From The Guardian

Civil servants working in politically sensitive areas will be required to sign away to the government the copyright, including newspaper serialisation deals, on any future books they may write, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, revealed yesterday.

Confirming the government's latest attempt to curb disclosures by senior officials close to ministerial private offices, Straw published a Cabinet Office plan that would remove one of the incentives to publish.

In evidence to the public administration committee of MPs Straw deplored past lapses, most recently the memoirs of Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to Washington during crucial Bush-Blair encounters, which were serialised in the Guardian.

Straw said he did not write a diary - and felt uncomfortable working with people who did. His old boss, Barbara Castle, had done so and and been very nice about me on every page

From Butterflies and Wheels: "Fighting fashionable nonsense"

Reza Moradi was questioned by police at Saturday's free speech demonstration. The Washington Post reported:

It's my freedom, everyone's freedom, to expose these pictures and encourage everyone to do the same," said Reza Moradi, a protester who identified himself as an Iranian who has lived in Britain for eight years. Moradi was later questioned by police after someone lodged a complaint regarding the "nature of his placard," which featured a copy of the Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, a London police spokeswoman said. After a brief, heated exchange with officers, Moradi left the protest on his own and then rejoined the demonstration later.

It now appears that Reza Moradi was told that he will be summoned to court for "offending" someone because he carried a placard with the Mohammad caricatures at the March 25 free speech rally.

From CTV.ca

Afghanistan isn't the only government where Muslim converts to Christianity are threatened with execution.

Saudi Arabia neither permits conversion from Islam nor allows other religions in the kingdom. There are no churches and missionaries are barred. Regular criticism in U.S. State Department reports on religious freedom have had no effect on Saudi policy.

While Islam accepts Christianity as a fellow monotheistic religion, Islamic Shariah law considers conversion to any religion apostasy and most Muslim scholars agree the punishment is death. Saudi Arabia considers Shariah the law of the land, though there have been no reported cases of executions of converts from Islam in recent memory.

The only other country in the region which carries the death penalty for apostasy is Sudan. Though no executions have been reported recently, a Sudanese man who allegedly converted was arrested in 2004 and reportedly tortured in custody, according to the State Department.

In Kuwait, a court convicted a Shiite man who publicly proclaimed his conversion to Christianity, but didn't sentence him since the criminal code did not set a punishment.

Other countries in the region, such as Egypt, do not have laws criminalizing apostasy, but those who do convert can still face prosecution.

In May, an Egyptian man who converted to Christianity was arrested on suspicion of "contempt for religion,'' a charge that entails a prison sentence of up to five years, said Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The man, who has not been identified, remains in custody without charge, Bahgat said.

Authorities in Egypt and most other Arab countries will not recognize a conversion from Islam in official documents, such as identity papers, which usually state a person's faith.

Even if a convert is not prosecuted, the issue is the pressure they are going to face from their families, the religious establishment, their friends and associates, said Fadi al-Qadi, a Middle East spokesman for York-based Human Rights Watch. It would be overwhelming. They would be really isolated.

Turkey is a democratic country and, according to law, you can choose whatever you want, said Soner Tufan, himself a convert from Islam, who runs a Christian radio station, Radio Shema, in the capital, Ankara. But, he said, if someone converts, they can suffer some problems from their friends, relatives and neighbours _ or face difficulties getting a job in the civil service.

Most often, the issue of conversion reaches the courts in the context of marriage. While Islam accepts a Muslim man marrying a Christian woman _ one of the Prophet Muhammad's wives was Christian _ it does not tolerate a Muslim woman marrying a Christian man.

The November 2004 case of a Jordanian man convicted of apostasy came after his wife _ who remained Muslim _ and her family reported he had converted. The man, whom the court records did not identify, appealed his conviction to a higher court but lost.

From The Evening Echo

The German state of Bavaria today announced a ban on the use of mobile phones in schools to prevent students from viewing images of pornography and extreme violence.

Students can still carry their phones, but will have to leave them switched off during school hours, including during breaks, state education minister Siegfried Schneider said: School is no place for phoning and certainly not for distributing concoctions that endanger youth, Schneider said.

The ban comes after police recently found pornography and violent images on mobile phones seized from students at schools in the Bavarian towns of Augsburg and Immenstadt.

No doubt the immigration authorities will be getting worried. Surely any Muslim in a country with extreme punishment for apostasy can now claim asylum in the West just by publicly announcing that they no longer believe in Islam.

Based on an article from The Independent

Italy is considering granting asylum to Abdul Rahman, the Afghan man who was released from jail yesterday in Kabul, where he had faced the death penalty for converting to Christianity.

He was staying in a safe house last night after prosecutors dropped the case against him under intense international pressure. But Rahman will have to flee the country for his own safety, after several leading Muslim clerics called on Afghans to tolerantly kill him.

Rahman appealed for help to leave Afghanistan, and he is thought most likely to go to Italy, where the Foreign Minister, Gianfranco Fini is to ask the cabinet today to grant him asylum.

Fini was one of the first foreign politicians to take up the case of Rahman, and Pope Benedict XVI has appealed for his release. Italy has close ties to Afghanistan, having provided a home for the former king Mohammed Zahir Shah during his 30 years in exile. There is a possibility that Rahman will go to Germany, where he has lived before, and the United Nations says it is trying to help find a country to take him.

From Iran Focus

A radical hard-line cleric has been appointed as the new secretary general of the Supreme Council for Diffusion of Information.

The council falls under the ultimate supervision of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and one of its main tasks is to ensure that the Internet would not be used by Iranians inside the country in any way that would violate “Islamic ethics” or pose a threat to “state security”.

Hojjatoleslam Hamid Shahryari has taken over from a layman, Nasrollah Jahangard. He and his colleagues constantly update the list of Internet websites that should be filtered.

Shahryari has run an Islamist website (hawzah.net) for several years and established a reputation for himself as a fiery theological student while studying in the seminaries of the holy city of Qom in the 1980s.

From SacBee

The Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity will be freed from prison and has asked for asylum in another country, U.S. and U.N. officials said Monday.

Hundreds of Muslims marched against a court's decision Sunday to dismiss the case against Abdul Rahman after heavy international pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to drop the trial. Several Muslim clerics have threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying he is clearly guilty of apostasy and deserves to die.

A senior Afghan official closely involved with the case said that Rahman would be freed shortly, but the details of how it would be done were still being hammered out. Meanwhile he is still in his cell at Kabul's notorious high-security Policharki prison late Monday.

