Downistie - The All-Down Syndrome Soap Opera

FCCC-P?

File sharing is now ordained in Sweden.

Since 2010, Church of Kopimism, a group of self-confessed pirates, had been denied several times in their attempt to have their beliefs recognized as an official religion. The "Kopimists", who hold CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols, finally got their approval, and hope their official status will remove the legal stigma that surrounds file-sharing.

Here's the loose timeline on the origin of the religion: In 2001, a lobby group called the Antipiratbyrån (the Anti-Piracy Bureau) was formed in Sweden to combat copyright infringement. By 2003, the free-information movement mockingly copied the lobby group’s name and removed the "anti", calling themselves Piratbyrån (the Piracy Bureau). Piratbyrån created The Pirate Bay site, which quickly became the world’s most notorious source for downloading feature films, TV shows, and software. Ibrahim Botani, a central figure in Piratbyrån, designed a kind of un-copyright logo called “kopimi” (pronounced “copy me”) in 2005. Adding the kopimi mark, as it were, to a work of intellectual property indicated that you not only give permission for it to be copied but actively encourage it.

When Botani died unexpectedly, in 2010, Piratbyrån decided to disband. The Pirate Bay is still thriving despite the ongoing criminal case against its operators, and there's even the Pirate Party, a political party with a pro-Internet platform with special emphasis on copyright and patent reform. Isak Gerson, a philosophy student and active Pirate Party member, was such a religious (pun intended) file-sharer, he founded The Missionary Church of Kopimism to protect his "sacred beliefs". And in the last six months their ranks have tripled to 3,000 devotees.

Ultimately, it may not separate church and state, but I'm all for a more tolerant P2P world of belief.

Original Recipe

Finnish scientists are looking to reverse engineer an ale that was found in a 19th century shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. Priorities are different in Europe...

The shipwreck yielded 145 champagne bottles including vintages from Heidseck, Veuve Clicquot and Juglar, and most of what would be a modern-day six-pack.

Professional beer tasters sampled the brew: "They said that it did taste very old, which is no surprise, with some burnt notes. But it was quite acidic - which could mean there's been some fermenting going on in the bottle." If they can still detect living yeast or other microbial cells, they can try to compare them to brewing yeasts that we know today. Further chemical analysis would be needed to determine what hops were used, and even then, since the beer was not fresh, there would still be a level of modern interpretation to match the old brew formula.

O-est Of The G's

It's no joke to point out that eastern European, now free from the watchful eye of the Iron Curtain, is still trying to catch up to modern time. Sure they're late adopters, but try and even remember when Ice-T was the least bit controversial.

Hungary's media authority is currently investigating a radio station for playing Ice-T songs with explicit lyrics. His songs, "Warning" and "It's On" played in September of 2010 should have been broadcast only after 9 p.m., the National Media and Infocommications Authority said. Tilos Radio, the offending broadcaster, argued that since the lyrics are in English and the station has very few young listeners, the songs did not have an "adverse affect on the moral development" of children under 16.

Did we mention the tracks are from his album, "Home Invasion"...from 1993. Maybe the world wasn't ready for "Cop Killer" nearly twenty years ago, but Ice-T has spent the last 11 years on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit", and he's as threatening nowadays as Ice Cube. So, Cube...are we there yet?

Currently, Hungary is under scrutiny for their new media law, which sparked international outcry. The new law greatly expands the state's power to monitor and penalize private news outlets on broadly defined grounds liked this, and is part of changes instituted since the current party won a parliamentary majority in April 2010 elections. And while it's claimed the Fidesz party has modified the Constitution several times to fit its political aims, I still think the most awesome display of power so far was to make Ice-T remotely relevant as a musician again.

Dilli Dalli!

In Latvia, breakfast for children is served with a healthy dose of drugs.

1000% Of Your Daily Lundgren Allowance

Warning! This video contains the following:

• Dolph Lundgren riding a segway

• Dolph Lundgren saying "Capiche"

• Dolph Lundgren doing internet research with a Swedish goth girl

• Dolph Lundgren kidnapping children

• Dolph Lundgren using those children to break into an Olympic skier's home...

