News dump.

Sundays traditionally are, depending on how you look at things, the day of rest or the day of absolute teeth grinding tedium.

If it's nice i try to go out and do something or if it's like it is here today - grey, cold and not too promising looking outside - i read the news and try not to scare the beejesus out of myself.

So, without any further ado a few links to stories that i've picked up on today :


From The Indy


Why am i so not surprised by this one :

Donald Rumsfeld makes $5m killing on bird flu drug.

Donald Rumsfeld has made a killing out of bird flu. The US Defence Secretary has made more than $5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease ...

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350787.ece


Please Tone, close the door quietly when you slip out like a thief into the night :

Blair faces humiliating defeat on school reforms

Tony Blair faces a humiliating defeat over his schools reforms this week with more than 100 Labour MPs preparing to register their opposition.
He has enraged his own backbenchers by co-operating with the Conservatives to force the Education Bill through its second Commons reading on Wednesday ...

http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article350788.ece


And you may ask youself, this is not my beautiful house ... and you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife ... letting the days go by :

Death of the world's rivers

Disaster warning from UN as investigation reveals half of the planet's 500 biggest rivers are seriously depleted or polluted.

The world's great rivers are drying up at an alarming rate, with devastating consequences for humanity, animals and the future of the planet...

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article350785.ece


I didn't know she was a catholic !! She evidently was a lapsed one then :

The Eva Braun story: Behind every evil man...

She was a good Catholic girl. Her ordinariness was her defining quality. So why did she devote herself to Adolf Hitler? As a major new biography is published, Frances Wilson looks at her strange life - and death ...

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article350707.ece


And from The Observer magazine


Noooooooooooooooooooooooo ... i just wish we could all stop talking about this guy- we really shouldn't be giving him the oxygen of publicity (thanks Maggie T) - he really is bad news ... it really gets my goat when the british press devotes time to this idiot :


Napoleon seeks his empire

As a growing tide of insecurity sweeps France, Nicolas Sarkozy, the maverick, right-wing politician,is as much talked about in cafes and gossip columns for his tangled private life with his 'Josephine' as his ambition to be the next President...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1728944,00.html


This guy, en revanche, is real gent, one of the last :

'I don't make plans at all. Plans are what make God laugh'

From a beautifully demented Caligula to a mauve-quiffed Quentin Crisp and a disfigured Elephant Man, John Hurt's extraordinary talent has been to find the human truth at the heart of a character. Now, after four wives, late fatherhood and a lifetime of legendary carousing, is he finally happy in his own skin? With two new films about to open, the actor with the 'most distinctive voice in Britain', tells all to Barbara Ellen...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1728162,00.html


Food stuff :

Life is swede

Mashed or baked, swede reaches its gastronomic peak when introduced to gravy. But there's one root Nigel Slater hopes never to meet again...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1728186,00.html


This is one of the articles i read pretty much first thing when i get up... this weeks it's France's favorite Brit :

This much I Know

Jane Birkin, actor and singer, 59, London


http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1728161,00.html


And un p'tit dernier pour la route :

Shred-heads

Cut to the chase with the latest gadget-led lingo...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,1728159,00.html