NedaNet

This looks like a good cause - a bunch of hackers who are arranging secure communications for Iranian dissidents. It looks like they've annoyed President Armanidinnerjacket and his bootboys already.

Banning the Dutch prime minister

LabourHome is reporting that if an election were to be held in the Netherlands today, Geert Wilders' Freedom Party would probably emerge as the largest in the Dutch parliament.

Which would give Jacqui Smith the amusing problem of having to ban the Dutch prime minister from these shores.

How others see us

Carol Gould at Pajamas Media:

Another glitch for Britain’s image in the world came on February 6 when television presenter Jeremy Clarkson, in an interview in Australia, referred to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a “one-eyed Scottish idiot.” The prime minister is visually impaired, is a Scot, and is believed by a large swathe of impoverished Britons to be an idiot, but the Clarkson gaffe made many feel that public decorum and the greatest of British attributes, graciousness, has evaporated.

Slipped halo

The blessed Obama doesn't seem to have been a hit, does he? His approval ratings are down 18 points since inauguration. Handing out all that pork to his supporters wasn't a good plan was it?

Chavez: another bid for monarchy

The Guardianistas' favourite South American leader, Hugo Chavez, is making another bid for permanence. He has launched another referendum on whether to make him president for life, just 13 months after the last one. The start of the campaign has been marked by increasing political violence and intimidation of opponents.

The Guardian, those stout defenders of liberty, describe him as "a beacon for the left".