shard of glass," he said.

In the earlier British case, Ken Stanborough threw his 11 year-old daughter's iPod out the back door of his house when it started hissing and overheating.

"Within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10 feet in the air," he said.

Mr Stanborough has claimed that Apple offered a refund of the £162 music player on the condition that the family sign a confidentiality agreement.

In July it emerged that Apple had tried to block a freedom of information request on iPod "burn and fire-related incidences" by an American journalist for 800 pages of documents from the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

In June, Apple recalled all first-generation iPod Nanos in South Korea following reports of exploding batteries.

Arab Emirates Holiday Advert 'Borrows Dorset Landmark' ...

Sky News

An Arabian resort in the United Arab Emirates looks as if it has been caught borrowing a British landmark to help tempt tourists to its beaches.

Owners of Durdle Door in Dorset are bemused that a photograph of their Jurassic Coast beauty spot has turned up on a website advertising The Cove at Ras Al Khaimah.

They fear that guests may travel thousands of miles to the UAE only to find that the picturesque setting was actually on their doorstep in the UK.

The Cove Rotana Resort in Ras Al Khaimah boasts 600 metres of sandy beach overlooking the Arabian Gulf.

But the picture on the banner across its website looks uncannily like the shingle beach on the South Coast.

The English site is popular with tourists and a valuable marketing tool for the Weld family's Lulworth Estate which owns and manages the coastline between White Nothe and Warbarrow Bay.

Former Dorset residents living in Dubai spotted it on the website and accused the Cove of pillaging the Dorset coastline and passing it off as their own.

"We only heard about it yesterday, so we're still not quite sure what's going on," Claire Dutton from the Lulworth Estate told Sky News Online.

"Before then, we didn't know anything about it.

"The image has been used on postcards and people often come here and take pictures. In fact, Google came here the other day and to took pictures.

"But I don't think people realise that the landmark is actually on private grounds.

"We do have a licensing department, but obviously we won't pick up everything."

James Weld, Lulworth Estate general manager, said: "It is not unusual to see Durdle Door being used by businesses to promote their own services ... the UAE is taking this to extremes and we hope that those visiting The Cove are aware of the real location.

"We would hate for people to travel thousands of miles abroad only to find this stunning landmark is on their doorstep."

The hotel later said that the website was designed by an independent marketing company and was not their official website.

It is not the first time Durdle Door has moved off the Dorset map. It has also appeared in an article on Turkey, and for one on the US.

Guitar legend Les Paul dies at 94 ...

AP - Thursday, August 13, 2009 (edited by Paul)

NEW YORK — Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.

He was hospitalized in February 2006 when he learned that he had won two Grammys for an album he released after his 90th birthday, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played."

"I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it," he joked.

As an inventor, Paul helped bring about the rise of rock 'n' roll and multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the "tracks" in the finished recording.

With Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records and 11 No. 1 pop hits, including "Vaya Con Dios," "How High the Moon," "Nola" and "Lover." Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul the inventor had helped develop.

"I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished," he recalled. "This is quite an asset." The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.

The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock the 1950s.

"Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music," Paul once said. "To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn't think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system."

A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called "The Log," a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.

"I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut." He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape.

In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.

Pete Townsend of The Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.

Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie's auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.

Strong Meteor Shower Expected Tonight ...

Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director, SPACE.com

The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to put on a good show this week for those willing to get up in the wee hours of the morning and wait patiently for the shooting stars.

In North America, the best time to watch will be between midnight to 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12, but late Tuesday night and also Wednesday night could prove fruitful, weather permitting.

The Perseids are always reliable, and sometimes rather spectacular. The only things that puts a damper on the August show are bad weather or bright moonlight. Unfortunately this week, as the Perseids reach their peak Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the moon will be high in the sky, outshining the fainter meteors.

Still, skywatchers around the globe will have a good chance of spotting the brighter meteors. Some already are enjoying the show.

Already underway

The Perseids are bits of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which has laid down several streams of debris, each in a slightly different location, over the centuries as it orbits the sun. Every August, Earth passes through these debris streams, which spread out over time.

"They are typically fast, bright and occasionally leave persistent trains," says Joe Rao, SPACE.com's Skywatching Columnist. "And every once in a while, a Perseid fireball will blaze forth, bright enough to be quite spectacular and more than capable to attract attention even in bright moonlight."

Low numbers of Perseids, including some dazzling fireballs, have already been reported as Earth began entering the stream in late July. Seasoned observers have counted up to 25 per hour already, or nearly one every two minutes.

Most meteors are no bigger than a pea. They vaporize as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating brilliant streaks across the sky.

The Perseids appear to emanate from the constellation Perseus, which rises high in the sky around midnight and is nearly overhead by dawn. Like most meteor showers, the hours between midnight and daybreak are typically the best time to watch, because that's when the side of Earth you are on is rotating into the direction of Earth's travels through space, so meteors are "scooped up" by the atmosphere at higher rates, much like a car's windshield ends the lives of more bugs than does the rear bumper.

Astronomers expect up to 200 meteors per hour in short bursts of up to 15 minutes or so. But many of the fainter meteors will simply not be visible due to moonlight, and rates will go down even more for those in urban areas. More likely a typical observer under reasonably dark skies might hope to see a meteor every couple minutes when the bursts come, and fewer during lulls.

