Happy no matter what

I’ve gotten to the point where I can mostly ignore the banner ads Blogspot puts at the top of my site (a small price for the free hosting). Still, what’s with the one "Achieve personal freedom, learn how to be happy no matter what"? Self-help and New Agey goodness via "The Toltec Way." I guess that gets points for originality. But how did the Google program pick that particular ad? Did it analyze my site’s content, decide it was depressing as hell and that people reading it would need to "learn how to be happy no matter what"?

The British Court of Appeal will allow evidence obtained by torture, at Guantanamo, to be used to allow the home secretary to detain people indefinitely as terrorism suspects without charge or trial. The torture evidence was the sole evidence. Lord Justice John Laws (the other judge is named Lord Justice Pill; it’s like a very weak Monty Python sketch) says that if the home sec "has neither procured the torture nor connived at it, he has not offended the constitutional principle which I have sought to outline." So that’s ok then. And that he has no "duty of solemn inquiry as to the interrogation methods used by agencies of other sovereign states." Jesus wept.

Elsewhere in the British criminal justice system, a man on temporary release from prison (not clear why; he is supposed to be serving a life term for rape and sexual assaults) bought a lottery ticket. He won £7 million, so he was immediately moved from an open prison to a high-security one because with all that money, he now poses a flight risk. And his victims get to sue him for the money.

Turns out that Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who switched parties from D to R last week at the last minute, to keep the D’s finding someone to run against him, was violating LA. election law.

A guest at a wedding in the Philippines is killed, cooked and served to the other wedding guests. The family of the bride were annoyed because he had touched her bottom.