• ...while Dolph Lundgren is also dressed as a small girl

• Dolph Lungren looking like a wax figure as Rage Against The Machine and parts of The Terminator score are used (probably without permission)

Don't Be Cross

The European Court of Human Rights ruled today that crucifixes should be removed from Italian classrooms, prompting Vatican anger and sparking uproar in Italy, where such icons are embedded in the national psyche. And the national gift shops.

"The ruling of the European court was received in the Vatican with shock and sadness," said a Vatican spokesman, adding that it was "wrong and myopic" to try to exclude a symbol of charity from education. It's still considered a charitable act being nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead, right?

The ruling, which Italy said it would appeal, said crucifixes on school walls - a common sight that is part of every Italian's life, could disturb children who were not Christians. It comes as the country is engaged in a national debate on how to deal with a growing population of (mostly Muslim) immigrants.

"This is an abhorrent ruling," said a former culture minister who helped write papal encyclicals (them's like the blog posts and P.R. from the Church). "It must be rejected with firmness. Italy has its culture, its traditions and its history. Those who come among us must understand and accept this culture and this history," he said. "Or die like the heathen infidel they are."

The Vatican spokesman said it was sad that the crucifix could be considered a symbol of division and said religion offered a vital contribution to the moral formation of people. Really, what were the Crusades if not a campaign of inclusion, not division. How can there be any question it's a bad court ruling when government members weigh in with words such as "shameful," "offensive," "absurd," "unacceptable," and "pagan." Okay, maybe not that last one...

Two Italian laws dating from the 1920s, when the Fascists were in power, state that schools must display crucifixes. Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Fascist dictator and hall of fame shitbag Benito Mussolini, said rulings such as that by the court were leading to "a Europe without an identity." And what would Italy be without it's crucifixes - a nation of hairy, wine and pasta gulping caricatures? Maybe we should ask the Germans how they got over losing their beloved swastika?

The case was brought by an Italian national, Soile Lautsi, who complained that her children had to attend a public school in northern Italy which had crucifixes in every room. Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said crucifixes on the walls of tens of thousands of classrooms "do not mean adherence to Catholicism" but are a symbol of Italy's heritage. And would be a bitch to have to take down.

"The history of Italy is marked by symbols and if we erase symbols we erase part of ourselves," Gelmini said. Again: Germany, swastikas. Lautsi said crucifixes on walls ran counter to her right to give her children a secular education and the court ruled in her favor. Hey, wait - did you think that you were in America, where there was separation of church and state? Guess you forgot that the Vatican was your neighbor...

"The presence of the crucifix...could be encouraging for religious pupils, but also disturbing for pupils who practiced other religions or were atheists, particularly if they belonged to religious minorities," the court said in a written ruling. "The State (must) refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it," it added, saying the aim of public education was "to foster critical thinking."

Is it right or wrong? I don't care, but I'm always glad to see religion get rattled. Let's let Bill Hicks have the final word on this:

"A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant."

News Of A Monday

Just because some of us are sitting in judgment by God today doesn't mean there isn't still news happening...

Airline Tickets To Raise Cash For UN Health Effort - I have to extra for pay for checked baggage, and now you want me to fund UN programs without even offering me an in flight meal? Fuck that!

AK-47 Used For Political Fundraiser - Genius idea! I usually use it for bank robberies or small paramilitary excursions, but this really opens up the coercive partisan weaponry market. My the next election year you can count on Rockets for Republicans and Drone Bombers for Democrats!

Egypt Anger Over Virginity Faking - You expect a virgin when you pay for a virgin. These countries wouldn't seem like such fanatical zealots if some of these easy to fix issues were really dealt with. You tend to worry less about the infidels at your borders when you're not watching for infidels in your woman.

Scoop: Is Megan Fox A Flop As ‘It Girl’? - Yes.

Apple App Store Hits 2 Billion Downloads - Wow, that's a whole lot of people playing Bejeweled 2. Now somebody tell me how many of those apps are free and how many are paid downloads...

Khloe Kardashian And Lamar Odom Get Married - He'll get that annulled once he finds her dick. It's small, but that's the kind of thing that can ruin a marriage a month after first meeting.

6 Tips For Lazy Workers To Get Ahead - Number one: read a list claiming six tips to get ahead...

Homeless Ga. Sex Offenders Directed To Woods - This feels like the opening of a joke, but it's not. Is it infested with bears? Or has hunting season begun? As long as its not the same woods with Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, that's okay.

