This week the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, signed legislation revamping the Mexican justice system with the establishment of the "presumption of innocence" in criminal proceedings. Hello, Mexico! Where have you been all this time? The history of the presumption of innocence is not crystal clear, as legal matters are often murky, but it goes back at least centuries in English and Western law and may even have roots in Ancient Greece, over two thousand years ago. Now sure, Mexico may be far more advanced than some Middle Eastern countries, for example, that find rape victims to be guilty of the crime of being raped, but this is not the standard to which you want to be compared. Mexico has been trying to modernize and join the advanced world for decades now. It would have helped if they had thought of this basic principle of enlightenment and reason a long time ago. But OK, congratulations, modern justice is finally arriving to the southern neighbor of the United States. Progress in human affairs is slow. If you accept that fact, it's easier to celebrate this advance. And it will be easier to wait the estimated TEN MORE YEARS expected to pass before the presumption of innocence is actually put into widespread practice in Mexico.

Steve Wilder of Omaha Nebraska woke up suffocating due to complications from throat cancer. The radiation treatments he received years ago resulted in scar tissue, which Wilder says left him with a "shrunken throat." But he decided to take matters into his own hands when he grabbed a steak knife and made a quarter-inch incision that saved his life. Watch the video for more details!

Weird title, I know, but it really is an interesting case, and I'm not too creative this morning with my headlines. You may have heard of Pervez Kambaksh, he's the unlucky Afghani fellow who has been sentenced to death for downloading womans rights information from the internet. Womans rights are apparently an insult to Islam and insults to Islam are punishable by death.

According to the BBC it's now in the hands of the Afghani President Hamid Karzai to decide whether or not this 23 year old law student, who is interested in womans rights, will die.

Sign this International Petition for support and follow the story where it's covered (yeah, the media is all over this story.)

ABC Nightline: Jan 15th

It's pretty rare that we see Bush speaking to the press, after all he is a busy man, fortunately during his trip to Saudi Arabia he found time to speak to ABC's Terry Moran, if you missed the segment on your Television you can watch about 10 minutes worth of video on the Nightline website. If you are short for time, Last night Jon Stewart offered his analysis of the trip, you can watch it in the clip below. Enjoy.

There are so many great things about this clip (hat tip Zifnab) I just don't know where to begin.

I watched the clip and I have never laughed so hard. What a crazy kid, what a crazy interview! Here is a second post party interview, this time on the beach getting his picture taken with bikini clad teenagers. So from what we know from this interview, this kid had an insane party. We should find out more:

• 500 people+ showed up
  
• Kid is 16 years old and facing $20,000 worth in fines
• The police showed up with Air and Dog support
• We see file footage of naked people running (telling ya, it must have been an insane party)

So after the facts settle, you understand this kid is in a heap of crap: 16 years old, having a party when his parents aren't home... all the damage... and the media attention.

You can watch the legend of Corey "Worthington" Delaney rise or die on Google news. I have already invested too much time in this story to hear a bad ending, but apparently it was inevitable. The latest news is that he's been arrested and the cops aren't too happy. It's also been reported that his story is worth thousands to those in the reality TV biz . Can Worthington turn this around and become the legend he wants to be? Will the Delaneys be smart about their sons instant celebrity and raise enough money to pay for the damages? Or has the kid ruined his life?

We can only watch.

Finally 2008, the future is here.
Children are often said to be the future. So what do you think a future where billions of poor children from all corners of the globe have access to a laptop.
Well, the future is now with One Laptop Per Child.

via videosift.com

I love the technocrats and their charity ideas. Just think, in 10 years when these kids are adults maybe they will have knowledge to start a business, or learn how to provide energy and clean water to their village, the possibilities are endless. So these kids will gain knowledge to improve their communities, now all they need is money to get started.

Enter Kiva.

via videosift.com

Bhutto's cause of death disputed - BBC - Dec 29th 2007

Benazir Bhutto's supporters say the Pakistani government's account of how she died is "dangerous nonsense". A government spokesman said her head was slammed against her vehicle by the blast from a bomb - but colleagues said she died from bullet wounds...Read More BBC...

Doctors without Borders released a list of what they thought were the most underreported stories of 2007, included with the link is a video of Amy Goodman's coverage of the list on Democracynow.org.

People struggling to survive violence, forced displacement, and disease in the Central African Republic (CAR), Somalia, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere often went underreported in the news this year and much of the past decade, according to the 10th annual list of the "Top Ten" Most Underreported Humanitarian Stories, released today by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

The 2007 list also highlights the plight of people living through other forgotten crises, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Colombia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and Chechnya, where the displacement by war of millions continues. It also focuses on the ongoing toll of medical catastrophes like tuberculosis (TB) and childhood malnutrition....Read More...

