Eideard

In a novel bid to combat illegal cannabis cultivation, Dutch authorities started handing out 30,000 cards with a marijuana odour Monday to alert citizens to what their neighbours may be up to.

“Citizens must be alerted to the dangers they face as a result of these plantations, and if they become aware of any suspect situations they must report them,” Arnie Loos, spokesman for a government-appointed working group on cannabis cultivation, told journalists in the port city of Rotterdam.

Yes. Bureaucrats in Holland retrieve that quaint history of informing on your friends and neighbors from the garbage heap of fascism. Will they provide bonuses if those you turn to the police are close relatives?

Though it remains technically illegal, the Netherlands decriminalised the consumption and possession of under five grammes of cannabis in 1976 under a “tolerance” policy.

Authorities turn a blind eye to citizens growing no more than five plants for personal use. Bulk cannabis cultivation and retail remain illegal…

Organisers said the project, a pilot for possible expansion, was a first for the Netherlands.

“If people do in fact call the number listed on the card, we could make this a national operation,” Loos told journalists, standing in the middle of about 200 plants of what he called “green gold” in the attic of an apartment building in Rotterdam.

The ugly vision of morality police working their way through public gatherings, say, in Tehran or Riyadh, should remind voters dim enough to think conservative politicians only represent a fiscal agenda – to peer back over their shoulder at what was constructed in so many lands by a Joe McCarthy, Vidkun Quisling or – Anton Mussert.

It feels good to catch a little breeze in summertime

Iranian police have issued warnings to 62,000 women who were “badly veiled” in the Shiite holy province of Qom as part of a crackdown on dress and behaviour.

Colonel Mehdi Khorasani, the provincial police chief, said police had also confiscated around 100 cars for carrying improperly dressed women and said that “encouraging such relaxations are among the objectives of the enemy.”

The population of Qom is more than one million, with most of them concentrated in the city itself which is Shiite Iran’s clerical nerve-centre.

By law, women in the Islamic republic must be covered from head to foot, with their hair completely veiled and social interaction is banned between men and women who are not related.

Iran is known particularly for summertime crackdowns on improperly dressed women but the issue has sparked debate after the hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he “firmly” opposed the crackdown…

His remarks have drawn the wrath of fellow hardliners and several top clerics who have criticised him for opposing the police crackdown…

Meanwhile, like any theocracy, individual sects and their ideological pimps leaders joust to assume the mantle of living prophet.

Iranian police detained 80 young men and women for “lustful pleasure-seeking” activities at an illegal concert, Tehran’s chief prosecutor has been quoted.

The socially conservative Islamic republic launched a crackdown two years ago on “indecent western-inspired movements”, such as rappers and Satanists, as part of a widening clampdown on conduct the authorities deem immoral.

The public prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, said moral security police received a tip-off that a group of people were secretly selling tickets to a live music performance. “Police entered the venue where this illegal concert was being held … 80 boys and girls in inappropriate outfits and under abnormal conditions were arrested.”

He said their cases were sent to a Tehran court where the youths were charged with taking part in “lustful pleasure-seeking” activities. Alcohol had been seized, he said.

Under Iran’s Islamic law unrelated men and women are banned from touching or dancing with members of the opposite sex..

Please, take a look at what Theocracy hath wrought. Change a few of the names and customs. Maybe add a different hat. The result is still the same. An end to freedom of thought, behavior and association.

Realize the nutballs who gladly pour their pennies into anti-Islam pep rallies – would endorse exactly the same restrictions on folks in the United States – or Israel – Scotland or any other nation allowing them freedom to advocate against freedom. Because their own particular fundamentalist superstition says they have a duty to oppress everyone who doesn’t agree.

Two Emirates airlines cabin crew have been ordered jailed for three months in Dubai over sexually explicit text messages, the latest in a string of indecency cases against foreigners.

The pair, an Indian flight attendant and her cabin services supervisor, were convicted of “coercion to commit sin” over the messages and initially sentenced to six months in jail, The National newspaper said on its website, citing court documents.

The sentence was reduced on appeal last week to three months and deportation orders against the pair were lifted, it added. It did not reveal the content of the messages.

Dubai’s foreign population has expanded rapidly in recent years as expatriates flocked to the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub for its tax-free earnings and year-round sunshine.

The changes have challenged the Emirati population, which is now vastly outnumbered by foreigners, raising concern that their emirate’s rapid pace of growth is a threat to their social and religious identity in what remains a deeply conservative region…

Hey, folks. You want tourists, want folks to move to Dubai and base their businesses in all that sunshine?

Move your minds from the shadows of fundamentalist crypts into the light of day. Take a look around at the 21st Century.