U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards made clear that Rahman was planning to leave the country once he is free: Mr.Rahman has asked for asylum outside Afghanistan. We expect this will be provided by one of the countries interested in a peaceful solution to this case.

Asked whether the U.S. government was doing anything or has made any offers to secure Rahman's safety after he is released, McCormack said where he goes after he is freed is going to be up to Mr. Rahman.

He urged Afghans not to resort to violence even if they are unhappy with the resolution of the case.

While officials said the case against Rahman was dropped, prosecutors also said earlier Monday they were still examining whether he was mentally fit to stand trial. Deputy Attorney General Mohammed Eshak Aloko told The Associated Press that he may be sent overseas for psychological treatment if a medical examination that started Monday concludes that he is insane.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah told a news conference in Kabul that he was optimistic the issue would soon be resolved.

Earlier Monday, hundreds of clerics and students chanting "Death to Christians!" and "Death to Bush!'" marched through the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to protest the court's decision to toss out the case. Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it, said senior Cleric Faiez Mohammed, from the nearby northern city of Kunduz. The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion. He warned of possible riots if Rahman is released.

From The Age

The United States Government has blocked a plan to create a red-light district in cyberspace.

Icann, the worldwide body that manages the internet, had been expected to approve website addresses ending in ".xxx" at an international meeting under way in Wellington, but it is understood it will not now vote on the proposal.

Canadian firm ICM Registry has spent five years and $US2.5 million campaigning for the right to manage.xxx web addresses, for which it would charge $US60 each.

Chairman Stuart Lawley said he was disappointed, but it was not realistic to expect a decision on.xxx in Wellington.

The US Commerce Department - which created Icann as an independent body to take over its management of the domain name system - raised concerns about proposed mechanisms for managing .xxx websites. But Lawley said he believed it was a "deliberate delaying tactic". Lawley said this was the third time the US Government had delayed .xxx addresses, and blamed the influence of religious conservatives in the US that appear to have access to the powers that be.

Lawley estimates there are four million adult websites, owned by 100,000 webmasters.

ICM Registry is not directly involved in the adult Internet industry, but has made no bones that it wants to make money selling .xxx addresses.

The company has won some support for its argument that setting up the red-light zone in cyberspace would make it easier to filter out adult websites so they could not be seen accidentally or by children.

Liz Butterfield, executive director of New Zealand's nonprofit Internet Safety Group, said .xxx was potentially positive and saw no reason why such addresses should not be allowed. But she said she doubted the addressing system would stop many adult website owners using other Internet addresses, such as .com. I think you have got to be realistic about what it would achieve

From the Daily Times

About a thousand Muslims rallied in Indonesia's capital on Sunday to support a proposed law banning pornography and obscene acts .

The protesters, including many women and young children, chanted "We refuse pornography!" as they gathered under gloomy skies in Jakarta to press parliament to pass the bill, which is supported by conservative Islamic politicians and preachers.

Those who only see this issue from a human rights, liberal and secular point of view are trying to disrupt efforts to curb pornography, said Ma'ruf Amin, a member of Indonesia's council of clerics.

From The Scotsman

An Afghan court yesterday dismissed the case against a man who faced the death penalty after converting from Islam to Christianity - because of a lack of evidence. A court official said Abdur Rahman would be released soon, but he added that the case had been returned to the prosecutors for more investigation.

The court dismissed today the case against Abdur Rahman for a lack of information and a lot of legal gaps in the case, the official said. The decision about his release will be taken possibly tomorrow. They don't have to keep him in jail while the attorney general is looking into the case.

Abdul Wakil Omeri, a spokesman for the Supreme Court, confirmed that the case had been dismissed because of problems with the prosecutors' evidence.

A Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity that questions were now being raised as to whether Rahman would stay in Afghanistan or would go into exile in a foreign country.

Rahman faced execution by hanging if he had been found guilty of apostasy under Islam's Sharia law. His trial had been due to start in a few days.

In an interview conducted via a human rights worker who visited Rahman in jail, before news of his release, he said he was prepared for death. I don't want to die. But if God decides, I am ready to confront my choices, all the way, he said.

He added that he did not want to leave Afghanistan, a possible option if he is allowed to go free: If I flee that would mean my country hasn't changed. It would mean that they have won, our enemies. Without human rights, without respect for all religions, the Taleban have won.

Hopefully the ISPs will also block the nonsense beliefs promoted by the church.

From Scoop

Church welcomes home computer block

Moves to block violent and pornographic material before it reaches home computers will protect children from the dangers of cyberspace, the Australian Bishops Conference said.

Chairman of the Bishops' Committee for Media, Archbishop Barry Hickey, said most parents were concerned at the presence of internet violence and pornography on their home computer, but many did not know what to do about it.

The opposition this week announced its policy to have Internet Service Providers (ISPs) filter out websites rated R or above and media reports yesterday indicate that the federal government is investigating and trailing the idea.

Archbishop Hickey said: Those with little technical know-how might not even know that such filtering equipment exists. It is much more effective to have ISPs block sites promoting violence and pornography before they ever reach home computers.

We welcome any moves by political parties to make home computers safer for children and less worrying for parents, he said.

From The Telegraph

The ultra-Conservative supreme court of Afghanistan is threatening to resist President Hamid Karzai's attempts to spare a man who faces execution for converting to Christianity. In a move that could scupper Karzai's efforts to resolve the crisis, the judge handling the case said he would brook neither presidential interference nor objections from Kabul's Western backers.

We [the judiciary] have nothing to do with diplomatic issues, Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizada told the Sunday Telegraph. We will do our job independently.

The judge's comments came after Karzai's officials hinted that Abdul Rahman, could be freed within the next two days in an effort to end the international outcry over his prosecution. Karzai has assured world leaders, who have telephoned to protest at the possible death penalty, that Rahman will be spared.

Rahman was prosecuted under anti-apostasy edicts enshrined in Afghanistan's sharia law, which makes it a crime punishable by death for any Muslim to renounce their faith. Despite the risk, however, up to 10,000 Afghans have secretly converted to Christianity in recent years, disillusioned with what they see as Islam's overzealous involvement in politics.

The case has highlighted tensions between the West's vision of Afghanistan as a liberal democracy and the orthodoxy of the country's powerful Islamic judiciary, whose outlook is shared by much of the population. Yesterday, Downing Street became caught up in the row, after criticism that no senior minister had joined the international condemnation of the case.