Associated Press - Dec 11th

The Kyoto global warming pact - which marked its 10th anniversary Tuesday - was brokered under vastly different circumstances from those facing negotiators this week as they map out an agenda for a successor agreement.
.........
The Kyoto pact requires 36 industrialized nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Australia announced last week it would join, leaving the United States as the only major developed economy to have rejected it...Read More..

To inspire your commentary here is a video of Bangkok sinking, it's from Al-Jazeera English. I know some of the commentators don't like Al-Jazeera (shocking), so here is a raw video of the sinking streets of Bangkok, here is also some related literature from American sources... Time.com, usatoday.com.

It's not going to be news to anybody that President Bush mispronounced world leaders' names again. But it should be. It shows how profoundly lazy and indifferent he is. He was at the peace summit his own government organized and introducing the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories, when he absolutely mangled both of their names.

In the clip below, we play for you his embarrassing performance. Before we had this discussion, I said that I was willing to give him wide latitude because these are not necessarily easy names, but he butchered them so badly that he even abused that latitude.

But before you listen, remember that he is not a plumber or a dentist. He is the President of the United States and these are two crucial world leaders. If he doesn't care to figure out how to pronounce their names (and apparently has never even mentioned them privately in the Oval Office, otherwise, he would know how to say their names), how much does he care about the job? This is stunning indifference to the actual work of being president -- and unfortunately we have gotten used to it.

The Media Has Failed Us - Bush is A Moron

Add to My Profile | More Videos

To watch our entire analysis of this clip and the actual content of the peace summit, you can go to our website to watch the whole show here.

Young Turks Videos on My Space

Breaking news from Russia here, opposition leader and former Chess champion Garry Kasparov was detained during an anti-Putin rally in Moscow.

From the BBC

The Russian authorities have charged opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov following clashes with police in Moscow.

He and other opposition figures were detained during a rally organised by Mr Kasparov's Other Russia coalition.

Mr Kasparov was charged with resisting arrest and organising an unauthorised protest...Read More on the BBC...

No video yet from his event, but during more peaceful times Kasparov spoke with Bill Maher on HBO, this interview is from last month.

A British couple wanted to move to New Zealand after their wedding. They ran into one small problem, or actually it was one large problem. New Zealand told them they are too fat to immigrate to their country.

Robyn Toomath, a spokesman for New Zealand's Fight the Obesity Epidemic, said, "The immigration department can't afford to import people who are going to be a significant drain on our health resources ... You can see the logic in assessing if there is a significant health cost associated with this individual and that would be a reason for them not coming in."

No, I can't see that logic. Because under that rationale you would also ban people who smoke and sky dive and have unprotected sex. Are they going to be checking to see if people are using condoms during intercourse before they let them move to New Zealand? And how would they do that check exactly?

In the case of weight, they actually use Body Mass Index that compares your weight to your height and sees if you are within the prescribed limits or not. So, they physically weigh these people and tell them if they're too fat to live in the country. That's sick.

Meddling in people's private lives started with messing with smokers. I worried at the time that it would spread to other areas of our private lives where we made decisions that our companies or governments or insurers disapproved of. And now it has. This is a terrible trend and we have to make sure it's contained. So, I propose banning New Zealanders from coming here and spreading their discriminatory policies to us.

Finally, there is good news and bad news from the British couple trying to move to New Zealand. The groom lost two inches off his waistline and he has passed the health requirements. But unfortunately, his wife still hasn't made it. So she is stuck in England, still dieting.

Watch The Young Turks Show Here

An Indian man thought he was cursed by dogs, so naturally, he married one. I'm not kidding.

P Selvakumar, 33, from the Sivaganga district of India, was convinced that he had been cursed ever since he stoned two dogs to death (I don't know if he was, but he should have been). So, the Michael Vick of India decided the best idea was to marry a female dog to break the curse.

I don't know which idea was worse, stoning the other dogs to death or marrying the third to atone for it. Let's all hope he doesn't try to consummate the marriage. But since he has suffered paralysis and deafness due to his "curse" he might not be able to find or get a handle on his new bride.

I give Islam and Christianity a lot of grief for their nonsensical rules, but this takes the cake. Many people in this largely Hindu state attended the ceremony and cheered. They apparently thought Selvakumar was on to something when he came up with the brilliant idea of marrying the dog. After all, a local Hindu astrologer had suggested it. Well, then you really can't go wrong, can you?

At least, Selvakumar won't be offending anyone when he says, "Man, I married a real bitch!"

Watch The Young Turks Here

This is so hardcore. Turkey has arrested its own soldiers that were taken hostage by Kurdish separatists. They were released by the terrorists and then arrested by their own country.

Turkey has charged them with "disobedience that could lead to a major catastrophe" and "undermining military discipline." In other words, they arrested them for not fighting to the death.