Link dump

[tangaroa]

• The U.S. threatens to stop fighting the Taliban if the U.S. leadership loses faith with the Afghanistan government. They make the mistake of assuming that there is one Afghan government, when the war is not anywhere where that artificial entity has authority.
• Turkey refused to join in a N.A.T.O. war game because Israel was going to be included. Turkey and Israel were allies until now. However, Turkey's rhetoric has become increasingly hostile to Israel since an Islamic party was elected to lead the Turkish government a few years ago.
• Turkey's Dogan media group, in control of a large share of the country's news media, has been fined more than its market value for tax evasion.
• An Afghan member of the panel investigating election fraud in his country has quit in protest of N.A.T.O. interference.
• Spain's leftist government is pressing to liberalize abortion laws, leading to conservative protests.
• A British court has barred the Guardian from reporting on a question that a Minister asked in Parliament. BoingBoing readers provide context and links in the comments of that link.
• Somalia's government in name only accuses Eritrea of supporting al-Shabaab.
• A few registered Saudi agents are on the advisory board of the anti-Israel lobbying group J Street.
• The British Empire's past experience with nationalism and jihad may include lessons for today.
• Former New York Mayor Giuliani tells the city's Jews to fear the idea of a black man being elected mayor. The city has a history of racial stress between the two groups.
• An unemployed person in the States was denied welfare because she had a web site that made $1 a day from advertisements.
• A proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution to ban abortion would also ban the birth control pill.
• Greg Laden writes about his childhood experiences with racism.
• Massachusetts's universal health care plan fines people for having insufficient levels of insurance. The current plan in the U.S. Congress will do the same thing.
• An Ontario trucker was fined $300 for smoking in his vehicle because it is considered a workplace.
• The Washington Times writes about the expanding reach of criminal law and the police attitude of forcibly suppressing minor infractions instead of correcting them. Surprisingly the Times opposes this, but of course they use the example of someone in business.
• A first grade student in Delaware was suspended from school for bringing a fork, knife, and spoon to school for eating lunch. Related: In New York, a 17-year-old Boy Scout was suspended from school for having a knife in his car, not even for carrying it. He was then suspended for an additional 15 days for challenging the suspension.
• News bias note: CBS News's White House correspondent Chip Reid complained that Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize while Ronald Reagan did not.
• Racism is not dead yet: A Louisiana judge refused to give a marriage license to an mixed-race couple.
• The pre-Disney versions of European fairy tales show quite a cultural difference: part one, part two. Related: Two stories so violent that the Grimm Brothers removed them from their fairy tales collection.