President George W Bush, said he was "deeply troubled" by it; the Australian prime minister, John Howard, said it as "appalling" and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, spoke to Karzai personally.

In Britain it was left to a junior Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells, to echo President Bush's words. Critics contrast Straw's silence on the issue with his speedy condemnation of the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, and accuse him of double standards.

Rahman is being held in a Kabul prison after a court appearance last week. The Afghan authorities say they suspect he is mentally ill, and so may be unfit to stand trial - which would allow the supreme court to dismiss the case without loss of face.

But in Kabul's mosques last week, talk about the Rahman case was uncompromising. Rejecting Islam is insulting God, said Mullah Abdul Raoulf at the large Herati mosque. Cut off his head!

This seems a bit of a non-story to me. The actors can use a non lighted cigarette. The glow and smoke can be added later digitally

From The Times

For Joanna Lumley, famous for her role as a chain-smoking fashion editor, the rules are Absolutely Fatuous.

Today is the last gasp for actors in Scotland smoking on screen in a ban that will soon stub out the cigarettes of Britain’s television characters.

The Scottish authorities have brushed off pleas by Lumley, who played Patsy in the BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous, and other opponents of the measure to lighten up.

From today, actors north of the border will be banned from filming scenes with cigarettes, cigars or pipes. Even a request to permit herbal cigarettes has been rejected.

ITV, which films the Rebus detective series, based on the Ian Rankin books, is now amending the scripts for the next three dramas, which will be filmed shortly. The scriptwriters have opted to turn the ban to their dramatic advantage. Rebus falls foul of the law when he attempts to light up in his favourite watering hole, the Oxford Bar in Edinburgh. He may emerge as Scotland’s smoking ban martyr.

The ban in Scotland, which follows similar curbs introduced in Ireland in 2004, is to be followed by legislation for England next year, which could have the same consequences for actors on stage or screen.

Based on an article from the Daily Mail

A demonstration championing free speech in central London passed off peacefully. Some protesters carried placards featuring cartoons that infuriated much of the Muslim world.

About 250 protesters gathered in Trafalgar Square to demonstrate against the uproar generated by the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Police said no arrests were made but one man was questioned by officers after they received a complaint about the nature of his placard. It showed a copy of the cartoon depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

Iranian Reza Moradi, who has lived in London for eight years, left the protest after being quizzed by police and returned later.

Nine Muslim counter-protesters wearing black-and-white head scarves were escorted from the protest.

A police spokeswoman said: Police informed them they were free to go wherever they wanted, but because they had scarves covering their faces and they were chanting, officers remained with them.

Risdon initially had announced that he would allow protesters to display banners and wear T-shirts depicting those images. However, he later withdrew the invitation posted on the rally's website, asking demonstrators not to show the cartoons out of fear their display would alienate sympathetic Muslims and give credibility to a far-right political group, the British National Party, which has used the cartoons as a rallying cry.

The decision sparked hundreds of angry responses on the website by those planning to attend the march, many of whom deemed Risdon's change of heart as political censorship.

From the New York Times

So  called preachers used Friday prayers to call for the execution of an Afghan Muslim who converted to Christianity, despite growing protests in the West. The conversion of the man, Abdul Rahman, 15 years ago was brought to the attention of the authorities as part of a child custody dispute.

The Bush administration and European governments have strongly protested the case as a violation of religious freedom. But Rahman has drawn a strong reaction in Afghanistan, too, and for many hardline clerics, there is no greater offense than apostasy.

One speaker, Maulavi Habibullah, told more than a thousand clerics and young people gathered in Kabul: Afghanistan does not have any obligation under international laws. The prophet says, when somebody changes religion, he must be killed.

Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, told reporters on Friday that she had been assured by President Hamid Karzai in a telephone call that Rahman would not be executed, The Associated Press reported.

A senior government official said Rahman would be released from jail soon, Agence France-Presse reported. The agency did not identify the official, who added that there would be a top-level meeting on the case on Saturday.

Based on an article from News.com.au

the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has been flexing newly provided powers to insist upon 'enforceable undertakings'.  The next series of Big Brother will feel the brunt.

Network Ten made the undertaking to the Australian Communications and Media Authority yesterday after the watchdog found a third episode of the 2005 series of Big Brother Uncut breached broadcast standards to ensure that all TV content is suitable for 15 year old children.

ACMA received two complaints from viewers about an episode aired on July 4 last year. The media watchdog found the episode went beyond the suitability of the MA (15+) classification and the network did not properly describe the episode as containing strong adult themes, sexual references, implied sexual behaviour and full frontal or partial nudity.

In its list of undertakings to ensure it met community standards, Ten has pledged to improve codes of conduct and housemate training to increase awareness of sexual harassment, assault and bullying.

Ten also said it had brought in a Rape Crisis Centre manager and a media studies academic to look at its precautions to prevent sexually demeaning behaviour in the house.

Production staff will improve the way they monitor housemate behaviour from the control room and draw up new guidelines. The control room will use the guidelines to identify risky situations and immediately refer them to production executives for advice, Ten said.

Two classifiers will view Big Brother Uncut episodes before they are shown to ensure they meet standards, and report back to ACMA every week on any complaints received.

ACMA chairman Chris Chapman said it was important community standards were upheld. The classification scheme set out in the code reflects well-accepted community standards and provides safeguards against the broadcast of inappropriate material. It is imperative that broadcasters stay within its limits.

From the BBC

Sources South Park has exacted revenge on its former star Isaac Hayes by turning his character Chef into a paedophile and seemingly killing him off.

The opening episode of the 10th series, screened in the US on Wednesday, appeared to be a satire on Scientology. Hayes, a Scientologist, quit the animated comedy after a different episode ridiculed the religion.

In the new show, Chef is brainwashed by the "Super Adventure Club" - thought to be a veiled reference to Scientology. The other characters are angry at "that fruity little club for scrambling his brains".

He eventually meets his comeuppance after falling off a bridge and being burned, stabbed and mauled by a lion and a grizzly bear.

At his funeral, one of the children says: A lot of us don't agree with the choices the Chef has made in the last few days. Some of us feel hurt and confused that he seemed to turn his back on us. But we can't let the events of the past few weeks take away the memories of how Chef made us smile...We shouldn’t be mad at Chef for leaving us. We should be mad at that fruity little club for scrambling his brains

Hayes did not participate in the episode but his lines were apparently patched together from previous recordings.

From Prison Planet

For the first time in what some fear will signal a growing trend, Google Inc. has banned and removed a mainstream news website from all its worldwide search engines, seemingly due to the website's reports on China's geopolitical affairs and military technology.

