An Irish restaurant critic has won an appeal against the libel judgment granted in favour of Goodfellas, a Belfast pizzeria.

Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner explains the nuance of his bitchy craft.

From the BBC:

Insulting the king is punishable by up to three years in prison

A Jordanian court has sentenced a French national of Palestinian origin to three months in jail for slandering King Abdullah.

The court was told Muntaser Shehab became abusive after a row at a five-star hotel in the capital, Amman.

Police said he continued to insult Jordan and its king after he was detained. Mr Shehab pleaded guilty.

 

Bear in mind that Jordan is considered a friend of the West.

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, a man got a month in the can for ripping up a political poster of President Robert Mugabe.

From the BBC:

There has been a sharp increase in militant attacks in Afghanistan, according to a new UN report.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said there were 8,000 conflict-related deaths in 2007 at an average of 566 incidents per month.

That compares with 425 incidents per month during the previous year.

A look at a 'community journalism' project in a poor part of Philadelphia.

Online firms in the business of matching eyeballs with ads are getting ever-more omniscient about you, dear reader.

From the NYT:

A new analysis of online consumer data shows that large Web companies are learning ...   more »

Starting Daylight Savings Time in March is the stupidest idea ever.

One of the things I look forward to in March is arriving at work in daylight.

That small pleasure has been robbed from me since Sunday. Instead, I arrive in darkness instead of light.

It will remain that way for a month.

I won't forget. I won't forgive.

The Toronto Star had an article on the weekend about why DST in general is an environmentally bad idea.

The Globe had this on Monday:

In a number of recent studies, researchers have found that workers drive worse, work less and die more on the Monday after the switch to daylight time.