Right on cue, the results of the Afghan elections are being questionned, with allegations of fraud and rigging. Following the recent election fiasco in Iran, with all the accompanying controversies and tragedy, we have yet another indication of the shortcomings of democracies in societies where those in control are too corrupt to be entrusted with its implementation. The list of culpable nations is too long and tedious to list here (Pakistan, Iran, Zimbabwe, to name a few), but the principles of democracy and liberty obviously can’t properly function or be fully realised in systems hamstrung by ulterior motives, personal agendas, commonplace corruption, and greed. Taleban bullying and intimidation doesn’t help either, of course.

The US Attorney-General’s investigation into the CIA’s torture activities is no doubt going to cause embarassment to the agency and possibly to the American government in general. Not that the CIA’s distinctly unendearing image and history can be made much worse. While current information surfacing suggests not the very worst types of torture imaginable (I find it hard to believe there aren’t massively worse types of torture going on in other countries), this whole fiasco nevertheless raises the question of whether torture itself is even a valid practise in a supposedly modern and enlightened society. Surely, we should’ve evolved far enough beyond the dark ages? Doesn’t the very existence of ‘legitimate’ torture techniques within the practises of liberal, democratic twenty-first century societies sit as something of an embarassing incongruity?

Is torture even effective? After all, it is well-enough attested that anything revealed under such conditions isn’t necessarily likely to be reliable. Anyone speaking out from pain or fear will surely say whatever they think will earn them a reprieve. In this day and age, when even our everyday technologies are advancing so rapidly all the time, do our security services, intelligence agencies and militaries REALLY not have some kind of technology capable of determining or inducing the truth out of a subject in a reliable and humane fashion? Surely something exists, or could be invented or adapted, to that end? If not, then some funding should be put into developing something of the sort. Do they really need to continue using abuse and cruelty to accomplish their objectives?

To my mind, these kinds of interrogation practise should be outmoded and old-fashioned, consigned to the embarassment of history. Surely the civilised, cultured and ‘enlightened’ socities and nations of the modern world should be working towards outright banning all forms of torture in the very near future? Surely technology is the answer and the future: not waterboarding or threatening to f**k someone’s mum?

Word is that Big Brother is coming to an end, having reached the end of its ten-year contract. Official word from Endemol is reportedly that the show’s future is being assessed. Many would love to stick a fork in and see the show terminated. I actually suggest that Big Brother is, in fact, the best of a bad bunch, as far as reality TV goes. Compared to that jungle nonsense, and that stomach-turning parade of scantily-clad nobodies on a beach, and the two dozen other schedule-sucking non-events that pass as televisual entertainment, BB comes off looking half decent. If all reality TV was to be exterminated with only one survivor, I’d probably keep Big Brother and consign the rest to Room 101.

Mike Tyson is being courted to blighty, where he hopes to make more mo ney and maybe find himself a new income. Mike Tyson shouldn’t be courted anywhere; he should be in jail. Or at least under some form of house-arrest. He has to be the single worst ambassador for the boxing world there’s ever been.

By complete contrast, the single best ambassador for the boxing world there’s ever been is also on British shores, being rightly treated like a hero. His name is Muhammad Ali, and he is surely, without question, the greatest sporting figure there has been, not only in our time but in any time. A sporting and political, cultural, figurehead, a living legend; a unique breed of sporting superstar, in being a character of substance, who actually stood for something, had something to say, and meant something more than just money to a great many people. There is no one in the sporting world who compares to Ali, for sheer character and undeniable gravitas; his enduring title as ‘the Greatest’ is wholly justified, and it’s one title that he won’t be losing to any contender.

And a cursory look at the life of woman-beating, ear-biting rapist Mike Tyson only accentuates that point. So let’s celebrate and give dues to Ali while we still have him, instead of morbidly waiting for the obituary pages of the future.

A former lover of the model, actress, and all-round goddess Anna Nicole Smith is sueing an author for libel, but is apparently unable to sue for allegations of gay sexual activity, on account of homosexuality no longer being regarded as defamatory insinuation; at least according to the ruling of the New York judge overseeing the case. Goodness, how far we’ve come. And for the better.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard encountered many a ghost or spectre aboard the Starship Enterprise, and all kinds of paranormal phenomena, but Picard’s alter-ego, Patrick Stewart, has claimed to have seen a real-life ghost in the theatre where he and Sir Ian McKellen have been performing Waiting for Godo. Spooky. Speaking of strange phenomena, there have been no new developments in the Israeli mermaid saga; the legendary fish-woman has not been sighted since the last reports. Yet…