Transport Minister John Baird named his cat "Thatcher" (ugh). The cat died. Baird texted his friends. And then the Canadian government began preparing a statement on the passing of former British PM Margaret Thatcher. Once they actually called Downing Street, though, they learned that Maggie was alive and healthy (Thatcher just recently received a fresh batch of the coal miner blood that she feasts on, you see).

Whoops! Silly Canadian government, when Margaret Thatcher actually dies, you'll know it from the audible drunken cheers you'll hear from across the Atlantic.

Arjan El Fassed, who bought the street name and who has, naturally, promoted it on his Twitter feed, told Wired.com the money goes to the Palestinian Child Care Society, an after school program. He named "@arjanelfassed tweetstreet" after his Twitter account, which takes self promotion either to new heights or new lows. Given how hard it is to make materialistic American consumers care about some street in the occupied territories, we'll go with the former.

After all, if anything happens to the people on this block, good or bad, America's insular Twittering masses might actually take time to read about it. Nice trick.

(Pic via Arjan El Fassed)

According to an American Conservative interview with Sibel Edmonds, a Turkish and Farsi language translator who used to work for the FBI, a Democratic congresswoman from Illinois was seduced by a Turkish secret agent.

Edmonds was hired by the FBI as a contractor right after 9/11, and she worked for them until they fired her for whistleblowing in 2002.

As reported by Vanity Fair in 2005, an internal FBI Inspector General's report stated that Edmonds had been improperly fired and it further said that "many of her allegations had bases in fact."

She has made lots of allegations, too! Like the ones involving former Illinois Congressman and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who, according to Edmonds, received tens of thousands of dollars in secret campaign payments from Chicago-area Turkish diplomats and Turkish-Americans. (Hastert then withdrew from House consideration one of those perennial resolutions acknowledging the Armenian genocide.) (Hastert now works for a lobbying firm hilariously named Dickstein Shapiro, where he lobbies for Turkey.)

She has further claimed to have heard evidence of Turkish agents recruiting sources in the FBI and State Departments to steal nuclear secrets which were then sold on the old black nuclear secrets market. Nice work if you can get it!

But after getting warmed up with these allegations, Edmonds decided to really see how far she could go. She says that these Turkish spies discovered that married Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky was bisexual, and so a female agent was assigned to sleep with her on camera, in order to blackmail her. Yes! According to an interview in Pat Buchanan's American Conservative magazine, as related by BradBlog:

Edmonds says in the Giraldi interview that "in 2000 ... Turkish agents started gathering information on her, and they found out that she was bisexual." A female Turkish agent is said to have "struck up a relationship with her", and then, following the death of Schakowsky's mother, the woman is said to have attended the funeral "hoping to exploit her vulnerability."

"They later were intimate in Schakowsky's townhouse," Edmonds tells Giraldi, "which had been set up with recording devices and hidden cameras."

The reason for attempting to get at Schakowsky, Edmonds believes, is so that they would be able to get both her "and her husband Robert Creamer to perform certain illegal operational facilitations for them in Illinois," along with Hastert, who was already on the payroll, and several other Chicago officials.

The old lesbian honeypot! Wow!

Anyway we can barely follow this insane story so who knows if you should be freaked out about the Turkish spy ring selling nuclear secrets or if their bribery and blackmail has thus far succeeded only in preventing Congress from officially recognizing this mass murder they perpetrated in 1915.

Left-wing papers and tabloids have been absolutely drooling over the details of Berlusconi's private life, but it wasn't until recently that Catholic newspaper Avvenire gave into public pressure and an opinion on the salacious gossip. And did they ever! Editor Dino Boffo wrote:

People have understood the unease, the mortification, the suffering that this arrogant neglect of sobriety has caused the Catholic Church.

Perhaps Boffo thought that his association with the church would save him from Berlusconi's wrath, but even Jesus couldn't stop the prime minister.

Il Giornale, a paper owned by Berlusconi's brother, retaliated by claiming the Italian secret service was investigating Boffo's secret gay life and revealed readers that he had been named in a 2004 sexual harassment suit, which alleged he made threatening calls to his male trick's girlfriend. Those Italians sure have mastered the art of the sex scandal!

Boffo yesterday admitted that he paid a fine in the suit, although claimed that someone else had used his cell phone to make the calls. He also insists the Italian interior minister told him no gay-related investigations had ever occurred. No matter, because Boffo resigned from his post, for the "barbaric" articlel had tarnished his name and gave his family a collective headache. Perhaps it's the work of Satan?

