The Drug War in Mexico, 50,000 dead in 6 years [warning:some graphic pictures]. Clearly innocent lives are being lost or ruined over this idea that drugs are innately bad and should be prohibited, forcefully. Its just an escalating circle of terror as the government and cartels wage war. Ultimately the civilians are losing the most here. As I have been saying before, we need to address this, and discuss openly the issues pertaining to drugs. I'm normally a fan of real-politik, putting aside ideologies and enacting policy that will actually work, that will yield real results.

Israel is closing a school in Palestine in order to construct a training camp for the IDF. The next nearest school for the Palestinians is over 20km away. How are they meant to commute that far? Israel is denying these people access to basic education. Israel's treatment of the local population of the Palestinian Territories is disgusting. Though whilst Israel's actions have the support of the U.S. not much is going to change.

Several people in Scotland, U.K. have been arrested after posting anti-Semitic remarks on Facebook. Without knowing what was actually said, I can't properly comment on this particular case. This does however tie in with a push for better speech laws. I believe people should be entitled to whatever opinion they like, and should be allowed to voice said opinion if they like. I agree it is a fine line between voicing an opinion and inciting violence against people. But a world in which I am only free to say what others find acceptable isn't a free world.

Does censorship work? The U.K. courts decided to require ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay. A political party in the U.K. decided to offer a proxy for TPB, found at https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/. This has sky-rocketed the website 100,000 places in website rankings by number of visitors. Censorship doesn't work on the internet. If the information is online, people will be able to access it, end of story. So why waste the time and effort trying. All that has really happened is The Pirate Bay have had a load of free advertising. Which is surely detrimental to the cause of the U.K. authorities.

Rebekah Brooks has been charged with perverting the course of justice during the course of the phone hacking scandal. This is serious, if found guilty she will be facing jail time. Will Rupert swing to her rescue? And what about James? This is the story that just keeps on giving. Hopefully justice will be served.

With the craze of Harry Potter many kids decided to get pet owls. These are difficult animals to keep apparently. Now that the craze has died down hundreds of pet owls are being abandoned. As the article says, this is part of a greater trend, TMNT caused an increase in turtle pet ownership. Finding Nemo caused an increase in clownfish sales. People are surprisingly fickle with pet ownership.