Space War is a reasonably tame mainstream website that focuses on geopolitical affairs and satellite and military technology advancements. It is based in Australia and carries articles from AFP and United Press International.

In a statement posted on its website today, the President and Publisher of Space.TV Corporation Simon Mansfield released the following comments: Google Inc. has banned SPACEWAR.COM, a news site covering military space. Reasons for the ban by Google are unclear. The company did not communicate with Space.TV Corp., the owner of SPACEWAR.COM, prior to its action, and Google representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Google Inc.'s preferred method of banning a site is to delist its primary domain URL - www.spacewar.com - from the Google search index. Google also can reduce a site's page rank, or eliminate it entirely, as it has done to SpaceWar.com. Google Inc in the wake of pressure from the Chinese government has begun blocking access to various websites deemed unfriendly to the "Boys From Beijing"

At this stage we have no evidence to suggest this is the reason why Google has banned SPACEWAR.COM. The lack of any forewarning that SPACEWAR.COM was operating in violation of Google's increasingly strict search engine compliance requirements, however, leads us to suspect the ban is politically motivated.

It is important to stress that Space War is not even outright hostile to the Chinese government, it simply reports on publicly available information about its military progression and relations with other countries.

Update: After a complaints campaign, Google has agreed to re-index the Space War website mentioned in this article.

From The Telegraph

A 15-year-old boy who raped four young girls after watching hardcore pornography was sent to a young offenders' institution yesterday for four years.

At Manchester Crown Court the boy admitted four rapes and was told he would have to spend five years under supervision once he was freed.

From Metro

The United States and three NATO allies with troops in Afghanistan urged the Kabul government to respect the religious freedom of an Afghan convert to Christianity who faces the death penalty there.

The United States, which counts Afghan President Hamid Karzai as a key ally in the region, raised the case with visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, calling on Kabul to uphold Afghan citizens' constitutional right to choose their faith.

We hope that the Afghan constitution is going to be upheld and in our view, if it's upheld, then of course he'll be found to be innocent, said Nicholas Burns, the State Department's third-ranked diplomat.

An Afghan judge said on Sunday a man named Abdur Rahman had been jailed for converting from Islam to Christianity and could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim again. Sharia, or Islamic law, stipulates death for apostasy.

While we understand the complexity of a case like this and we certainly will respect the sovereignty of the Afghan authorities and the Afghan system, from an American point of view, people should be free to choose their own religion, Burns told reporters, flanked by Abdullah.

Abdullah said his government had "nothing to do" with the judicial case, but added: I hope that through our constitutional process, there will be a satisfactory result.

Italy called in the Afghan ambassador in Rome, two Berlin cabinet ministers spoke out and Germany's top Catholic cardinal demanded his freedom. Canada said it was concerned and urged the Afghan government to meet its human rights obligations.

The protests present a dilemma for Karzai, who needs foreign troops to defend against al Qaeda and Taliban remnants. Some 23,000 U.S. troops are in the country. Germany has 2,700 soldiers in Afghanistan, Canada has 2,300 and Italy has 1,775.

Abdullah said the Afghan embassy in Washington had received "hundreds of messages" from Americans about the case: I know that it is a very sensitive issue and we know the concerns of the American people

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga wrote to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, now campaigning for reelection, and urged him to withdraw Italian troops from Afghanistan unless he wins assurances from Kabul over Rahman's safety: It is not acceptable that our soldiers should put themselves at risk or even sacrifice their lives for a fundamentalist, illiberal regime.

German Development Minister Heide Wieczorek-Zeul said she would appeal to Karzai directly: We will do everything possible to save the life of Abdul Rahman, she told the daily Bild, which said Rahman had converted to Christianity while living in Germany for nine years.

Germany's top Catholic prelate, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, described the case against Rahman as "an alarming signal": German bishops will try to ensure Christians in Islamic countries enjoy the same rights as Muslims have in our country.

From the Daily Record

Radio 1 DJ, Chris Moyles, has been reprimanded for calling newsreader Georgina Bowman a "slut" during his breakfast show.

Ofcom investigated his joke, made during a hand-over in November, after four listeners complained that it was offensive A BBC spokesman said: This comment was part of the light-hearted atmosphere that the team sought to create.

From Kansas.com

The Kansas House gave tentative approval today to a bill restricting signs that advertise sexually oriented businesses. The sign restrictions were added to a bill updating the state's highway advertising laws.

Billboards advertising adult video stores, strip clubs and other sex-related businesses would be banned within a mile of highways.

Republican Virginia Beamer, proposed the amendment, which is identical to a bill that is pending in the Senate. It is one of several measures sex-shop opponents are employing at the state level and in communities across the state.

The bill, 253, advanced to a final vote in the House.

From the BBC

The government has finally won its battle of wills with the House of Lords over proposals to outlaw the "glorification" of terrorism.

In the sixth round of parliamentary "ping pong", peers accepted the government plans by a majority of 112.

Charles Clarke warned peers that Labour had made a manifesto commitment to outlaw the glorification of terrorist attacks and intended "to honour it".

Many peers felt the new law was too vague and would curb freedom of speech. It was also opposed by Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs.

Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland of Asthal urged peers to back the government, saying the glorification offence was easily understood by "the ordinary man in the street".

Conservative spokesman Lord Kingsland asked Tory backbenchers to abstain this time because otherwise the government would use the Parliament Act to push through the Terrorism Bill, which would cause a nine month delay. He said Clarke had given an undertaking to "reconsider all the measures on terrorism" that were already on the statute book and to replace them. This would give peers the chance to look at a range of issues that have given us deep discomfort in the course of this bill.

The prime minister had said the measure would allow action to be taken against people with placards glorifying the 7 July bombers - which were seen in London during protests against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

From The Sydney Morning Herald

A blockade against internet pornography and violence is now a possibility after the Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, showed signs of buckling to backbench demands for action on this issue.

A day after scoffing at a Labor plan to force internet service providers to filter out porn and violence, Senator Coonan yesterday changed tack and said the Government had not ruled out such a filtering system.

This followed a demand from a Liberal backbench campaigner on the issue, Guy Barnett, who described current home-based measures as "unsatisfactory" and rejected Senator Coonan's earlier suggestions that mandatory filters would be costly and of "questionable benefit".

Senator Barnett, who late last year got 62 Coalition MPs to sign a plea to the Prime Minister, John Howard, for more action against internet porn and violence, said yesterday: I will not roll over on this issue. I will continue to pursue this in the best interests of Australian children.

