Eideard

Authorities in the country have virtually canceled Valentine’s Day by nixing planned concerts and other events, according to the Associated Press, citing a report by Russian news agency RIA-Novosti.

Instead, Uzbeki lovers will have to content themselves with a government-organized reading of poems by medieval Mughal emperor Babur, who wrote about monuments, flora and fauna, wine parties and battle strategy…

Uzbekistan’s unofficial ban on romantic celebrations isn’t new. Last year, news agency Turkiston described Valentine’s Day as the work of “forces with evil goals bent on putting an end to national values.”

Other Muslim countries feel equally as frigid toward the amorous holiday, which is a nominally Christian one.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have both banned celebration of the day, Voice of America reports. Iranian officials last year said they would take action against amorous citizens who ignored the ban. Saudi Arabia prohibits the gifting of red on V-day — including chocolates, bears, or roses, according to the Saudi Gazette.

In India, right-wing group Sri Rama Sena warned in 2010 that it would take action against educational institutions, restaurants and theaters if they encouraged Valentine’s day celebrations. Some adherents of the group even burned Valentine’s Day cards…

Malaysia joined in the spoil-sporting last year when it announced it would crack down on “immoral acts” during the holiday as part of a wider campaign for its citizens’ lifestyles to be “sin-free.”

The head of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department told state media: “In reality, as well as historically, the celebration of Valentine’s Day is synonymous with vice activities.”

Is there no end to bureaucrats on this planet with no heart for love?

Testing of imported orange juice for a banned fungicide has not turned up any product with dangerous levels of the chemical since Jan. 4, U.S. regulators said today.

The Food and Drug Administration has collected 45 samples of imported orange juice, the agency reported. 19 have proven to be safe, and 26 are awaiting analysis, according to a weekly update from the FDA posted online. Regulators have released 12 of the 19 samples back to companies.

The safe samples came from Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and Belize, the FDA said. The agency began temporarily holding and testing orange juice samples after trace levels of the fungicide carbendazim were detected in products from Brazil.

“If the FDA collects and analyzes three shipments of orange juice products from the same manufacturer and all samples are found to be in compliance, products from that manufacturer will no longer be sampled under the current assignment,” the agency said in its report.

Carbendazim is banned in use in U.S. oranges and has been linked to liver tumors in animals. U.S. regulators were alerted to use of the chemical in December by Atlanta-based Coca Cola Co., which owns the Minute Maid brand…

The U.S. is the biggest single importer of orange juice…

The serious part of the problem is that most of the time you don’t know whether or not some imported OJ has been mixed in with domestic product. And Carbendazim not only isn’t banned in most of Central and South America – its use is pretty common.

The idea was never going to be an easy one to sell. Italy’s state-owned railway corporation, Trenitalia, decided to replace the traditional first and second classes on its high-speed trains with four categories.

And since the occupants of fourth-class will not be allowed to use the on-board cafeteria, or even set foot in carriages reserved for better-off passengers, it was already facing accusations of introducing a form of segregation. By Wednesday, however, the company was preparing to defend itself against claims of outright racism.

Its problems arose after the release of a web commercial designed to get travellers used to the new reality. The top tier, executive class, was illustrated by businesspeople at work in a special conference room. The next best, business class, was depicted temptingly empty. Premium had a couple taking drinks from a trolley pushed by a uniformed hostess. And standard, the most basic class, was illustrated with a picture of a black family.

Attention was first drawn to Trenitalia’s video by a blogger, Alessandro Gilioli, on the website of the weekly L’Espresso, and it soon triggered a torrent of complaints…

The video was hastily withdrawn on Tuesday evening and replaced with a new version in which the occupants of standard class are depicted as, first, a smiling, chattering white couple and then a family – also white – playing a game together on an internet-connected tablet. The businesspeople in executive class now include two non-white women.

Har. The idiots are running a business dealing with public accommodation and all they can think of to portray life is the lilywhite country club life they live.

I have a special pocket for my driver’s license

Allowing women drivers in Saudi Arabia will tempt them into sex, promote pornography and create more homosexuals, according to some conservative Muslim scholars.

Academics at the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, which is Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, said the relaxation of the rules would inevitably lead to “no more virgins”.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are banned from driving.

The academics, working in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the conservative King Fahd University, produced the conclusions in a report for the country’s legislative assembly, the Shura Council.

It warned that allowing women to drive would “provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce“. Within 10 years of the ban being lifted, it claimed, there would be “no more virgins” in the Islamic kingdom.

It pointed out that “moral decline” could already be seen in those other Muslim countries in which women are allowed to drive…

The Saudi government is currently considering a proposal to ban women – already forced to cover up most of their body in public – from even displaying their eyes, if they are judged too “tempting”.

