Leg-iron reports on the first publican to be jailed for allowing his customers to light up.
Nick Hogan, 43, from Lancashire, was sentenced to six months in prison for repeatedly refusing to pay a fine imposed for flouting the legislation.
As Leg-iron says,
In this wonderful free country where everyone has the choice to do as they are [...]

I think a lot of bloggers will pick up on this story.

A company selling “Anyone but England” T-shirts for this year’s World Cup has rejected suggestions it is racist after police in Aberdeen visited its store.
Police warned Slanj, which also has stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh, that a window display featuring the shirt could cause [...]

Pink Floyd front man David Gilmour, Chrissie Hynde, Bob Geldof and Gary McKinnon sing Graham Nash’s Chicago.
This is a plea to Barack Obama to come from Chicago and help Change the World and to allow Gary McKinnon to have his life back.
Thanks to the wonder that is Twitter, Gary’s mum Janis Sharp tells me that [...]

I don’t normally write about smoking, but things have become so unbelievably crazy that I’m going to start. Scottish Labour welcomes:
an initiative by the UK Government to halve the number of people smoking by 2010. The strategy includes a crackdown on cigarette smoking.
A crackdown?! You mean a total ban in all enclosed public places is [...]

A group of SNP MSPs has called for Tony Blair to be tried in Scotland for taking the UK to war in Iraq, Scotland On Sunday reports.
A parliamentary motion calling for Blair to be prosecuted has been laid down at Holyrood and has been signed by eight MSPs. It cites the verdict of a Dutch [...]

From The Register,
The High Court has granted a further judicial review of the Home Secretary’s decision to allow extradition proceeding against Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon to proceed. The move means the imminent threat of extradition against McKinnon is removed until at least April.
The latest in a long line of appeals by McKinnon will consider whether [...]

It is the sort of story which makes my blood boil. Another child in another allegedly free country, this time Sweden, has been kidnapped by the ‘authorities’ because he was being taught at home by his parents.
Christian home-schooling parents who had their son taken away by Swedish Government officials have lost their court case to [...]

Today is the fourth anniversary of Civil Partnerships in England and Wales (Scotland started a day early by mistake). What better way to mark the occasion than with a good old virtual leaf through the Pink News? There really is interesting and shocking news, but first, what about that legislation that allowed homosexual couples to [...]

The First Minister has travelled to Copenhagen to cash in on the publicity try to help save the planet. At a fringe meeting, he promised his new buddy, Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, that Scotland would help them by sharing technology and research. No money will allegedly change hands.
At no more than six feet above sea-level, [...]

Bonkers Britain from the Pink News:
A straight Scottish teacher who tried to make a claim for homophobic harassment has lost his case.
This is clear discrimination!
James Campbell, who took early retirement in 2007 from his job as an art teacher at Denny High School in Scotland, claimed that the homophobic insults he received amount to sexual [...]