On Tuesday, Senator Coonan rejected Labor's plan for a mandatory filter on internet porn and violence, saying it would only result in slowing down the internet for every Australian without effectively protecting children from inappropriate and offensive content. She said home-based filtering of computers using free or low-cost software was the most effective way to protect children.

Senator Barnett questions this view, because he says many parents do not take up the software. But yesterday Senator Coonan's spokeswoman said the Government has not ruled out ISP-based filtering and is currently undertaking a trial in Tasmania in conjunction with the internet safety agency NetAlert.

This was the third Government investigation of ISP-based filtering since 2001 and the Government was actively trying to overcome technical impediments to ISP-based filtering.

Labor's approach would only block internet sites that were listed but thousands of pages were added or changed every day, she said.

Senator Barnett said industry experts had told him filters could be introduced without undue detriment to services.

From GameSpot

While a piece of Utah legislation seeking to have video games with "inappropriate violence" classified under the same statute that applies to pornography fell into legislative limbo earlier this month, a similar Oklahoma bill has passed the House without a single opposing vote.

Last week, the Oklahoma House of Representatives approved HB3004 unanimously, with 97 Representatives voting for it, none against it, and four excused from the voting.

The Oklahoma bill makes it illegal for stores to sell or allow minors to view any game with inappropriate violence. If passed, retailers would not even be able to display the games for sale unless the bottom two-thirds of their covers were obscured by "blinder racks" in the same way that adult magazines are.

While the bill's formatting on the matter is a little different, the text bears a striking resemblance to that of Utah's piece of legislation when it comes to defining inappropriate violence. According to the law, that term would be defined as any depiction in a game that, when taken as a whole, has the following characteristics:

a. the average person eighteen (18) years of age or older applying contemporary community standards would find that the interactive video game or computer software is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors, and
b. the interactive video game or computer software lacks serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political value for minors based on, but not limited to, the following criteria:
(1) is glamorized or gratuitous,
(2) is graphic violence used to shock or stimulate,
(3) is graphic violence that is not contextually relevant to the material,
(4) is so pervasive that it serves as the thread holding the plot of the material together,
(5) trivializes the serious nature of realistic violence,
(6) does not demonstrate the consequences or effects of realistic violence,
(7) uses brutal weapons designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain and damage,
(8) endorses or glorifies torture or excessive weaponry, or
(9) depicts lead characters who resort to violence freely

The bill's definition of inappropriate violence specifically mentions games, so similar depictions in books, movies, or music would not be covered. If passed, store owners caught selling such games to minors would be charged with a misdemeanor and fined $500 on a first or second offense and $1,000 on future offenses.

Having passed the House, the bill has now moved to the Oklahoma Senate.

From the China Post

Legislation proposed by Muslim legislators to ban pornography and obscene acts in Indonesia will not affect whether scantily-clad tourists can sunbathe on the resort island of Bali, Indonesia's vice president said Monday.
Jusuf Kalla was responding to fears among members of the island's Hindu enclave that the bill would have a chilling effect on its tourist industry by criminalizing sunbathing, as well as being incompatible with its Hindu culture.

Do not worry, we (the government) don't agree (with everything in the bill), Kalla told tourist chiefs on the island. I am sure if it is passed, it will not wreck your rights. All the political parties are listening to your complaints.

From Manchester Online

The staging of controversial musical Jerry Springer The Opera brought protesters to the streets of Manchester last night - but placard-waving supporters of the show outnumbered Christian protesters.

But on the streets outside the Opera House last night, a small group of around 10 protesters opposed to the show were out-numbered by a group of noisy Manchester comedians, who carried placards reading "Don't Gag the Gagsters".

Organiser Mike Landers, who heads the Manchester Comedy Forum, said: We are concerned about freedom of speech. There seem to be a lot of things conspiring against this freedom because of the protest against the Prophet cartoons and the religious hatred bill. We think it is the job of comedians to be able to say what we think, even if it offends people.

From the excellent MediawatchWatch

Mike Landers reports:

We gathered in the Sports Cafe on time, hurriedly finishing off placards and so on. A nice little turn out, and then we found out that the tables around us were occupied by people going to see the show and were laughing themselves silly at some of the slogans.

The original plan was to wander up to the Opera House around 6.30pm (7.30pm show start) but a distinct lack of Christian “opposition” meant we kept putting it back and putting it back. As the queues of audience members grew and still no sign, we finally made the Executive Decision to head up at about 6.50pm.

As we gathered opposite the Opera House, there were a lot of curious looks from the Springer audience, but as soon as the placards were unveiled, there was a big cheer and a lot of laughter.

A round of interviews (TV and radio) with myself and John Cooper, more laughter and chanting and some grateful thanks from some of the backstage crew, who left with their own stickers.

Eventually some of the Christians turned up at about 7.15pm. We serenaded them with “You’re late! And you know you are!” as they took station right outside the doors. A quick countup of protesters versus anti-protesters led to the football style chant of “16-3! 16-3!”.

At 7.30pm, showtime so time to retire to the pub. I wandered past the Opera House at about 8.45, and one of the protestors was still there. Earlier she had given out a huge number of handwritten cards about spreading the word of God. As my good friend Geoff said, quite frankly, with dedication and determination like that, she’s wasted doing what she is doing.

I’ll write more, set up a webpage to show the pictures, but from memory the slogans were:

“Down with protests”
“Don’t gag the gagsters”
“Jerry Springer stole my other cheek”
“Free Speech! I’m a believer!”
“Its digusting. Its a musical, not an opera”
“It was either this or the hoovering”
“I don’t care about blasphemy, I just hate opera.”
“For one night only: Much Ado About Nothing”
“Stop being so bloody silly.”
“Golf Sale”.

Very tired, but happy.

From ABC

The Federal Opposition has outlined a plan to block Internet pornography reaching home computers.

Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says a Labor government would introduce laws requiring Internet service providers to offer a "clean feed" without pornographic and violent sites. Beazley says Australian parents do not want their children to be exposed to such material: Block it at the point of the provider as opposed to the point of the parent and if that particular household wants to opt into the pornographic sites then they make an active decision to do so.

The reality is ... only about a third of the parents put some sort of blocker in relation to the sites on their home computers, it's too hard for most of them but if you did it at the level of the provider, probably very few people would opt in.

