Well, you can hardly call this news surprising, to be honest. Maybe I should just have given this column the title ‘There we go again…’: PDT San Francisco — A federal grand jury indicted Bernie Ward, a former Catholic priest and ex-radio talk show host, in September on two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of receiving child porn using the Internet. Ward pleaded not guilty to the charges in December and had insisted that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Last month... Read Full Story

There are not many happy war-on-terror stories and this one is no exception to the rule: The Pentagon confirmed yesterday that a Kuwaiti released from the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay three years ago carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq last month. Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi and two other Kuwaitis are reported by their families to have taken part in an attack on Iraqi security forces in Mosul. Although the families did not specify a date, seven people were killed in a suicide attack... Read Full Story

The Good Book says, ‘Give to Caesar what Caesar is due,’ which, incidentally raises an interesting issue concerning the non-payment of taxes in the USA and elsewhere by church organisations but that’s a topic for another day - if I can be bothered, of course. Let me digress a bit further, though. There’s an old joke told by one of our Dutch comedians which translates as follows: It’s Sunday morning and one good citizen is less than delighted when he’s forced to get up to answer the door and... Read Full Story

Poor Gordon Brown: it never rains but it pours. You get thoroughly trounced in local elections by the Etonian party - and then humiliated by an Etonian mayor of London. And if that was not enough to stop anyone from waxing lyrically about all things British, some uppity museum managaer decides you might not even be interesting enough to attack with a life size voodoo doll: Gordon Brown is well-advised to avoid meltdown in his next test of public opinion: it is at Madame Tussauds. The... Read Full Story

First, let me state that I am not a big fan of Burma’s military junta. It is a quite horrible regime, which treats most of the population worse than China treats the Tibetans - which is saying quite a lot. Nevertheless, the following bit of Burma bashing left me quite speechless - for a short while, before I could decide between hysterical laughter and some choice obscenities: WASHINGTON — First lady Laura Bush, a harsh critic of the military junta in Burma, slammed the regime Monday for... Read Full Story

‘Travel broadens the mind’, they say - and it seems this is even true for those who merely come to watch the football: FOOTBALL fans will be issued with leaflets on how to “use” hookers at next month’s Euro 2008 tournament. Prostitution is legal in Switzerland, which hosts the championship with Austria, and the Swiss Aids Federation will give out the leaflets in cities. They advise men to be polite, clean and not to drink alcohol to boost their “staying power”. Ah yes, the oldest game in... Read Full Story

Well, I’ve said it many times before: If all the countries of the world would simply legalise all drugs, it would end a lot of the world’s problems with crime and terrorism. By cutting out the ‘middle man’, which in this case is organised crime, you would rid the world of one of its most dangerous cancers. Not only that, of course, for it would actually make a Hell of a lot of money too, in taxes, for governments around the world. Instead of losing more and more money and lives fighting this... Read Full Story

Now here’s a highly unusual bit of news for you: PART of a handkerchief stained with Charles I’s blood after his execution is up for sale. The king handed the hankie to aide Colonel John Penruddock before he was beheaded in 1649. Penruddock dipped the linen in Charles’s blood. Now the cloth – a quarter of the original hankie – is expected to fetch up to £3,000 at auction in Swindon, Wilts. Expert Chris Albury said: “This is a remarkable historical item.” Definitely a collector’s item with a... Read Full Story

Some years back, Neil Gaiman wrote a wonderful children’s book, called ‘The day I swapped my dad for two goldfish.’ Truly a joy to read - like all of his books, of course. Beautiful illustrations by his regular co-worker Dave McKean, by the way. If you haven’t read it, go and buy it immediately but first this: You know, I’ve often wondered how depressing it must be to be George Bush. I mean, even he must be aware of the fact that he is hated and despised by millions and millions of people... Read Full Story

You know what? According to some scientists there’s a more important argument for reducing CO2 levels than mere global warming: Men living in polluted areas are more likely to go bald than those breathing cleaner air, a new study suggests. The ground breaking research, by academics at the University of London, has linked the onset of male pattern baldness, to environmental factors, such as air pollution and smoking. The scientists believe toxins and carcinogens found in polluted air can stop... Read Full Story