'World's First' Street Named After A Twitter Account - Figures that it is a street in a Palestinian refuge camp. You're no closer to legitimising yourself through twating.

Family Mental History Shadows Future Kids - That is one of the most poorly worded, ill-conceived headlines I've ever read.

Luxury Car Market May Never Look The Same - Let's hope they're still luxurious looking. And no more canary yellow cars. Ever.

'Saturday Night Live' Starts Season With F-Bomb - And no, the 'F' word in question wasn't 'funny'.

GOP pollster: Americans Angrier Than Ever - At you and the rest of the Republican shitbags. Thanks for figuring it out!

Britons Drowned In Vietnam Named - You know I'm going to laugh if one of them is named Bob.

More Than Half Million Kids Get Bad Drug Reactions - Because they're wussies and can't hold their shit. Know your limit and don't overdo it and you'll have the proper reaction.

Police Baffled By Woman’s Disappearance - I mean, she was right here! Where could she have gone? We looked away for one moment, and poof! We're the police and this never happens!

Endangered Ugandan Gorillas Join Facebook, MySpace - For some reason, they only make friends with people who have bananas in their favorites.

As Persian Jews Pray For Their Souls On Yom Kippur, They Scope Out Potential Soul Mates - God will forgive you for trying to get laid on the holiest of holy days. Kidding, he won't.

Wal-Mart Best Symbolizes America, A New Poll Finds - This poll makes me want to destroy America. Fuck you Vanity Fair and 60 Minutes, and every asshole who gave that response.

Lucy Of Beatles' 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' Dies - Apparently she succumbed to her longstanding ailment, kaleidoscope eyes. She will be buried at the Strawberry Fields Forever cemetery next to the Eggman and Sgt. Pepper.

Poland Okays Forcible Castration For Pedophiles - Who says they're dumb - that's a terrific idea!

France, Poland Want Polanski Released On Bail - Okay, I take that back about Poland. Unless...

US Loosens Grip On The Internet - Yes, but that's because it needs that hand free to tighten around something else.

Man Sues Bank Of America For $1.7 Billion Trillion - Yeah, good luck with that. Though it was lower than his inital amount of eleventy gazillion.

Baby Is Killed In Apparent Gang Shooting - Toddler gangs have been squabbling over nap time and formula, and it looks like there's no end in sight. Maybe potty training will bring about a truce.

Yes, Get Indeed

Masked gunmen used a stolen helicopter and explosives to engineer a spectacular raid on a cash depot in Stockholm this morning, breaking into the building through the roof and flying off with bags of cash. Baller!

The daring pre-dawn heist stunned police in the Swedish capital, who were unable to deploy their own helicopters to the scene because suspected explosives had been placed at their hangar. Double baller!

The security company that owns the facility, G4S PLC, said the thieves had made off with "an unconfirmed sum of money" and added it would offer a large reward for information leading to their arrest and the return of the loot. The company did not give an exact amount for the reward. One person was detained later in a Stockholm suburb in connection with the robbery, but wasn't officially declared a suspect.

Shortly after 5 a.m., the helicopter swooped down toward the cash depot and hovered over the building as the robbers hoisted themselves onto the roof in what police said was a carefully planned operation. What, it wasn't an ill-conceived, hastilly spontanious plan? "What we know is that they forced down some kind of wall to get in," they said. "We don't want to comment on how they did it." There were 21 staff members inside the building during the heist, but no one was injured.

Investigators said the robbers wore masks and were believed to have carried automatic weapons and used explosives during the 20-minute raid. Witnesses reported hearing loud bangs during the heist. A witness told channel TV4 he saw a gray helicopter hovering above the building for about 15 minutes. "Two men hoisted themselves down...they hoisted up money, too." A police commando team was seen trying to enter the cash depot in the Vastberga neighborhood with a battering ram.

Police later found an abandoned helicopter near a lake north of Stockholm, about 15 miles from the cash depot. A police spokeswoman said the chopper was reported stolen and was believed to be the one used by the robbers. The bomb squad was examining the suspected explosives left at the police hangar, which prevented their helicopters from taking off. Britain-based G4S PLC is one of the world's largest security companies. The Vastberga facility stores cash that is transported to banks and other businesses in Sweden.