However the Federal Government says Labor's plan to block Internet pornography from reaching home computers will only slow down online services for everyone.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan says PC-based filters are more effective and do not affect the performance of the Internet. PC-based filtering remains the most effective way of protecting children from offensive Internet content as well as other threats that are not addressed by Labor's ISP filtering programs.

Coonan also says Labor's plan is prohibitively expensive: A previous government review into the filtering technology that is the basis of Labor's plan also found that it would involve implementation costs of around $45 million and ongoing costs of more than $33 million per annum for ISPs for questionable benefit.

From The Guardian

Channel Five was yesterday rebuked for airing gruesome scenes of plastic surgery before the 9pm watershed.

Brand New You featured five women sent to Los Angeles to be transformed by surgeons, dentists and stylists.
But media watchdog Ofcom said explicit, close-up scenes of surgical scissors cutting through flesh and skin being lifted away from the face were unacceptable for children who might be watching.

Five failed in its appeal against the verdict, arguing that the series, shown at 8pm, was preceded by an on-air warning and that the scenes were justified by context.

There seems to be a new definition of the word 'tolerance' that justifies the killing of one's fellow man because he does not believe in the prescribed brand of unbelievable nonsense.

From the BBC
From The Times

An Afghan man is being tried in a court in Kabul for his conversion from Islam to Christianity.

He could be sentenced to death for the act and his refusal to recant. The trial of Abdul Rahman reflects the struggle between religious hardliners and reformists over what shape Islam will take in Afghanistan.

Rahman is being prosecuted for an attack on Islam, the punishment for which, under the draft constitution established in 2004, is death.

The constitution says Islam is the religion of Afghanistan, yet it also mentions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 18 specifically forbids this kind of recourse, one human rights expert said in Kabul last night. It really highlights the problem the judiciary faces.

Rahman was arrested last month after his estranged family - with whom he was in dispute over the custody of his two children - denounced him as a convert. Rahman was found to be carrying a Bible and was charged with rejecting Islam.

He acknowledged during his trial that he did convert 16 years ago.

The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said he had offered to drop the charges if Rahman would convert back to Islam, but he had refused to do so. Wasi said therefore that Mr Rahman must get the death penalty.

The trial judge has also described Rahman's action as an attack on Islam. The Attorney-General is emphasising he should be hung, Judge Alhaj Ansarullah Mawlawy Zada, who will be trying his case said. In this country we have the perfect constitution, it is Islamic law and it is illegal to be a Christian and it should be punished.

Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrats’ defence spokesman, said: This is a horrifying situation and it makes a mockery of the efforts we are making to bring Afghanistan back into the international community. We have committed many soldiers to the situation in Afghanistan, many of whom will be committed Christians; we have spent huge amounts of money and committed resources and so I think we can take a strong moral position on this and explain to the Afghan authorities that to prosecute or even kill someone for having a different faith is unacceptable.

If the judge imposes the death penalty, Mr Rahman will still have two avenues of appeal under Afghan law — the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court. The death penalty has to be ratified by President Karzai.

From AVN

The Supreme Court turned back (refused?) an appeal today from a photographer who claimed a federal decency law violated her free-speech rights to post pictures of sadomasochistic sexual behavior on the Web.

Justices affirmed a decision last year by a special three-judge federal panel upholding the 1996 law which makes it a crime to send obscenity over the Internet to children.

The Supreme Court appeal was brought by photographer Barbara Nitke, whose work is featured in the book Kiss of Fire: A Romantic View of Sadomasochism, and by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.

Material that is obscene is not protected by the First Amendment, but Nitke's lawyer contends her work is art that is not obscene.

The conclusion is that the law requires that those sending obscene communications on the Internet take reasonable actions to keep it away from children, like requiring a credit card, debit account or adult access code as proof of age.

Certainly an illuminating quote: We do not think any decent-minded person would want to watch this show.

Based on an article from ic Liverpool

More than 500 Christians descended on St George's Plateau to make their feelings about Jerry Springer: The Opera coming to the city very clear.

Nutters in the region were protesting in the hope of deterring people from buying tickets. The show is part of the Empire Theatre's summer season and campaigners plan to stage a series of demonstrations over the next two months and throughout its run.

Dave Allen, from Merseyside Christians Against Jerry Springer, said: We regard this production as disgraceful, disgusting and dirty. We do not think any decent-minded person would want to watch this show.

It very clearly demeans our Lord Jesus Christ by depicting him as a baby in a nappy and makes God out to be a bumbling fool. There is no doubt about it, we will be raising our voice very strongly over the next few weeks to show our disgust.

From Monsters & Critics

The ban Britain imposed on the slogan of Australia's new tourism campaign - So where the bloody hell are you?- has been repealed.

Perhaps the change of heart was helped on its way by Prince Edward who used the word 'bloody' on Australian TV. Edward lost his temper with a member of his staff. The prince then turned from the camera and shouted at an aide typing on a laptop: You don't know how annoying that bloody clicking is over here.

The presenter on Australia's Channel 7 mumbled: So it's OK for royalty then.

Britain's watchdog Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BAAC) upheld an appeal by Australian Tourism Minister Fran Bailey.

I am pleased that common sense prevailed and the regulators realised the campaign was intended to be cheeky, friendly and very Australian, Bailey said in a statement. My faith in the British sense of humour has been restored.

The oath 'bloody' ranks 27th on the BAAC's list of offensive words that may not appear in advertisements, just after 'crap' and just before of 'God'. Also off-limits are bastard (6th), bollocks (8th), bugger (21st), sodding (24th) and Jesus Christ (25th).

From the BBC

The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, has called for the creation of a world body with representatives from the major religious groups.

Rabbi Metzger was addressing the International Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in Seville, Spain. He called for the formation of a "United Nations of religious groups" which could "bring a bridge between religions to help the bridge of the diplomatic way".

That plan has broad support from key participants like Frederico Major, the co-president of the Alliance for Civilisations, the lobby group for international conflict resolution, supported by the United Nations and initiated by Spain's Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

The speeches at this conference rather than using polite, diplomatic language have at times been brutally direct. When the Rabbi Metzger harangued mainstream Muslims for not standing up to Osama bin Laden, Islamic leaders nodded in agreement.

The religious leaders have three days to come up with a manifesto that aims to convert their words into actions.

From CBC

An appeal from the Catholic Church for New Zealanders to boycott an episode of South Park has resulted in a record audience there for the controversial cartoon.

The Bloody Mary episode of South Park drew more than six times the normal audience, New Zealand broadcaster TV Works announced.