It’s useful once in a while to be reminded how completely useless and backwards a theocracy can be. Like monarchies. Or Congressional fact-finding committees.

Don’t blame Father Christmas if he doesn’t allow your child to sit on his knee at a school event — teachers may have banned him from coming into contact with youngsters.

While those playing Father Christmas are no longer required to pass a Criminal Records Bureau check, many schools have decided to “err on the side of caution” and impose rules on grotto behaviour. Parents who have offered to don the red suit have been told they must not allow youngsters to sit on their laps and cannot be left alone with them.

Because CRB checks are required only for volunteers who have regular contact with children, Father Christmases are exempt. However, government guidance states: “Under no circumstances must a volunteer who has not obtained a CRB disclosure … be left unsupervised with children.”

Russell Hobby, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said this meant many of its members had decided it was better if Father Christmases avoided all physical contact with children…

A spokesman for the Department for Education said children could still sit on Father Christmas’s knee as long as parents were consulted and were “completely comfortable” with the situation. “Santas in schools should be treated in the same way that other visitors to the school are managed. Our guidance recommends that for such visitors a member of staff is present,” added the spokesman.

Idiots. It’s more than conceivable, you know, that a modicum of care and oversight can be maintained without turning holiday festivities into rituals requiring approval by censors and bluenoses.

Founders of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, circa 1975

It was described by evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell as “obscene trash.”

High schools and public libraries banned it, while teenagers — male and female — hid it under their beds like a dirty magazine. Women across the country passed it to their friends, their sisters, their neighbors. They read chapters about rape in closets with flashlights. They gaped in dorm rooms at the photos of childbirth.

The landmark women’s health handbook was filled with sometimes graphic information about the most intimate aspects of women’s lives. It was revolutionary in its candid discussions — and depictions — of the specifics of sex, birth control, childbirth, lesbianism and other formerly taboo topics.

In 1971, the first “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book sold 250,000 copies. Today, it is available in 25 languages and has sold more than 4 million copies. It’s hard to believe it all began in Boston with just 12 women.

They met during a women’s liberation conference in 1969. At the time, fewer than 10% of doctors were women, and topics like sexuality, pregnancy and abortion were rarely discussed. But a long conversation after a workshop on women and their bodies prompted this small group to launch the beginning of the women’s health care movement…

The next year, their work came to fruition: a 193-page booklet printed on newsprint titled “Women and Their Bodies” that sold for just 75 cents.

RTFA – the interview with Judy Norsigian , executive director of the ongoing, constantly updated publication. Think about giving a copy to young women you know – or read it yourself if you haven’t yet.

This is a book that still opens doors to thought and accomplishment for women stuck into the corners of a society that hasn’t yet progressed very well beyond superstition and ignorance.

Up to 150 students at a Missouri high school that ordered “Slaughterhouse-Five” pulled from its library shelves can get a free copy of the novel, courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library…

The offer for students at Republic High School comes on the heels of the Republic School Board’s decision to remove Vonnegut’s novel and Sarah Ockler’s “Twenty Boy Summer” from the curriculum and the school library shelves.

“All of these students will be eligible to vote and some may be protecting our country through military service in the next year or two,” Julia Whitehead, the executive director of the Vonnegut library in Indianapolis, said in a statement.

“It is shocking and unfortunate that those young adults and citizens would not be considered mature enough to handle the important topics raised by Kurt Vonnegut, a decorated war veteran. Everyone can learn something from his book.”

Slaughterhouse-Five, considered Vonnegut’s most influential and popular work, is a satirical novel centered around the bombing of the German city of Dresden during World War Two.

The Republic School District took the move at its April 18 meeting following a complaint lodged by local resident Wesley Scroggins in the spring of 2010.

In his complaint, the Missouri State University associate business professor called on district officials to stop using textbooks and other materials “that create false conceptions of American history and government or that teach principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth.”

The school district members immediately rolled over and stuck all four hooves in the air in response to this heavenly command. Any matted fleece will be combed at shearing time to guarantee Christian purity.

Meanwhile, the real world progressed in its journey beyond the gates of ignorance and obedience – and Republic High School.

The end of the internet comes not with a bang or a procession of four lolcats of the apocalypse, but just with two blinking lights on a modem. At least that’s how it came for Andre Vrignaud, a 39-year-old gaming consultant in Seattle, when Comcast shut him off from the internet for using too much data.

Vrignaud, it seems, committed the foul of using more than 250 GB of data on Comcast two months in a row, triggering the company’s overage policy that results in a year-long ban from using its services.

