AP) So much for God and country, at least during some in-flight showings of the Oscar-nominated movie "The Queen." All mentions of God are bleeped out of a version of the film distributed to Delta and some other airlines.
Jeff Klein, president of Jaguar Distribution, the Studio City, Calif., company that supplied the movie to the airlines earlier this month, said it was a mistake committed by an overzealous and inexperienced employee who had been told to edit out all profanities and blasphemies.
"A reference to God is not taboo in any culture that I know of," Klein said. "We excise foul language, excessive violence and nudity."
Airline passengers watching the movie hear "(Bleep) bless you, ma'am," as one character speaks to the queen. In all, the word "God" is bleeped seven times. (At no time in the original movie is "God save the queen" uttered.)
Klein said he discovered the mistake after a London-bound Air New Zealand passenger complained. Jaguar has been sending out new, unedited copies to the airlines.
Airlines routinely show movies from which graphic scenes and strong profanities are edited out.
"The Queen" is about Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair in the week ...   more »

While pornography itself doesn't "shoot the bullet" for sex crimes, it does "cock the trigger," and Sacramento officials who supervise their public library system have told porn addicts to go ahead and get loaded.
The Sacramento Public Library Authority Board has decided against protecting library users from explicit pornography, a move lawyers at the Pacific Justice Institute had asked them to take, and which may, in fact, violate the library's own Internet guidelines.
"The present policy is to require filters on the computers," Brad Dacus, chief of the PJI, told WND. "However, all that is needed to have access to pornography is for an adult to request that the filters be removed."
He said then anyone in the library, including young children, would be able to see the most explicit porn the Internet can offer.
"People know all too well that the pornography doesn't shoot the bullet, but it definitely cocks the trigger," he said. "We were asking [the library board] to minimize this risk."
Matthew McReynolds, a staff attorney with the PJI, a non-profit 501(c)(3) legal defense organization specializing in the defense of religious freedom, parental rights, and other civil liberties, appeared at the library board meeting to encourage ...   more »

Jerusalem officially registered its first homosexual couple as married Monday, three months after a ruling by the High Court of Justice paved the way for same-sex couples to be listed in the Interior Ministry's Population Registry.
Binyamin and Avi Rose married on June 28 in Toronto, Canada, but immediately returned to Jerusalem to start building their life together.
"We did the civil ceremony in the hopes that we would eventually be able to make legal what we felt inside," said Avi, an informal Jewish educator for the Young Judaea youth movement.
"We wanted the government of Israel to recognize that we are a couple. It was no more of a statement than [coming from] a 'regular' couple, but we are both committed Zionists and are hopeful that our union will bring more progress on this issue."
Binyamin, a social worker and therapist who is currently studying at a Conservative yeshiva in Jerusalem, said the registration process at the Interior Ministry had been fairly straightforward.
"Once we had all the right documentation, the process was pretty positive," said Binyamin, who made aliya from Britain in 2006. The clerks at the office "were a little confused by our application but they made ...   more »

By Joseph Farah
WASHINGTON – Participants in a high-level, closed door, three-day conference on the integration of the three North American nations debated whether openness about goals was preferred to a stealthy policy of building infrastructure before a vision of the end result was even laid out to the people of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, according to notes obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Official notes taken on a session on "Border Infrastructure and Continental Prosperity" at the North American Forum in Banff, Canada, last September, reveal the internal debate over continued secrecy.
"While a vision is appealing, working on the infrastructure might yield more benefit and bring more people on board ('evolution by stealth')," record the notes discovered amid documents obtained by Judicial Watch.
Several speakers at the event emphasized the importance of "deepening economic integration," "integrating the energy infrastructure" and "the development of new institutions" between the three North American nations.
Participants promoted the idea of using popular issues, such as concern over climate change, to push integration of energy and environmental governance and the possibility of imposing a carbon tax.
Judicial Watch released yesterday the documents it received in a FOIA request from the ...   more »

The leader of an Iraqi cult who claimed to be the Mahdi, a messiah-like figure in Islam, has been killed in a battle near Najaf with hundreds of his followers, Iraq's national security minister says.
Women and children who had joined 600 or 700 of his fighters outside the Shiite holy city of Najaf may also be among the casualties, Shirwan al-Waeli said.
All those who were not killed there were in detention, many of them wounded.
Mr Waeli said the final casualty toll, put by other Iraqi officials at 300 gunmen, was still being calculated, putting the initial figure at about 200 militants.
Searchers were still scouring the area where US tanks, helicopters and jets reinforced Iraqi troops during some 24 hours of fighting.
"He claimed to be the Mahdi," Mr Waeli said of the cult's leader, adding that he had used the full name Mahdi bin Ali bin Ali bin Abi Taleb, claiming descent from the Prophet Mohammad.
He was believed to be a 40-year-old from the nearby Shiite city of Diwaniya.
The group, which other Iraqi officials said included both Sunni and Shiite Muslims as well as foreigners, had planned an attack today on the Shiite clerical ...   more »