The country has seen a series of spectacular robberies in recent years. Last year a group of men broke into a mail processing center in Goteborg, paralyzing large parts of Sweden's second-largest city after spreading out spikes, burning out cars in different areas and leaving suspected explosive devices in the center. In 2006, Goteborg's international airport was partially closed after masked men crashed through a gate and held up luggage handlers as they were unloading crates of foreign currency worth 7.8 million kronor ($1.1 million) from a passenger aircraft. Four years earlier, robbers pulled off a similar heist at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport, when staff were loading foreign currency worth 43 million kronor onto an aircraft.

This does not surpise me at all, since Sweden's neighbor is Finland, home of Kimi Räikkönen, and he is bad ass. It must rub off on them.

Tell Us Something We Didn't Know

A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. Because that's the Catholic way - shame, secrecy, denial, and lots of suffering!

Nine years in the making, and with a cast of thousands across decades, the 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions. It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers. And of all the lame conspiracy stories about organized religion, the best we can get is Angels And Demons?

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential. "A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from," the final report of Ireland's Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse concluded.

More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families — a category that often included unmarried mothers — were sent to Ireland's austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s. The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless. Just like being a Catholic parishioner!

"In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine. ... Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body," the report said. "Personal and family denigration was widespread." Victims of the system have long demanded that the truth of their experiences be documented and made public, so that children in Ireland never endure such suffering again. But most leaders of religious orders have rejected the allegations as exaggerations and lies, and testified to the commission that any abuses were the responsibility of often long-dead individuals. It's called religion folks, not responsibility - it's confusing because they both start with "r".

The report proposed 21 ways the government could recognize past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counseling and education to victims and improving Ireland's current child protection services. But its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions — in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document. Irish church leaders and religious orders all declined to comment Wednesday, citing the need to read the massive document first. The Vatican also declined to comment.

The Irish government already has funded a parallel compensation system that has paid 12,000 abuse victims an average of euro 65,000 ($90,000). About 2,000 claims remain outstanding. Victims receive the payouts only if they waive their rights to sue the state and the church. Hundreds have rejected that condition and taken their abusers and those church employers to court. Or street justice...watch those dark alleys!

The report said children had no safe way to tell authorities about the assaults they were suffering, particularly the sexual aggression from church officials and older inmates in boys' institutions. "The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care," the commission found. "At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely."

The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance. For who, the child? Or the molester? In their testimony, religious orders typically cited this as the principal reason why sex-predator priests and brothers were sheltered within the system and moved to new posts where they could still maintain daily contact with children.

But the commission said its fact-finding — which included unearthing decades-old church files, chiefly stored in the Vatican, on scores of unreported abuse cases from Ireland's industrial schools — demonstrated that officials understood exactly what was at stake: their own reputations. It cited numerous examples where school managers told police about child abusers who were not church officials — but never did when one of their own had committed the crime. "Contrary to the congregations' claims that the recidivist nature of sexual offending was not understood, it is clear from the documented cases that they were aware of the propensity for abusers to re-abuse," it said.

Religious orders were chiefly concerned about preventing scandal, not the danger to children, it said. The commission also condemned Ireland's Education Department for aiding the abusive culture through infrequent, toothless inspections that deferred to church authority. Inspectors were supposed to restrict the use of corporal punishment and make sure the children were adequately fed, clothed and educated — but the report called those inspections "fundamentally flawed." How can you sum it up? "Often the act of kindness, recalled in such a positive light, arose from the simple fact that the staff member had not given a beating when one was expected."

Breathe Deep

I've just made travel arrangements for Spain. A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with at least five drugs!

The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute with a fancy name, said that in addition to cocaine, the most prominent, it found trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid (a relative of LSD) in air-quality control stations in the cities. But it said there was no reason for alarm. How about celebration?

"Not even if we lived for a thousand years would we consume the equivalent of a dose of cocaine by breathing this air," said one of its scientists, Miren Lopez de Alda, in the statement. The scientific group added that "in no case should these levels be considered representative of the air in the two cities". Maybe I should just change those plans and go to Amsterdam instead.