The episode was seen by 210,000 viewers, according to Rick Friesen, the broadcaster's chief operating officer. In the past month, he said, an average South Park episode typically draws about 32,500 viewers to the network's C4 youth channel.

During the broadcast, however, more than 350 people protested outside the TV Works headquarters in Auckland.

The protest centred on a statue of the Virgin Mary, with participants — clutching Bibles and religious icons — singing hymns, reciting the rosary and offering other prayers. A Catholic priest who led the protesters in prayer asked God to enlighten those responsible for the cartoon and strengthen them to see how much harm they can do.

Last weekend, New Zealand's Roman Catholic bishops issued a letter urging parishioners to boycott the channel and its sponsors. The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand also protested the episode and said it was deeply offensive.

Based on an article from Asia Media

When questioned by an American reporter about the Chinese government's censorship of the internet, the premier defended the mainland's record by quoting Irish Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw, who once said: Liberty means responsibility. [That's why most men dread it].

Premier Wen Jiabao said: Every citizen can exercise their right and freedom to use the internet. BUT... every citizen must also abide the law, and safeguard our national, social and collective interests.

Former Bingdian Weekly editor Li Datong, who was sacked over the appearance of a controversial article in the newspaperin late January, said the premier's argument was flawed. It's absolutely right for Mr Wen to say that citizens have the freedom of speech which is guaranteed by the constitution. But do we really have the freedom?First of all, no individual or organisation in China is allowed to run their own newspaper or publication. All media is owned and controlled by the government. Liberty means responsibility. But who should decide what is good and what is wrong? If a person said something untrue and illegal, he should be punished by the law. At present, the officials can arbitrarily close any public discussion simply because they don't like it.

Freedom of speech put to brutal test By Chow Chung-Yan

Grandmothers were pinned to the ground for petitioning outside the Great Hall of the People, while journalists were detained just minutes after Premier Wen Jiabao defended China's record on free speech.

Wen also talked about the freedom of speech guaranteed to every citizen by the constitution. However, for the petitioners who managed to breach the tight police blockades yesterday to voice their grievances outside the Great Hall, the only thing they tasted was the dirt on the ground.

Beijing mobilised thousands of police officers during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress to keep order and prevent public petitions. The streets around Tiananmen Square were filled with uniformed and plain-clothes officers who regularly checked passers-by.

But to their embarrassment, about 10 petitioners managed to sneak past and tried to voice their concerns on the stairs of the Great Hall at the end of the press conference. The petitioners protested against corruption, illegal land requisitions and rampant crime. But they were quickly pinned to the ground and whisked away by police.

Two Spanish reporters, an Australian television crew and two South China Morning Post reporters were also detained for covering the incident. The police later released the journalists.

Based on an article from The Daily Star

Adaptation of the anti-obscenity law in parliament in January revives nutter hopes of bringing back 'golden days' to the film industry as the makers and those involved in pornographic films have gone into hiding.

Parliament on January 31, adopted the anti-obscenity law that can land any 'pornographic'/ vulgar filmmaker in prison for three years. Action can be also taken against the artists, crew, officials, exhibitors and any person involved with the vulgar film.

Producers of vulgar films have stopped their ongoing projects realising perhaps they would be in trouble if they continue.

Producers themselves halted the making of around 30 films after the adaptation of the new law, said Kamruzzaman Babu, staff reporter, daily Prothom Alo: Producers of these low grade films fear that their movies would not run and they will not be able to be make any profits.

According to different newspaper reports, the law-enforcing authority has shutdown three cinema halls for screening uncensored and vulgar Bangla movies. Another 16 cinema halls known to be screening pornographic films are marked to face the same fate if the allegation against them is proved.

With such initiative from the government, we hope to see more family oriented movies, that would increase the number of viewers, said Chashi Nazrul Islam, director and member Bangladesh Censor Board.

Cinema hall owners, too, are very careful in picking the right movies to avoid punishment since the new law took effect. Makers of these films are not ready to admit that showing obscenity in films is a crime. Because they that adult scenes shown in the movies do not depict vulgarity, rather it's a demand of the day.

From CBS47

A federal judge has ordered Google to give the Bush administration a peek inside its Internet-leading search engine. But the company will not have to turn over a list of people's search requests -- potentially sensitive information that it has fought to protect.

U-S District Judge James Ware issued a 21-page ruling today telling Google to provide the Justice Department with the addresses of 50-thousand randomly selected Web sites indexed by its search engines. The company has until April third to turn over that information.

Ware, however, decided Google won't have to disclose what people have been looking for on its widely used search engine.

The government plans to use the data for a study that the Bush administration hopes will help revive a law meant to shield children from online pornography.

From Inquistion21

The Australian Government has shut down a parody website that mocked Australian Prime Minister John Howard. The website featured a satirical speech that 'apologised' for the Iraq war. The site was down for two days before a phone call from Melbourne IT advised the owner that it had been shut down 'on the advice from the Australian Government'. We now tell Australians how to access the blocked site and also reproduce its contents.

Read More on Inquisition 21

From the BBC

As multiple murderer Daniel Gonzalez is convicted, BBC News looks at the killing spree he carried out.
By the age of 24, Gonzalez had become bored and frustrated with his life. Unemployed, friendless and using drugs regularly, he spent most of his time watching horror films and playing computer games..

Gonzalez wanted to be a famous serial killer. He wanted to make newspaper headlines and he wanted to spend a day being Freddy Krueger - a fictitious child-murderer from the Nightmare on Elm Street films.

To do this, he believed he would have to kill 10 people - so, on 15 September 2004, he set out on a campaign of murder.

Gonzalez admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility - claiming he was a schizophrenic and voices in his head told him to act like Freddy Krueger.

But the jury dismissed his story and convicted him of murder.

Gonzalez's childish fascination with horror films may briefly have given him the newspaper headlines he craved - but it could not excuse the real-life horror of his crimes.

From The Guardian

An independent theatre festival in Toledo lost its government subsidies this week for refusing to cancel a show that satirises the Pope and advocates atheism.

It is the latest front in a battle that has raged since February around comedian Leo Bassi's act, Revelation, which has angered the Catholic church in Spain, sparked violent protests by the extreme right in Madrid and fuelled a nationwide debate on artistic freedom.

Bassi's show, which also pokes fun at Christian evangelists in America and the Old Testament, will be performed today at a makeshift venue. Donations will help compensate for the €7,000 (£4,857) in lost subsidies.

