Chair destroyed
By Andrew Daniels

AN OFFICE chair was destroyed after it was set on fire on the grassy area, off Maude Street, Kendal, this afternoon (Friday).

Fire crews from Kendal attended along with police.

A spokesman for the fire and rescue service said: “A delinquent set fire to an office chair in the middle of a grassy area and it was extinguished using one hose jet.”

Chair Destroyed, The Westmorland Gazette. (Submitted by The Chief.)

An Egyptian court has sentenced an internet blogger to four years’ prison for insulting Islam and the president.

Abdel Kareem Soliman’s trial was the first time that a blogger had been prosecuted in Egypt.

He had used his weblog to criticise the country’s top Islamic institution, the al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.

His trial lasted five minutes.

David at Ironic Sans is an ideas machine:

If I had the time, the means, and the resources, I’d make a series of large paintings of those little cards that describe paintings in museums. They would be paintings of the cards that describe themselves. For example, I’d do a painting in oil on canvas that describes itself as being an oil painting on canvas. Then I’d hang it in a gallery next to a little card that’s identical to the painting, but is actually there to describe the painting. I’d do a whole series, with different materials. Oil on canvas, Acrylic on wood, etc.

Looks like Billy Weaver has been enjoying the snow. (A Brooklyn Lad)

NEWARK, Feb. 19 — A Kearny High School junior on Monday drew some legal heavyweights into his battle with school officials over a teacher’s proselytizing in class.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the People for the American Way Foundation and a partner from a large Manhattan law firm stood beside the student, Matthew LaClair, as he and his family threatened to sue the Kearny Board of Education if their complaints are not resolved. Last fall, Matthew, 16, taped the teacher, David Paszkiewicz, telling students in a history class that if they do not believe that Jesus died for their sins, they “belong in hell.”

On the recordings, which Matthew made surreptitiously starting in September, Mr. Paszkiewicz is heard telling the class that there were dinosaurs aboard Noah’s ark and that there is no scientific basis for evolution or the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe

Student, 16, Finds Allies in His Fight Over Religion, New York Times