Link dump

[tangaroa]

• Self-identified "peace activists" are running propaganda for the F.A.R.C. terrorist organization in Colombia.
• The United Nations General Assembly passed another resolution calling for outlawing the "defamation of religion". Specifically, the resolution is meant to encourage member nations to outlaw artistic depictions of Mohammed, and more generally anything which offends powerful religious leaders.
• A Georgian plane carrying a large shipment of arms from North Korea was intercepted by U.S. agents in Thailand. More information: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute links the plane to known arms trafficers.
• International Christian Concern reports that an Christmas celebration in Iran was raided by police.
• After Venezuela accused the U.S. of sending a spy drone from Colombian airspace, Colombia suggests it might have been Santa's sleigh. This is unlikely to improve relations between the two countries.
• China is opening a high-speed railway from Wuhan to Guangzhou that is faster than any comparable railway in the world.
• Media Matters has retrospectives on Cable News Network and Fox News host Glenn Beck, the political activism of Fox News in 2009, and media bias for the Republican Party throughout the decade.
• U.S. Congressman Parker Griffith left the Democratic Party to become a Republican, citing Democratic support for "massive new spending, tax increases, bailouts and a health care bill that is bad for our health care system"
• Bernie Sanders, the sole Socialist in the U.S. Senate, says the Democratic Party's health care bill is so bad that he is not planning to vote for it. Also: the bill makes it illegal for future Congresses to consider repealing its section on a Medicare Advisory Board, and Cable News Network co-host Mary Matalin described the desire for state-supported health care as a "jihad", literally calling health care supporters Muslim terrorists.
• U.S. Senator Judd Gregg condemns what he sees as America's descent into "a parliamentary form of government".
• Ed Brayton notes that the idea of free speech becomes unpopular when the speech is unwelcome.
• A former police officer in Austin, Texas claims he was fired for refusing to Taser a man.
• A Wisconsin judge has forbidden a teenager from dating without the permission of his probation officer, after the teenager stole his parents' car to elope with his girlfriend.
• Noam Scheiber in the New Republic blames the loss of American manufacturing power on business colleges that teach finance instead of productivity. That might be part of it, but the simple fact that other countries undercut the U.S. on wages cannot be ignored.