In Madrid the test site was close to a ruined building believed to be frequented by drug dealers. And in both Madrid and Barcelona, the studies were carried out close to universities. The group also said that the study showed higher concentrations of the components on weekends, suggesting that drug consumption was up in these periods. Uh, duh. I wonder if this is the same group who said breathing car exhaust could be unhealthy, and did their study from inside a tailpipe. It's like saying there's a level of fart and methane in the air at Hometown Buffet. This more like the "your money has cocaine on it tale" than suggesting the air quality runs from good to fair to stoney.

I think I may dismiss the next shocking result of their study that libraries have books.

Get Yer Drank On

Half a glass of wine a day may add five years to your life, a new study suggests. Drink beer, and you’ll live only 2 1/2 years longer. Mash grapes on television and you'll break your face.

Dutch researchers followed 1,373 men for more than four decades, noting their eating and drinking habits. Men who had about 20 grams of alcohol daily - damn metric system in Europe...that's equivalent to a half a glass of wine, had 2 1/2 years added to their life expectancy at age 50, compared with men who didn’t drink at all. Men who consumed only wine had twice as much added longevity.

Light alcohol intake was linked to lower cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and overall mortality in the study. Researchers had known that moderate drinking is tied to a lower risk of heart disease, possibly because of an increase in high density lipoprotein or so-called good cholesterol as well as a reduction in platelet clumping, making it more unlikely for clots to form. It is the first study to show that one kind of alcohol is superior to others in prolonging life, the researchers said.

“In this study, 70 percent of all wine consumed was red wine,” the paper, which was just published said. “This suggests that the cardioprotective effect of wine could be due to a protective effect of polyphenol compounds in red wine, but other explanations cannot be ruled out.” Polyphenols are chemical substances found in plants such as tannins and flavonoids. The research, dubbed Zutphen Study after the Dutch town from which the participants were recruited, followed men born between 1900 and 1920 and examined them several times between 1960 and 2000.

Sent To A Maximum Security Penalty Box

Scarlett will attest that from time to time (okay, regularly), I've yelled at an official or even questioned a ref's qualifications, but while there have been some occasions where the zebras have been attacked, what Ladislav Scurko takes things to a different level.

The Philadelphia Flyers sixth-round pick in 2004 has been charged with murder after being accused of stabbing referee Marek Liptag 14 times back in January 2008 over a monetary dispute. Liptag's remains weren't found until this past December in Slovakian forest. Does anybody know how the draft works behind bars?

Scurko played for Spisska Nova Ves, his home city team as well as the Western Hockey League's Seattle Thunderbirds. He began playing professionally in 2007 with HC Kosice of the Slovakian Extraliga where he won the league title this past season. Scurko also played for Slovakia at two U20 World Championships and two U18 World Championships. I'm sure he'll be a welcome edition to the penal league, but I hear team showers are worse than the on-ice fights.

The former Flyers prospect faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted and would be released when he turns 43 at the latest, or when Chris Chelios finally retires from the NHL.

With Real Pirates Abound, They're Downgraded To Their Original Title - "Thieves"

The entertainment industry won round one Friday in a legal battle against file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, with guilty verdicts and one-year prison sentences handed down to four men accused of running and financing the popular site. That sucks.

The defendants vowed to appeal, setting the stage for a lengthy copyright dispute between music and movie corporations and an online swap shop they say has deprived them of billions of dollars in lost revenue. In its landmark ruling, the Stockholm district court convicted Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom of helping millions of users illegally download music, movies and computer games. All four received one-year terms and were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million if you can't make the kronor conversion) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.

"We can't pay and we won't pay," Sunde said in a defiant video clip posted on the web. Mockingly, he held up a hand-scribbled "I owe U" note to the camera. "This is as close as you will get to having money from us," Sunde said. With an estimated 22 million users, The Pirate Bay has become the entertainment industry's enemy No. 1 after successful court actions against file-swapping sites such as Grokster and Kazaa. Lundstrom helped finance the site while the three other defendants administered it.

Defense lawyers had argued the quartet should be acquitted because The Pirate Bay doesn't host any copyright-protected material. Instead, it provides a forum for its users to download content through so-called torrent files. For you n00bs, the technology allows users to transfer parts of a large file from several different users, increasing download speeds.