My life, the life of my family and that of my newsroom have been violated in an act of sacrilege I would have never thought imaginable.

The fallen editor goes on to wonder what Berlusconi and his allies' newspaper war means for free press in Italy. Well, not much, for Vittorio Feltri, editor of the paper that dragged Boffo's name through the mud, said they ran printed the story "to interest public opinion and to sell newspapers." Perhaps something got lost in translation, for "interest" definitely sounds like "influence."

As the CEO of a publicly-traded company, tech stalwart Hewlett Packard, Fiorinia had a fiduciary duty to maximize profits for her shareholders. It takes immense hubris to think that can be reconciled with a future in public service. But then Silicon Valley is a famously arrogant place; that's why this election cycle has two political novices, Fiorina and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, trying to leverage corporate experience into elected office.

Fiorina's having a rough time of it. Her latest problem: defending herself against charges that HP made loads of money during her tenure by selling its products in Iran despite a U.S. trade embargo. "To her knowledge, during her tenure, HP never did business in Iran," Fiorina's campaign told the San Jose Mercury News.

Really? Fiorina had no idea? That's odd, since...

• Fiorina in 2003 noted Middle East sales were defying global trends, and, as the Merc notes, HP's partner there issued a press release saying sales topped $100 million and that "the seeds of the Redington-Hewlett-Packard relationship were sowed six years ago for one market - Iran."
  
• Three of the three HP partners in the Middle East contacted by Christopher Stewart for a story in Portfolio magazine's August 2008 issue readily agreed to ship printers to Iran. Portfolio notified HP of the incidents, but the company didn't condemn them, instead refusing comment. Fiorina was gone as CEO at this point, but Portfolio noted that diversion of American products to Iran trough Dubai had been going strong for many years.
• HP had an office in the Dubai free-trade zones notorious for funneling American goods to Iran, Portfolio reported — so it had ample means to be aware of how its products were being shipped.
  
• After the SEC noticed the prevalance of HP products in Iran, it asked the company about the matter, and got back a letter from the company saying its Dutch subsidiary sold $120 million to Iran in 2008.
• Finally, in January 2009, HP severed ties with Redington Gulf, the distributor that had publicly bragged about its Iran trade six years earlier.
  
  
  

If Fiorina appears to have turned a blind eye to shipments of her products into Iran, that's what she was supposed to do, as CEO; as both the Merc and Portfolio note, the company most likely stayed on the legal — and profitable — side of a gray zone, a loophole in U.S. trade sanctions. But it will be tough to look patriotic while explaining that to voters. Fiorina had better hope her fellow Republicans continue to be more interested by the supposed dangers of universal health care and illegal immigration than by the War on Terror launched by their party's last president.

He is specifically pissed at La Repubblica, a left-wing Italian paper that has published 10 questions they demand Berlusconi answer, over and over again. They are about his 18-year-old mistress (the model who calls him "daddy"), and also about other hilarious things he has done:

La Repubblica has frequently re-published its 10 questions for Berlusconi, which demand him to reveal how he met Letizia and where, why he has contradicted himself repeatedly and whether he has frequented other minors.

But the questions also asked him to justify selecting numerous showgirls as candidates for his conservative People of Freedom party, and asked if he was really unaware that 42-year-old escort Patrizia D'Addario who says she slept with him last November and dozens of others he allegedly entertained were prostitutes.

He is also mad at a French newspaper for talking about a tape involving more of his sexual exploits.

Silvio, we know the libel laws are way less friendly here in the US than they are in most of western Europe, but still: you are a corrupt amoral whoremonger with a thing for jailbait! You, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, pay for sex with prostitutes when you are not sleeping with minors!

[Photo: AP]

The entire Italian political system is a ridiculous farce. Berlusconi owns all the tv stations, he's faced a dozen legal battles on corruption and bribery, hardly any Italian corporations even pay taxes, members of the legislature have unlimited expense accounts and receive perks like free tennis lessons, and the country's economy is crumbling. And besides all that, Berlusconi has almost openly kept an 18-year-old mistress, photos have been published of half-naked parties at his villa, and there have literally been recordings released of his dalliance with an escort his corrupt businessman friend got him.

But, you know, that's all par for the course in Italy! The patriarchy is living large out there, according to Milan professor Chiara Volpato, in a Times op-ed.