“It’s one of those things I never thought would hit me,” Vrignaud said. “They didn’t even call. I just got double blinking lights on my modem…”

It was the second month in a row that Vrignaud got those blinking lights. The first time he called in and tried to figure out what the problem was.

So he turned off the router he had that was open to the public, and asked his roommate to go a bit lighter on data usage, since his household is heavy on streaming media, including YouTube, NetFlix and Pandora.

What he didn’t count on, Vrignaud said, was that Comcast, who he was paying $60 a month for a 15Mbps download speed, was counting uploads against the quota as well.

Just recently he’d switched his online backup system from Mozy to Carbonite, after Mozy put an end to its unlimited back-up service. Carbonite has no such limit, but does throttle users’ uploads once it hits a high level…

He’s got his music ripped into lossless FLAC format, in addition to lower rates, amounting to about a gig a disc — which he stores in a basement RAID server that can handle 12 TB of data. (He says it has plenty of empty space.)

As an amateur photographer, he saves his photos in RAW format, which can run to about 10MB per image. And when Amazon last week opened up its cloud music service to unlimited storage of music files in AAC, Vrignaud batch-converted his collection and began uploading it.

The music is what he assumes caused the problem, but he’s not sure. He admits to doing a little bittorrenting in the last month, but says it was limited to getting a few episodes of a famous British sci-fi show that’s not totally available in the U.S.

And all Comcast is saying is that he’s kicked off — and under the terms of the ban, he can’t even switch to a uncapped, higher-priced, lower-speed business connection.

Life in the Land of Liberty – where establishing standards based on the needs of ordinary citizens is extremist and offering information services as a public utility is socialist.

Both of those concepts may be correct in their identification. Which is why my feelings aren’t hurt when some dimwit populist hurls such accusations in my direction. That doesn’t alter the needs of modern-day Americans however. If industrial-level capitalism doesn’t meet our needs then it really is time for a change at some level or other.

Malaysia Airlines will ban babies from traveling first class on its Airbus A380 super jumbo jets…

The decision comes after the airline banned babies from the first class section of its fleet of Boeing 747-400 jets…

The airline ordered six A380s and the first is expected to be delivered in June 2012. “We’re planning to stick to our policy for now,” CEO Tengku Azmil told Australian Business Traveller in a Twitter exchange when asked whether the first class section of its A380 planes will have bassinets…

Some Twitter users questioned why the airline doesn’t try other nursing techniques, such as employing sky nannies and distributing baby blankets.

Defending his policy, Azmil said that while it was “a tough call,” it addresses complaints from first class passengers that they spend a lot of money on first class travel but are often unable to sleep because of wailing infants.

Instead, babies and their parents will now need to fly in the airline’s business and economy classes.

I think I’ll skip a smart-ass comment on this one. Certainly, I appreciate some level of accommodation for air passengers. I’m not at all certain everything should be decided on the basis of profit and class.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have dropped their criminal investigation into Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender…

The closure of the case after two years of inquiry follows last October’s settlement by Mr. Mozilo of insider trading allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators had contended that Mr. Mozilo sold $140 million in Countrywide stock between 2006 and 2007 even as he recognized that his company was faltering. Countrywide and Bank of America paid $45 million of Mr. Mozilo’s $67.5 million settlement, and he was responsible for the rest.

Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Mr. Mozilo agreed to be banned from serving as an officer or a director of a public company.

The conclusion by prosecutors that Mr. Mozilo, 72, did not engage in criminal conduct while directing Countrywide will likely fuel broad concerns that few high-level executives of financial companies are being held accountable for the actions that led to the financial crisis of 2008.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost by investors while millions of borrowers have lost their homes. Few of the people who ran the institutions that contributed to the disaster have been found liable…

Even as criminal and civil prosecutors are closing investigations into financial executives, private litigation is swelling. Investors who purchased dubious mortgage securities are bringing a wide array of cases against mortgage lenders and the Wall Street firms that enabled them. These investors maintain, citing internal documents and e-mails, that those putting together mortgage securities knew that they contained problematic loans that would likely fail…

In his years at Countrywide, Mr. Mozilo became one of the highest-paid executives in America. From 2000 until 2008, when he left, Mr. Mozilo received total compensation of $521.5 million…

Mozilo received a pat on the butt and wall-to-wall money from Bank of America on his departure. A historically criminal act even if the Department of Justice and the SEC feel successful prosecution at this time is unlikely. The operative phrase being “at this time”.

As civil cases proceed, the Feds retain the right to acquire information from those lawsuits to predicate future criminal prosecution against this creep. Still, it’s a sad day when the attitudes, premises and culture of American jurisprudence continues to bend over backwards to avoid criminal proceedings against the greedy bastards who brought down this economic house of cards.