Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, who edits a womens' rights magazine in Afghanistan, dealt with some controversial issues, like criticizing the 100-lashes penalty for adultery.

As a result, the Ulema Council -- a body of distinguished Islamic clerics -- asked the judiciary to punish him. So they did.

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If you buy beansprouts, don't forget to refrigerate them. If you don't, they decay quite quickly into a putrid, liquified mess.

The Internet is quickly becoming the indie filmmaker's best friend, in terms of helping them find a market for their work. And they have Indieflix to thank.

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There's always this contribution from Slate's Jack Shafer. An excerpt:

... Miller continues to haunt the New York Times two and a half years after her Iraq work was widely discredited, because the paper has yet to document how she botched the story of the decade and catalog the role she played in the current White House imbroglio. Yes, the Times pointed to Miller's work in its May 26, 2004, mini culpa about its Iraq reportorial failings. And yes, the paper effectively ended Miller's career as a serious journalist last Sunday by portraying her as a newsroom loon and weapons-grade egomaniac. Assisting the paper in that assessment was Miller herself, whose accompanying first-person account described how she clawed her way into the Alexandria Detention Center and wimped her way out 85 days later.

The Times won't break free of Miller's malevolent spirit until the paper commissions an exorcism in print, akin to the ones it conducted following the Blair and Lee possessions.

The Village Voice, the granddaddy, the eminence grise of alt.weeklies, is about to merge with New Times Media -- along with five other alternative papers.

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