When to watch

The best time to watch is between midnight and dawn Wednesday. Forecasters say the best stretch could come between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. ET (1-2 a.m. PT), which would be after daybreak in Europe. Some Perseids might be visible late Tuesday night, and Wednesday night into Thursday morning could prove worthwhile, too.

Read full article here.

Greek woman sets fire to drunken Briton's genitals ...

Telegraph Media Group

By Paul Anast in Athens - 6 Aug 2009

A 26-year old Greek woman has become an overnight national hero after setting fire to the genitals of a 23-year old drunken Briton who allegedly tried to sexually assault her in a crowded bar.

The unidentified woman from the fiercely proud island of Crete won herself even more praise by doing the right legal thing – turning herself over to police and the courts to be put on trial for what she claimed was her "right to self-defence".

She will face a magistrate on Friday to see if the case will go to court.

The Briton himself, whose name is expected to be released later, is currently in a private clinic in Heraklion, the capital of Crete island, being treated for second degree burns to his testicles and penis.

According to a police statement issued last night, the incident occurred at a club in the notorious coastal resort of Malia, which is dominated by young Britons seeking all-night revelry.

It alleged that the Briton took down his trousers and started waving his genitals at a number of girls. He then specifically "forcefully fondled" the 26-year old Greek woman, asking her to take hold of his genitals.

After asking him to stop harassing her, the police said, she poured the alcoholic drink Sabucco on his genitals (an Italian brand type of Greek ouzo or French Pernod drink).

This again allegedly failed to stop his advances, so the woman seized a lighter and set fire to the alcohol-drenched genitals, local press reports said.

The charges were levelled after reports claimed that the assailant's genitals suffered considerable damage, requiring that he remain in a private clinic in Malia.

Travel operator sources at Malia said his treatment is being covered by his travel insurance.

The name of the clinic is not being disclosed and is under discreet police guard, police sources said.

However, the magistrate and prosecutor also unanimously agreed to set the woman free pending trial, an indication that they accepted her argument that she "acted in justified self-defence".

A small crowd of bystanders outside the Heraklion hospital applauded and shouted "bravo, bravo", as she was rushed away under police escort.

Legal counsel for the woman said that the court may either issue an immediate verdict or postpone for a future date. This will depend on reported plans by the woman's lawyers to also take legal action against the Briton as soon as he recovers.

Authorities on the island still refuse to release the names of the Briton and the now nationally famous Greek woman on the grounds that they are bound by the Personal Data Protection law and the particular sensitivity of the case.

[In my opinion, she did the right thing.]

According to an EU report, one third of Europeans have never used the internet ...

BBC (edited by Paul)

The study, which has been examining Europe's digital landscape over the last five years, also revealed that more than a quarter of Europeans have never used a PC.

More than one in three of the digital 'refuseniks' said they did not see the need for a connection, while nearly one quarter said they could not afford it.

People above the age of 65 and the unemployed were the least active online, it said.

However, the study also revealed that in 2008, 56% of Europeans had become regular internet users - up one third since 2004.

More than 80% of those people now have a high-speed internet connection, compared to one third in 2004. Most of these had download speeds greater than 2 megabits per second (Mbps), it showed.

Countries such as Latvia and Estonia lead the web 2.0 charge with higher proportions of their populations uploading home made digital content to web sites than in any of the other 25 states in the survey.

Young people across the European Union have led the charge on to the net.

Nearly 70% of people under the age of 24 use the internet every day, compared to the EU average of 43%.

But this same group is reluctant to pay to download or use online content, such as music or video, with 33% saying that they would not pay anything at all.

"These young people are intensive internet users and are also highly demanding consumers," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media.

"To release the economic potential of these 'digital natives', we must make access to digital content an easy and fair game."

Facebook criticised by Archbishop ...

Many friends ... but do you really know them?
BBC (edited by Paul)

Social networking websites, texting and e-mails are undermining community life, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has warned.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols said MySpace and Facebook led young people to seek "transient" friendships, with quantity becoming more important than quality.

He said a key factor in suicide among young people was the trauma caused when such loose relationships collapsed.

"Friendship is not a commodity," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

He added: "Friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right".

Archbishop Nichols said that society was losing some of its ability to build communities through inter-personal communication - the result of excessive use of texts and e-mails rather than face-to-face meetings or telephone conversations.

Skills such as reading a person's mood and body language were in decline, and that exclusive use of electronic information had a "dehumanising" effect on community life.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace encouraged a form of communication that was not, in his words, "rounded", and would not, therefore, build rounded communities.

The Archbishop also warned of the danger of suicide among young people who threw themselves into a network of friendships that could easily collapse.

He said that young people were being encouraged to build up collections of friends as commodities, and were left desolate when these transient relationships broke down.

"Facebook and MySpace might contribute towards communities, but I'm wary about it," he told the newspaper.

"Among young people, often a key factor in their committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.

"They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate.

"It's an all-or-nothing syndrome that you have to have in an attempt to shore up an identity; a collection of friends about whom you can talk and even boast."

[My opinion: I'm an atheist, but I agree with the Archbishop on this matter. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter lead people of all ages to seek transient friendships where 'quantity' is more important than 'quality'. This can't be a good thing.]