The court found the defendants guilty of helping users commit copyright violations by providing a Web site with "sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site." The case focused on dozens of works that the prosecutor said were downloaded illegally. They included songs by the Beatles, Robbie Williams and Coldplay, movies such as "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and computer games including "World of Warcraft — Invasion." Judge Tomas Norstrom told reporters that the site was "commercially driven," which the defendants have denied.

John Kennedy (nice name), the head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, called the verdict good news for anyone "who is making a living or a business from creative activity and who needs to know their rights will be protected by law." The Pirate Bay had assured users the trial wouldn't affect the site, and it remained operational after the verdict. Authorities temporarily shut it down in May 2006 after seizing servers and computer equipment during raids in several locations in Sweden. But it soon reappeared, running on servers elsewhere.

Andre Rickardsson, a computer expert and former investigator for the Swedish security police, said the ruling could encourage the entertainment industry to threaten Internet operators with lawsuits unless they block access to the site. File-sharing wouldn't go away, he added, but users would likely turn to more advanced technological tools to hide their activities. "It's not as if people will turn around and say 'oops, I'll have to stop file-sharing now.' Instead the reaction will be 'oops, what can I do to protect myself from getting caught'."

Sunde's lawyer Peter Althin said he was confident that higher courts would dismiss the case against The Pirate Bay, which he described as a battle between the corporate world and "a generation of young people who want to take part of new technology." The verdict comes as Europe debates stricter rules to crack down on those who share content illegally on the web. Last week French legislators rejected a plan to cut off the Internet connections of people who illegally download music and films, but the government plans to resurrect the bill for another vote this month. Opponents said the legislation would represent a Big Brother intrusion on civil liberties, while the European Parliament last month adopted a nonbinding resolution that defines Internet access as an untouchable "fundamental freedom."

Earlier this month, Sweden introduced a new law that makes it easier to prosecute file-sharers because it requires Internet Service Providers to disclose the Internet Protocol-addresses of suspected violators to copyright owners. The country of 9 million has one of Europe's highest rates of Internet penetration, but has also gained a reputation as a hub for file-sharers. Statistics from the Netnod Internet Exchange, an organization measuring Internet traffic in Sweden, suggested that daily online activity dropped more than 40 percent after the law took effect on April 1.

Treating The Problem, Not The Product

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank. America, time to rethink that drug policy!

"Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they're learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely," report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week. Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what's known as a "Dissuasion Commission," an administrative body created by the 2001 law. Each three-person commission includes at least one lawyer or judge and one health care or social services worker. The panel has the option of recommending treatment, a small fine, or no sanction.

Peter Reuter, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, says he's skeptical decriminalization was the sole reason drug use slid in Portugal, noting that another factor, especially among teens, was a global decline in marijuana use (wow, really?). By the same token, he notes that critics were wrong in their warnings that decriminalizing drugs would make Lisbon a drug mecca. "Drug decriminalization did reach its primary goal in Portugal," of reducing the health consequences of drug use, he says, "and did not lead to Lisbon becoming a drug tourist destination." Walter Kemp, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says decriminalization in Portugal "appears to be working." He adds that his office is putting more emphasis on improving health outcomes, such as reducing needle-borne infections, but that it does not explicitly support decriminalization, "because it smacks of legalization."

Drug legalization removes all criminal penalties for producing, selling and using drugs; no country has tried it. In contrast, decriminalization, as practiced in Portugal, eliminates jail time for drug users but maintains criminal penalties for dealers. Spain and Italy have also decriminalized personal use of drugs and Mexico's president has proposed doing the same. Not surprisingly, a spokesperson for the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy declined to comment, citing the pending Senate confirmation of the office's new director, former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs also declined to comment on the report.

No Assembly Required

A new art installation going on display at the European Council building in Brussels has angered EU members with its lampoons of national stereotypes.

"Entropa" portrays Bulgaria as a toilet, Romania as a Dracula theme-park and France as a country on strike. The Netherlands is shown as series of minarets submerged by a flood - a possible reference to the nation's simmering religious tensions. Germany is shown as a network of motorways vaguely resembling a swastika, while the UK - criticised by some for being one of EU's most eurosceptic members - is absent from Europe altogether. The Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency, thought it had commissioned work from 27 European artists. But it turned out to have been entirely completed by Czech artist David Cerny and two associates.