But the curtain will rise amid controversy. Last Sunday the archbishop of Toledo, Antonio Cañizares, said the show was "blasphemous", "anti-Christian" and an "insult to the church". Days later, the local and regional governments of Toledo threatened to withdraw festival subsidies if the show was not cancelled. It could offend Catholic sensibilities, a spokesman said.

At the end of the show the New York born comedian directs the audience to his website, where there is a form on which they can renounce their faith. He considers the work "reverse evangelism".

In February about 200 members of the extreme right asked the Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to "apologise" for "the offence to Catholic principles". In March police defused a bomb near Bassi's dressing room at the Alfil Theatre in Madrid.

In June Bassi takes his show to a venue near the Vatican in Rome.

From IWPR

Civil rights activists and movie buffs have hailed a decision to show a harrowing film in Belgrade about a Bosnian rape victim. They greeted the premiere as a sign that Serbs are becoming more willing to acknowledge the extent of war crimes committed in Serbia's name in the Nineties.

By contrast, nervous distributors in the Bosnian Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, RS, refused to show the film at all, citing fears of uproar.

Grbavica, by the Sarajevo director Jasmila Zbanic, and winner of this year's Berlin film festival, had its first screening in Belgrade on March 6.

The film about a Bosnian Muslim who gave birth to a child after being raped in a Serbian detention camp won a standing ovation in the Serbian capital, in spite of its deeply controversial theme.

Zbanic made no apologies for the unequivocally political message of her film, saying she hoped it would remind moviegoers of the fate of thousands of Bosnian women raped during the 1992 to 1995 war.

After winning the Berlin prize, she expressly pointed out that the two men in charge of the Bosnian Serb war effort, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, remained at large. Zbanic's comments created more uproar in the RS capital Banja Luka and in Belgrade than the film's provocative script.

Oscar Film Private Enterprise, the only film distributor in the RS, decided not to show Grbavica. The company's director, Vlado Ljevar, said after the film was shown to a test audience of about 40, they concluded that a screening would be counterproductive and would not be economically viable. We don't want to screen a film that would provoke Serbs and cause a revolt, while we would stand to make no money from it, said Ljevar.

Dragica Banjac, a professor in Banja Luka's economics faculty, said she was angry she would not be able to judge the film's merits for herself: I feel offended as a citizen, just as I am offended that no one has spoken out against this form of censorship.

By contrast, a defiant atmosphere attended the first screening in Belgrade, where filmgoers, civil society activists, actors and filmmakers gathered in force. A clutch of hard-line nationalists who tried to disrupt the projection, shouting "Serbia" and "traitors", was quickly ejected. When Svetlana Petrusic, a former journalist, attempted to read out a written statement condemning the film, security guards whisked her off.

From AVN

A bill introduced on March 16 in the U.S. Senate seeks to require all commercial websites that provide “material that is harmful to minors” to register and operate within a Top Level Domain set aside specifically for that purpose.

Sponsored by Sens. Max Baucus (Democrat) and Mark Pryor (Democrat), the “Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006” mandates that the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers establish the new international TLD and have it operational within 90 days of the enactment of the bill. The Secretary of Commerce will be empowered to devise and enforce regulations for the operation of the TLD, and will be responsible for imposing civil penalties on any Web publishers who do not abide by the regulations. Under the legislation, companies that fail to register in the new domain within six months of the establishment of the new TLD would be subject to civil penalties.

According to the bill, which is not expected to be addressed by the Senate until after it returns from a weeklong recess that begins March 20, The term ‘material that is harmful to minors’ means any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or that a reasonable person would find…with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest; depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive manner with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and taking the material as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Although the bill does not specifically use the term “pornography,” it’s clear from the language that online adult entertainment is exactly what the bill seeks to control. It’s also clear from the language that it is an attempt to approach certain now-enjoined requirements of the Child Online Protection Act from a different angle, according to First Amendment attorney J.D. Obenberger.

From Hollywood Interrupted

Sources from inside Paramount and South Park Studios report that parent company Viacom pulled last night's scheduled repeat of the high-rated Trapped in the Closet episode after the humorless Scientologist movie star Tom Cruise threatened to cancel all publicity for Mission Impossible:3 if Comedy Central aired the episode that satirizes Scientology and mocks his sexuality again.

Not only is this the first time that the South Park creators have been officially censored in their ten hit seasons with Comedy Central, Viacom officials also reportedly ordered Matt Stone and Trey Parker not to discuss the reason why their episode was cancelled.

The South Park boys are said to be angry, but will probably get revenge with the manner in which they deal with Scientologist Isaac Hayes' departure from the show.

John Beyer is continuing to advocate prison sentences for those privately viewing vanilla hardcore. I don't know what nutter belief inspires him to wish prison on his fellow man for private, harmless sexual entertainment, but in my own personal morality system, Beyer is amongst the dregs.

Anyway see www.mediawatchuk.org/publications/The%20Flag.htm for his interview with The Flag, where he trots out his usual brand of nastiness.

From WCPO

A bill seeking to outlaw lap dancing at Kentucky strip clubs won easy approval today in the Senate.

If the bill becomes law, someone appearing nude in an adult establishment or offering semi-nude lap dances would be guilty of sexual misconduct. The penalty would be up to a year in jail.

The measure now goes to the House.

The bill would allow semi-nudity among employees of sexually-oriented businesses if they remain at least six feet away from patrons on a stage at least 18 inches above the floor.

From Gamespot

The Federal Communications Commission today reached decisions in many of the backlogged indecency complaints it has received over the past three years. In two noteworthy cases, the Commission levied fines against CBS for the infamous "wardrobe malfunction" in the 2004 Super Bowl, and for a scene depicting a teen orgy in the series Without A Trace. They also cite Nicole Richie and The Surreal Life 2 as being "indecent and profane."

CBS was walloped with the most fines, totaling $3.6 million. The Commission upheld a $550,000 fine against the network for the February 2004 Super Bowl halftime incident involving Justin Timberlake exposing Janet Jackson's pierced breast. An episode of the crime drama Without A Trace depicting teenagers engaged in sexual activities was also found to be indecent. The fines for Trace totaled $2 million, with 72 affiliates being fined $32,500 each.

In its statement, the Commission said, [We] hold that CBS consciously and willfully failed to take actions to prevent the broadcast of the material, and that CBS is responsible for the halftime show. The Commission also finds episodes of Without A Trace and The Surreal Life 2, which contained numerous graphic, sexual images, to be impermissible under the Commission's indecenc