New in the World of Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow… whatever

So, I normally try to say something passably clever or at least summarize what’s going on, but my brain’s on vacation. I’ll just offer up this vague disclaimer. These are just the things that caught my eye. Not everything that’s happening. Maybe not even the most important things, but still they’ve intrigued me/upset me/made me smile.

MegaUpload

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom appears in New Zealand court (Boing Boing)

United Nations

Russia and China Veto Syrian Resolution (The Moderate Voice)

Afghanistan

Children Freezing to Death: Another Horrific Side of the Afghanistan War (The Moderate Voice)

Bulgaria

Bulgarian MPs wear Guy Fawkes mask for ACTA session (Boing Boing)

Canada

Debunking the record industry shill who said that his amendments to Canada’s proposed copyright law are no big deal (Boing Boing)

Muslim man’s motivational text to colleagues leads to terror probe (Boing Boing)

Canada’s new SOPA-style copyright bill could shut down YouTube (Boing Boing)

China

Three Tibetan herders burn themselves alive in protest (Boing Boing)

Communist tablet? (Boing Boing)

Two Tibetans shot dead, another self-immolation, as China’s dissent crackdown continues (Boing Boing)

Czech Republic

Czech Government Suspends ACTA Ratification (TechDirt)

Egypt

Islamists Win 70% Of Seats In Egyptian Parliament (The Moderate Voice)

India

Porn in parliament ends ministers’ careers (Boing Boing)

Salman Rushdie Cancels Appearance at Jaipur Literary Festival Due to Assassination Threat (Writers Write)

Iran

Iran attacks internet access on Islamic Revolution anniversary (Boing BOing)

Iraq

(UPDATED) Yet Again, No Accountability For Marines In Iraq (The Moderate Voice)

Ireland

Irish journalist humiliates EuroBank technocrat who won’t stop ducking hard questions (Boing BOing)

Japan

Foreign journalist claims corruption, brutality, death threats from Japanese airport officials (Boing BOing)

Inside the Fukushima exclusion zone: the photography of Satoru Niwa (Boing Boing)

Mexico

Mexican Banda bandits blamed for school tuba thievery (Boing Boing)

Candidacy tests Mexico’s culture of machismo (Yahoo News)

Romania

Romania’s prime minister doesn’t know why he signed ACTA, Czech Republic’s out (Boing Boing)

Russia

Julian Assange to host Wikileaks TV show on Kremlin-funded Russian cable network (Boing Boing)

Sweden

Unexplained 60 meter object resting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea near Sweden (Boing BOing)

Syria

Report: Assad’s Office Hacked, Password Was ‘12345’ (Talking Points LiveWire)

United Kingdom

Stephen Fry on the techno-cluelessness of English judges (Boing Boing)

English plainclothes police officer follows himself for 20 minutes (Boing Boing)

Fred Goodwin is no longer a knight (Boing BOing)

Undercover UK cops infiltrated environmental groups, seduced women in the groups, fathered children with them, abandoned them (Boing Boing)

Insane English copyright ruling creates ownership in the idea of a photo’s composition (Boing Boing)

News of the World -Feb

I so can’t think of any catchy titles – what with 74 dead in a football (soccer to Americans) riot in Egypt and 16 dead in the snowfall in Europe. I just don’t have the energy to be anything but snarky and slightly disgusted with the state of the world. Beyond that, here’s the news that’s caught my eye:

MegaUpload
(b/c this one gets its own section b/c it seems to be crossing all sorts of borders)

The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect (Boing BOing)

Attorney General set to destroy tens of millions of users’ legitimate MegaUpload files (Boing Boing)

MegaUpload raided, founder arrested; Anonymous launches mass DDoS against entertainment companies and US law enforcement (Boing Boing)

Twitter

Twitter adopts country-specific censorship regime – how will that work? (Boing Boing)

Twitter caves to global censorship, will block content on country-specific basis as required (Boing BOing)

EFF: “What Does Twitter’s Country-by-Country Takedown System Mean for Freedom of Expression?” (Boing Boing)

Twitter’s early-bird special on censorship (Boing Boing)

United Nations

UN Report: Al Qaeda strengthened by NATO’s Libya War (The Moderate Voice)

European Union

European Court Says UK Cannot Deport Terror Suspect (Boing Boing)

Chief ACTA Eurocrat quits in disgust at lack of democratic fundamentals in global copyright treaty (Boing Boing)

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Questions Turn into Concern and Doubts (The Moderate Voice)

Inspector found Afghan goat giveaway “lacked accountability” (Muckrock)

Canada

Toronto teens send Lego Minifig up 78,000 feet (Boing BOing)

Straight dope on Canada’s new copyright law, ACTA, and SOPA (Boing Boing)

Major labels demand that SOPA be folded into Canada’s new copyright law, C-11 (Boing Boing)

China

Tibet: China’s bloody crackdown on Tibetan protesters escalates, as self-immolations continue (Boing Boing)

China: dissident on trial after Skypeing poem (Boing Boing)

Microblogging in China: Unstoppable!? (Guest Voice) (The Moderate Voice)

Cuba

Cubans Desperate to ‘Rip’ Prison at Guantanamo Out of their Land (Juventud Rebelde, Cuba) (The Moderate Voice)

Falkland Islands

Latin America Must End British Colonialism and U.S. Imperialism (Opera Mundi, Brazil) (The Moderate Voice)

France

French court rules that it’s illegally anticompetitive for Google to provide free maps API (Boing Boing)

Guatemala

Guatemala: at long last, ex-dictator Rios Montt in court over possible genocide charges (Boing BOing)

Iran

Severe Sanctions on Iran – is it too little and too late? (The Moderate Voice)

Iraq

(UPDATED) Yet Again, No Accountability For Marines In Iraq (The Moderate Voice)

Japan

After nuclear disaster, a harsh winter for Fukushima’s abandoned pets (big photo gallery) (Boing Boing)

Mexico

Mexico Drug Violence – ‘Business is Business’ (La Jornada, Mexico) (The Moderate Voice)

New Zealand

Here’s the utterly inconsequential recording that resulted in NZ PM John Key ordering raids on the free press (Boing Boing)

North Korea

Associated Press Independence in Doubt after ‘Deal’ with North Korean Regime (The Daily North Korea, South Korea) (The Moderate Voice)

Norway

Strange and intrusive bathroom rules at Norwegian companies (Boing Boing)

Pakistan

President Obama Finally Admits to the Obvious: Murderous Drone Attacks (The Nation, Pakistan) (The Moderate Voice)

Poland

Polish MPs wear Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA (Boing Boing)

Poland’s Prime Minister wants to put the brakes on ACTA (Boing Boing)

Portugal

Talking Taxes: Warren Buffett, His Secretary, and the Grocer (World Meet)

Russia

In Russia, tiny protest sparks big police response: LEGO minifigs, South Park dolls, and Wall-e demonstrate for democracy (Boing Boing)

Slovenia

Slovenia’s ambassador apologizes to her children and her nation for signing ACTA, calls for mass demonstrations in Ljubljana tomorrow (Boing Boing)

South Korea

South Korea indicts man for retweeting North (Boing Boing)

United Kingdom

Woman, 25, asked for ID to buy teaspoons as they could be used as drug paraphernalia (Nothing to do with Arbroath)

London’s anti-ACTA demonstration, one week from TOMORROW (Pub date Feb 2) (Boing Boing)

Tourists deported from U.S. for Twitter jokes (Updated) (Boing Boing)

Scunthorpe photographer faces down abusive security guards at Golden Wonder factory who want to enforce imaginary law against taking pictures from the public pavement (Boing Boing)