The giant mosaic is held together by snap-out plastic parts similar to those used in modelling kits. Cerny's 172-square-foot work was installed at the weekend to mark the start of the six-month Czech presidency of the EU. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra said he was only informed on Monday that the installation was not the work of 27 European artists as originally intended, but by Cerny and accomplices. Vondra condemned Mr Cerny and said the Czech EU presidency was considering what steps to take before Thursday's official launch.

"An agreement of the office of the government with the artist clearly stated that this will be a common work of artists from 27 EU states," he said. "The full responsibility for violating this assignment and this promise lies with David Cerny." The artist, who presented Entropa to his government with a brochure describing each of the artwork's 27 supposed contributors from each member state, has apologised for misleading ministers, but not for the installation itself.

"We knew the truth would come out," said Mr Cerny. "But before that we wanted to find out if Europe is able to laugh at itself." He added that Entropa "lampoons the socially activist art that balances on the verge between would-be controversial attacks on national character and undisturbing decoration of an official space". The sculpture is meant as an ironic jab at the issue of European integration and the stereotypes associated with each country. It is subtitled "Stereotypes are barriers to be demolished", in accord with the Czech European Union Presidency motto of Europe without barriers.

Here's a list of all the depictions:

Austria, a known opponent of atomic energy, is a green field dominated by nuclear power plant cooling towers

Belgium is presented as a half-full box of half-eaten Praline chocolates

Bulgaria is depicted by a series of connected "Turkish" squat toilets

Cyprus is jigsawed (cut) in half

The Czech Republic's own piece is an LED display, which flashes controversial quotations by Czech President Václav Klaus

Denmark is a face depicted in Lego bricks, reminiscent of the cartoon controversy

Estonia is presented with a hammer and sickle-styled power tools, the country has considered a ban on Communist symbols

Finland is depicted as a wooden floor and an [apparently drunk] male with a rifle, imagining various animals

France is draped in a "GRÈVE!" ("STRIKE!") banner

Germany is a series of interlocking autobahns, described as "somewhat resembling a swastika", though that is not universally accepted. The cars move along the roads

Greece is depicted as a forest that is entirely burned, possibly representing the 2007 Greek forest fires and the 2008 civil unrest in Greece

Hungary features an Atomium made of its common agricultural products melons and Hungarian sausages, based on a floor of peppers

Ireland is depicted as a brown bog with bagpipes protruding from Northern Ireland; the bagpipes play music every five minutes

Italy is depicted as a football pitch with the players holding balls in the "strategic position"

Latvia is shown as covered with mountains, in contrast to its actual flat landscape

Lithuanian soldiers are depicted urinating on Russia

Luxembourg is displayed as a gold nugget with "For Sale" tag

Malta is a tiny island with its prehistoric dwarf elephant as its only decoration

The Netherlands has disappeared under the sea with only a several minarets still visible; the piece is supposed to emit the singing of muezzins

Poland has a piece with priests erecting the rainbow flag of the Gay rights movement, in the style of the U.S. soldiers raising the Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima

Portugal is shown as a wooden cutting board with three pieces of meat in the shape of its former colonies of Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique

Romania is a Dracula-style theme park

Slovakia is depicted as a Hungarian sausage (or a human body tighten by Hungarian tricolour)

Slovenia is shown as a rock engraved with the words first tourists came here 1213

Spain is covered entirely in concrete, with a concrete mixer situated near the Basque country

Sweden does not have an outline, but is represented as a large Ikea-style self-assembly furniture box, containing Gripen fighter planes

The United Kingdom, known for its Euroscepticism and relative isolation from the Continent, is "included" as missing piece (an empty space) at the top-left of the work

Double Your Profit?

Belgium’s got a lot of things going for it. First, they have waffles. Then, they have no laws banning selling your children to the highest bidder...it’s a real good situation, I’d say:

A mother in the Belgian tourist haven of Ghent has been accused by her estranged husband of selling her newborn twin boys for more than $13,000 to pay for cosmetic surgery.

Marc Poppe told an undercover reporter for Dutch television that Sonia Ringoir had sold the babies to a friend to fund liposuction, the fat removal procedure. He said the couple had searched the Internet to find a quick way to make money: “It was financially attractive to us. Of course we wouldn’t do it for nothing.”

