From The Guardian UK

An Iranian diplomat has said the Royal Navy personnel held by Iran could face legal action for violating international law.

Iran’s ambassador to Russia said the case of the 15 British sailors and marines had entered a legal phase but denied that he had earlier said the sailors could be put on trial, the country’s official news agency IRNA reports.

Gholam-Reza Ansari made his comments to Russian television Vesti-24 and was quoted by IRNA on its website as saying, "the case of the detention of British sailors has taken on a judicial form."

This is going to end well, I’m sure.

Louis Theroux of the BBC in an interview about his documentary "The Most Hated Family In America" about Fred Phelps of godhatesfags.com and his family. Somehow I’ll find a way to watch it.

They call themselves the most hated family in the US and they picket funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. So what did Louis Theroux make of the Phelpses after three weeks?

In any country, let alone one as patriotic as the US, few actions are as provocative as protesting at a soldier’s funeral.

The Phelps family pickets mourners across the country, to mark what it describes as God’s revenge on the US for tolerating homosexuality.

The 20 worst cover songs of all time. Duran Duran’s cover of Public Enemy’s "911 is a joke" should be grounds for execution. The rest are marginally better.

To me, Queers For Palestine seems like an oxymoron of sorts. I mean, why support a state that is so notoriously anti-gay; Anti-gay in the chop off your head or stone you kind of way. It’s so bad that a group of Arab lesbians had to hold a conference in Israel because of fear of holding it elsewhere. Meryl Yourish is has more on this.

The world is a strange fucking place

In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed "Purity Balls."

The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship.

The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter’s chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage.

Many fathers at the ceremonies also slip "purity rings" around the finger of their misty-eyed daughters or offer them "chastity bracelets" and other jewelry that the girls can entrust to their husbands on their wedding night.

There are no words…

Fox News’ answer to Colbert and Stewart manage to come up with an unusually funny moment from their not very funny show.

Two new books bought today. Alan Dershowitz’ The Case for Peace and Bernard Lewis’ What went wrong?. Dershowitz’ book is a sequel of sorts to The Case for Israel which  I read in January and can’t speak highly enough of. The Case for Peace contains praises from former US President Bill Clinton, the currently comatose Ariel Sharon, and Amos Oz if that’s enough to convince you.

Mark Steyn is covering the trial of Conrad Black in Chicago. Updated daily via his MacLeans blog.

Within the last few weeks or so Calgary has become home to three new daily papers: Metro, Rush Hour, and 24 Hours. 24 Hours and Rush Hour came out within days of each other and are part of CanWest and Sunmedia respectively. Frankly, they feel like supplements rather than standalone papers. Shame on CanWest for giving us Rush Hour rather than resurrecting the vastly superior Dose.

Metro’s arrival signals to the rest of the country that we are now world class as it bills itself as the "largest daily newspaper in the world with 70 editions in 21 countries". Good for us, I guess. Of the three, I like it the best – though now because my commute is only a ten minute walk as opposed to an hour-long bus ride, I only read it fleetingly. If I was a betting man I’d say that it will be the survivor of the three were the rest to go tits up

Iain Ilich of the Edmonton Journal has a better take on the arrival of 24 Hours and Rush Hour than me.

The chances of me winning the lottery are about as infinitesimal as… well me winning the lottery. That doesn’t stop me from buying my one ticket a year. The way I figure it is that since hard work and perseverance hasn’t yet paid off, dumb fucking luck might. Or so I continue to tell my self.

 That being said, there are two thing to do when winning the big jackpot; the right thing and the wrong thing.