"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson
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Interview with African Economics Expert: "For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!" - "As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid... Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It's a simple but fatal cycle... Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn't do all that poorly either... Unfortunately, the Europeans' devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason... [With clothing aid] our tailors lose their livlihoods... These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman"
Police stop and search innocent people to balance race figures, terror watchdog says - "Lord Carlile said that police were stopping white people unjustifiably so that official figures would make it look as if they were not singling out black and Asian people under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. “No police officer has admitted that to me, but I believe that is the case,” he told The Times. "
STAR WARS: Endor Holocaust - "What happens when you detonate a spherical metal honeycomb over five hundred miles wide just above the atmosphere of a habitable world? Regardless of specifics, the world won't remain habitable for long."
Even better: The Truth about the 'Endor Holocaust'
Longmire does Romance Novels - "I think a lot of us can agree that a large number of romance novel covers are pretty silly and are just asking to be ridiculed. So that's exactly what I did. I bought a few of them at the used book store and got to work on them. The artwork almost writes its own jokes."
Some I like: He was so pretty I felt like a lesbian, When Your Man's Breasts are Bigger Than Yours. Strategies for Coping with your inferior body, She thought he wanted a flower... ...He wanted hers, Okay, you're taller than me... Happy, now? Now let go of my arm... you're hurting me.
Russian girl in intensive care after restoring virginity 6 times
List of Restaurants That Do Not Serve Free Water - "for a long while i have noticed an annoying trend in many sit-down dining establishments. an increasing number of restaurants have a no-water policy: they do not serve free cold water or even tap water to diners. instead, they make us buy their bottled water. i find this highly unacceptable... i am compiling a list of greedy dining establishments that refuse to serve free water"
Brussels sprouts banned from warship - "A Royal Navy captain has banned Brussels sprouts from his warship, HMS Bulwark, because he loathes them so much."
2500-year-old bird's nest found - "The nesting site is still continually used by gyrfalcons, the world's largest species of falcon, and is the oldest raptor nest ever recorded... By carbon dating solidified stomach contents, peat moss deposits and bone and feather samples from various moulting sites, researchers have in the past shown that colonies of snow petrel have returned to the same sites for 34,000 years and adelie penguins for 44,000 years."
Tackles, props and balls as nature intended - "Rugby match in New Zealand sees teams face off in birthday suits, briefly interrupted by streaker – with all his clothes on"
Briton caught up in Iran internet wars - "Ryan Kelly, 25, developed his page reboot software to automatically refresh websites such as eBay, but today discovered it had been used by Iranian dissidents to scupper official websites... "I agree with what they are doing and will keep it up there as long as I can"... Another said: “We have been using your website for freedom and not attack. “This is the government of Iran that is attacking everyone and not us. Tell it to your ISP please."
What's sauce for the goose... I hope he supports Chinese and Russian patriots who use his program to attack the sites of governments attacking their countries, like the USA and Estonia