Last week, Standard & Poor's, the rating agency, was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice (USDoJ) in a Los Angeles federal court for “knowingly and with intent to defraud, devis(ing), particpat(ing) in, and execut(ing) a scheme to defraud investors in (residential property securitisations) and CDOs, including federally insured financial institutions... and to obtain money from these investors by means of material false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises and the concealment of material facts.”

YouTube is an incredibly easy way for ordinary people to communicate with one another and the world. It is therefore open to abuse, the consequence being that much of its content is not to be taken seriously: extraterrestrial Freemasons,

Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark succinctly summarises the only real obstacle to individual achievement in a single line: “the question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

The London 2012 Olympic Games have been a triumph of wastefulness, nannying government, corporatism, deceit and incompetence. Our writer Lawsmith asks, how could our political class have gotten it so wrong?

The first and only time I've met Boris Johnson was when we were on our bicycles at the traffic light at the bottom of King William Street in the City. I stammered: "Uh, good morning, Mr. Mayor." Play it cool. After a brief (and awkward) exchange, he pushed off, away from my sight and into eternity.

By all accounts, this was a crappy week
for Mr Cameron and his Tories.
After taxing granny, pasties and the meek,
and seeing George Galloway crowned in glory,
the Home Office creates a scheme so fearful,
antithetical to liberal thought,
I'd pay a lot to give a great big earful

In Northern Ireland, there is a man named Ryan Lavery, who used to live next to the Ballykinler military installation in County Down. Lavery, whose solicitor describes him as a "trainspotter, an anorak, a nerd with no friends" and who would, if "put beside an airport... take pictures of planes," used to be in the habit of taking photographs of cars entering and leaving the nearby base from his home.