Since Belgium has no law banning the sale of children, Ringoir was charged with “degrading treatment” of the twins. She was also charged with fraud after a Dutch couple alleged she had conned them by falsely offering to be a surrogate mother. If convicted, she could face between one month and five years in jail.

After spending five days in jail, Ringoir was released last Wednesday to await the results of the police investigation. She denied the allegations, claiming she gave her babies away for free last March to a friend who could not have her own child because of a weak heart.

I’m conflicted here. On the one hand, I think that if you have children and don’t want them, it’s better to give them to parents who would love them and have the means to take care of them. On the other hand, I believe unattractive women should spend as much as possible to look more aesthetically pleasing to me. Wait, so actually, I’m totally cool with her selling these kids then. I mean, her price seems a little low, but the kids might be ugly or something, so maybe that explains it. Or one of them has a flipper. Either way, this couple was probably concerned they were getting a lemon. Adoption agencies make an assload out of selling kids - why, if it’s legal, this lady can’t do the same.

Swiss Miss

The world's most comprehensive legalized heroin program became permanent with overwhelming approval from Swiss voters who simultaneously rejected the decriminalization of marijuana. Well, at least their priorities are straight!

The heroin program, started in 1994, is offered in 23 centers across Switzerland. It has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s and is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts by allowing them to shoot up in 23 centers across Switzerland.

The nearly 1,300 selected addicts, who have been unhelped by other therapies, visit one of the centers twice a day to receive the carefully measured dose of heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory. Because that's the only way to deal with heroin addicts as far as the Swiss can tell. They keep their paraphernalia in cups labeled with their names and use the equipment and clean needles to inject themselves — four at a time — under the supervision of a nurse, and also receive counseling from psychiatrists and social workers, who must make them just feel terrible about scoring on the government dime.

Their aim is to help the addicts learn how to function in society., but when the flag gives you free smack, it's hard to see how they're going to function other than stoned.

The United States and the U.N. narcotics board have criticized the program as potentially fueling drug abuse, but it has attracted attention from governments as far away as Australia and Canada, which in recent years have started or are considering their own programs modeled on the system. The Netherlands started a smaller program in 2006, and it serves nearly 600 patients. Britain has allowed individual doctors to prescribe heroin since the 1920s, but it has been running trials similar to the Swiss approach in recent years. Belgium, Germany, Spain and Canada have been running trial programs too.

68% of the over two million Swiss voters casting ballots approved making the heroin program permanent. By contrast, around 63.2% of voters voted against the marijuana proposal, which was based on a separate citizens' initiative to decriminalize the consumption of marijuana and growing the plant for personal use. Because marijuana is totally worse for you than heroin. That's a fact.

Health insurance pays for the bulk of the program, which costs $22 million a year. All residents in Switzerland (which has a population of 7.5 million) are required to have health insurance, with the government paying insurance premiums for those who cannot afford it. Which is helpful for junkies who not only can't afford smack, but also fall short of the money to pay for health coverage that creates a program to get them drugs.

Meanwhile, 52% of voters approved an initiative to eliminate the statute of limitations on prosecuting pornographic crimes against children before the age of puberty. So to recap the Swiss opinion by law, child porn and marijuana - bad, heroin - good.

1/5 Of Your Eighth

Amsterdam will close almost a fifth of its marijuana cafes to comply with a national ban on having them near schools. Great. Now where are students going to get their pot?

Another city, Eindhoven, said it would start issuing permits to marijuana growers in order to better regulate the trade — if the national government approves. Those plans were announced as 33 major Dutch cities held a "weed summit" to discuss the nation's long-standing policy of tolerating marijuana use while routinely arresting growers. How much cooler are the Dutch than us with their weed summit.

Letters have been sent to 43 shops located within 250 meters (yards) of a high school informing them they will have to close by the end of 2011 if they cannot successfully appeal the decision. Those included some landmarks, such as The Bulldog — a high-traffic shop operating since 1985 in a former police station on one of the city's main squares. Other cities closer to the Netherlands' borders have expressed frustration at being bombarded by "drug tourists" from Germany, France or Belgium seeking to stock up on marijuana — often finding ways to bypass a 5 gram (1/5 ounce) purchase limit. See, it's going to be a national epidemic!