Less than half of the women in Italy have jobs, but they have 80 minutes less "leisure time" every day, because they have to cook and clean for their Vespa-riding gadabout husbands and lazy, spoiled sons. And despite the fact that it's a Catholic country, the birthrate is incredibly low—we are guessing because young and smart Italian women are getting the hell out of Italy en masse. And the TV! Berlusconi knows what makes good TV: silent, scantily-clad ladies attending to the needs of old dudes.

And traditionally, women have supported Berlusoni, because, as we said, they don't get to have jobs, so they watch his TV networks all the time. But now that might change, because of the constant fucking around and being generally an astounding pig.

So rise up, women of Italy! You have nothing to lose but your greasy dirtbag men!

Abdullah is alleging massive voter fraud, including ballot stuffing, and he claims to have video evidence. But he's also urging calm and calls on his supporters to refrain from violence.

Voter turnout may be as low as 29%, because of threats of violence from Taliban forces and because many Afghan voters doubted the legitimacy of the elections.

It will not be until September 3 at the very earliest that we'll know who won the election.

Abdullah, an ophthalmologist, is a former member of the Northern Alliance. The bulk of his support is in Afghanistan's population centers, and he is basically a big fat smarty-pants elite intellectual reformer. He would like a parliamentary system instead of a strong president, elected officials in the provinces and districts instead of corrupt and ineffectual appointed officials, and other liberal nonsense.

He also promised to curb the rampant corruption and review foreign assistance programs to ensure that they focused on grass-roots development and addressed poverty and unemployment. In his public meetings, he emphasized support for the rights of women, the unemployed, the disabled and the victims of war.

If Karzai receives less than 50% of the vote—which might depend on how much the vote was fixed or on the incredibly poor turnout—there will be a runoff. Also lots of people and things will be blown up and killed.

Of course, the Taliban have reportedly executed a couple people for voting and rocket attacks have killed a couple more people, but on the whole it is a very proud day for Afghanistan. Though turnout seems, so far, to be incredibly low, in part because of those concerns about being executed but maybe more because of cynicism.

Corrupt and largely useless President Hamad Karzai will probably be forced into a runoff election, unless he actually does manage to steal more than 50% of the vote.

Hah, remember that time when all those people in Congress gave themselves purple fingers, because they loved democracy in Iraq so much? Poor forgotten Afghanistan!

Yesterday it was reported that Britney Spears was registered to vote in Afghanistan, but as of yet there's no word on which candidate she supported.

Souza had a TV show about how bad all the crime and drug trafficking is in the state of Amazonas, where he was a legislator. In order to prove his point about the crime, according to police, Souza "commissioned at lease five murders." Then he would report on these murders, for his TV show, boosting ratings and eliminating drug trafficking competitors. Is there anything death squads can't do?

A local police chief told the Associated Press that the order to execute always came from the presenter and his son, and that TV crews were alerted to get to the scene of the crime first.

Souza faces lots of charges but he remains free because he is a politician. Should he ever decide to emigrate, he has a bright future ahead of him in Albany, or on Fox.

Here is a very disturbing video of Mr. Souza's show, "fresh dead bodies we discovered before the police."

Well apparently now that times are a bit less flush, and they're starting to enforce some of those laws that used to not apply to Brits and Americans and Germans and Australians. "It's all a bit scary," one would-be exploiter says to the Washington Post.. Did you know they're locking up bankers? Bankers!

Among those who have been locked up are a JPMorgan investment banker; American, British and other foreign property developers; a German yachtmaker; and two Australians who worked as senior executives of what was to be the world's largest waterfront development. The gigantic project had been launched by Nakheel, the crisis-battered property arm of Dubai World and builder of Dubai's signature palm-tree-shaped resort islands.

You're arrested for writing one bad check, and suddenly you're being locked up without charges and tortured for months. Crazy!

See as long as the repressive theocratic sheikdom let Dubai be run like Vegas, no one gave a shit that it was, uh, a repressive theocratic sheikdom. Washington followed it's usual "democracy's ok, but if you can manage capitalism without it than more power to you, brother" line. Turns out luxury hotels do not inexorably lead toward freedom! Though the various shanghaied sex workers and menial laborers could've maybe explained that back when it looked like things were just fine.

In a blog post, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone writes that the attacks are ongoing and "massively coordinated," but declined to elaborate, because then he'd have to kill you. Actually no, it's because he didn't want to "engage in speculative discussion." But a Georgian blogger is happy to speculate; he says it's totally the Russian regime.

