NEW US DEFENSE LOGO & UK ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW!

Controversial new US defence logo compared to Islamic crescent and star
The new US defence logo has provoked controversy on the internet after right wing commentators said it resembles the Islamic crescent and star design.

By Heidi Blake
Published: 9:11AM GMT 25 Feb 2010
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The new Missile Defense logo has been likened to Barack Obama's campaign symbol
As well as resembling the Islamic flag, it has been said to bear a “scary” likeness to the campaign symbol President Barack Obama used in the electoral race against Senator John McCain in 2008, according to right-leaning blogs and websites.
The circular red, white and blue sign, which has also been compared to the communist hammer and sickle symbol, first appeared on the Missile Defense Agency’s website in the Autumn.

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It was designed by TMP Government, a marketing company that manages the websites for numerous Government departments. But this particular design has caught the eye of critics of the Obama administration.
"I'm having trouble seeing past the crescent and star in the new logo," one critic posted on WashingtonTimes.com. "Is this our signal to the Muslim world that we're not going to shoot down their missiles?"
Frank Gaffney wrote on BigGovernment. com: "The new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo ... Team Obama is behaving in a way that – as the new MDA logo suggests – is all about accommodating that 'Islamic Republic' and its evermore aggressive stance."
An anonymous commentator on the same website wrote: "Can someone find out exactly where this new logo came from? Who designed it? Why was the logo changed in the first place? Perhaps our Imperial Government contracted out the design to a company in Tehran, you think?
"It also looks a bit like a sickle. Maybe they couldn't figure out a way to get the hammer in without being too obvious."
Another commentator on WeaselZippers.net likened the logo to that of a "corny science fiction movie."
But Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency, dismissed the comparisons. "It's ridiculous," he told Fox News. "It isn't a new logo to replace the official logo. It's a logo developed for recruiting materials and for our public website. Also, it was used prior to the 2008 election and it has no link to any political campaign."
Brian Collins, chairman and chief creative officer at COLLINS:, a New York-based design and innovation firm, said the new logo used the "same visual language" as that of the Obama campaign, complete with two circles and three stripes.
"The Obama logo is filled with messages of hope, it's about looking toward an optimistic future," he said. "They've taken those exact elements and they've made them more technical."
But the designer was sceptical about claims that TMP Government had Obama in mind when they produced the governmental branding.
"I wouldn't buy the argument that it's an evolution of the Obama identity," Collins said. "There are similarities but I don't see the genesis in the Obama logo."
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2. DPP releases assisted suicide guidelines
Distinction must be drawn between those who help a loved one to kill themselves and those who end a life, says Keir Starmer

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Haroon Siddique and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 February 2010 07.42 GMT
Article history

Debbie Purdy and her husband Omar Puente in front of the House of Lords, London, July 30, 2009. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Rules on assisted suicide intended to clarify when helping someone to end their life will result in prosecution will be published today after almost 5,000 people responded to the interim policy.

The eight pages of guidelines will be released by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions (DPP), this morning along with a 45-page summary of responses, the vast majority of which were from individual members of the public, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but individual decisions on prosecution are made depending on the circumstances in each case. An interim policy was published in September and has been in force since.

It made clear that someone acting out of compassion, to help a terminally ill patient with a "clear, settled and informed wish to die" was unlikely to face the courts. But persuading or pressuring the victim to kill themselves, or benefiting from their death, would encourage prosecution.

Starmer was forced to issue the guidelines after a law lords ruling in favour of Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis.

She wanted to know whether her husband would be prosecuted for helping her to end her life.

Writing in today's Times, the DPP said the recent debate about "mercy killing" made it important to draw the line between those who help a loved one to kill themselves and suspects who have ended someone else's life.

"Assisted suicide involves assisting the victim to take his or her own life," he wrote. "Someone who takes the life of another undertakes a very different act and may well be liable to a charge of murder or manslaughter. That distinction is an important one that we all need to understand.

"Each case is unique, each case has to be considered on its own facts and merits; and prosecutors have to make professional judgments about difficult and sensitive issues. The assisted suicide policy will help them in that task."

He said that he found "compelling" the large number of responses arguing "that the factors tending against prosecution should focus more on the suspect than on the individual who committed suicide".

Campaigners for the right to die welcomed the initial guidelines and called for the government to legislate on the issue, but ministers were reluctant to intervene. Critics have complained Starmer is effectively legalising assisted suicide.

The prime minister, Gordon Brown, writing in a newspaper yesterday, said changing the law would "fundamentally change" attitudes to death and could lead to pressure being put on frail elderly relatives. Purdy said his intervention showed a "lack of respect" to the public.

Scope, a charity for disabled people, warned its members were "genuinely frightened" about any changes that would weaken existing safeguards.

The chief executive, Richard Hawkes, said: "We recognise that assisted suicide is a complex and emotional issue. However, as a charity which supports thousands of disabled people with complex support needs, we are very concerned about the potential impact of the DPP's new guidelines on assisted suicide."