The blogger, known as "Cyxymu," has been outspoken in his criticism of Russian tactics in the war over the disputed region of South Ossetia. Facebook's chief of security tells CNET (via Business Insider) that Cyxymu is the target of the denial of service attack on Facebook and Twitter yesterday and today. The blogger has accounts on both services, as well as on LiveJournal, Blogger and YouTube. Google, which operates the latter two, told CNET its systems "prevented substantive impact to our services," so we still have the keyboard cat.

First the subs off our coast, now Twitter attacks. How will the Russians vaguely annoy us next? Satellite TV jamming? Attack the iPhone app store?

(Pics via)

According to the Times of London:

The photos will inevitably trigger mass swooning by women all over Russia - as well as unfavourable comparisons of their husbands to Mr Putin's manly physique. They will also confirm the Russian Prime Minister's status as a gay icon.

Yes, well, you said it.

On his virility-proving camping trip, Putin also rode a mini-submarine to the bottom of Lake Baikal and attached a tracking device to a whale. During Obama's trip to Russia, Putin dressed in black and bragged of performing a wheelie on a motorcycle with a local biker gang. "He has also been shown co-piloting a fighter jet and shooting a tiger."

Observers say these comically extreme demonstrations of archaic tropes of virile masculinity suggest that the despotic ruler of Russia is a quirky Wes Anderson surrogate father figure and Russia is his shiftless, emotionally damaged Wilson brother/Jason Schwartzman. Russian state-owned television is expected to edit the camping trip footage into a quirky montage scored by something from the Nuggets box.

Defense department officials say that this is the first time in 15 years that Russian subs have patrolled along the U.S. coast. It's been long believed that in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, the Russian Navy lacked the resources and the technology to operate this far from their home ports.

Reports the Times:

According to Defense Department officials, one of the Russian submarines remained in international waters on Tuesday about 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The second submarine traveled south in recent days to make a port call in Cuba, according to a senior Defense Department official.

In regards to what the Russian's motivation might be, naval historian Norman Polmar thinks it's little more than peacocking motivated by insecurity.

"It's the military trying to demonstrate that they are still a player in Russian political and economic matters," said Mr. Polmar.

At the very least, perhaps this will give Tom Clancy something to write about once again.

One of the conversations appears to back claims that Italy's leader has a giant bed with a connection, as yet unclear, to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

After an exchange in which the prime minister seems to be offering a present to D'Addario, he says to her: "I'm taking a shower." He then asks her to wait on the big bed. She asks which one. He replies: "Putin's".

Right. Is that some sort of little joke or does Putin have a bed at Silvio's vacation home? And if he does, does he know what Silvio's doing in it?

You just wonder, sometimes: Hillary Clinton seems like a reasonable and smart person who is trying very hard to be good at her job, so is she embarrassed by her continued association with amoral, universally reviled hacks like Lanny Davis and Mark Penn, men who did more than almost anyone else to make her presidential campaign into a sad, unfunny joke?

So, yes. Lanny Davis. He does some "crisis management" work, which is a thing we can't even call a "necessary evil" because honestly it is not necessary, just inevitable. He is a senior adviser for the crazy-right-wing Israel Project and a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan. He is everything bad about Democrats, dating back to his days as a young Yale graduate working for Ed Muskie, to his support of Joe Lieberman against that terrible insurgent real Democrat, to, finally, his insisting that Hillary Clinton would surely win the election once she got 200% of the Mighigan and Florida delegates counted, which she should get, because Barack Obama is a cheater, and he's mean.

He is just bad, for the country. And not just our country! He is now being bad for Honduras, where the military recently seized power, on behalf of the business elite, who were worried that some of their wealth might be redistributed to that nation's poor. (Yes, yes, the President wanted to have a Constitutional Referendum about term limits which means he was basically morphing into CASTRO before their eyes.) So these business leaders, who just installed their own, hand-picked president hired a powerful lobbyist with ties to the Secretary of State, by the name of Lanny Davis!

"This is about the rule of law. That is the only message we have," Davis said, adding that Zelaya "was acting unconstitutionally and illegally" when he pushed for a voter referendum to change presidential term limits.

Yes, the military frog-marching the democratically elected President to a waiting plane, seizing power, and arresting journalists, all on behalf of the moneyed class, is a very good way to go about this "rule of law" stuff.