VILNIUS, Lithuania – A new Lithuanian law bans the dissemination of “unsavory” materials via channels children might be able to access. Mass media, public discussions, school programs and the Internet all fall under the statute’s purview.

The Law on the Protection of Minors Against Detrimental Effect of Public Information outlaws “the propaganda of homosexuality [or] bisexuality,” information about polygamy and images of heterosexual intercourse. Also among the topics labeled taboo are death, severe injury, foul language, gambling, instructions for manufacturing explosives, abnormal eating habits like anorexia and bulimia, and all things paranormal.

BEIJING – Between August and October, Chinese authorities will extend their efforts to sanitize the Internet beyond the country’s borders, targeting foreign Web hosts, websites and payment processors.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Public Security announced an expanded smut crackdown that will involve nine government departments responsible for overseeing police, publicity, health, information technology, banking and media. The effort will target pornography hosted abroad, websites that promote prostitution and “fake porn” sites that offer explicit content to randy Chinese surfers but then fail to deliver.

In addition, authorities will pursue porn delivered to cell phones via any medium, any organization or individual who advertises on porn websites, service providers who offer offshore hosting for websites owned by Chinese citizens, e-tailers who offer adult products, social-networking sites that link to porn, search engines that fail to filter pornography, domain-name registrars that provide incorrect information about domain owners, telecom companies that do not keep logs of all activity, and companies at home and abroad that provide financial processing services to any officially unapproved category of Web content.

WASHINGTON – Testimony before a House committee on Wednesday indicated file-sharing networks could represent a national security risk.

Experts told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee peer-to-peer networks contain sensitive information including FBI surveillance photos and motorcade routes and safe-house addresses for former First Lady Laura Bush.

MADISON, Wisc. – Two notes to politicians:

Seriously, guys, it’s time to catch up with the cyber age, regardless your own age. Statistics indicate that 14 years after the internet became a bona fide phenomenon, most of your constituents are Web savvy, so why aren’t you?

If you insist on lagging behind the rest of us, don’t expect sympathy when your intentionally anachronistic butt suffers the inevitable.

The latest elected official to be embarrassed by his lack of cyber-savvy is Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette, 69. After winning his race in 2006, La Follette stopped paying the $25 monthly hosting fee to maintain his campaign website. He also neglected to renew the domain registration.

HONG KONG – A new university public opinion poll has convinced Hong Kong lawmakers they have a mandate to impose tighter restrictions on internet content of a sexually explicit nature.

The Hong Kong University poll of 1,500 adults, commissioned by the government as part of a study of the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance, revealed three-quarters of respondents believe the Web is too smutty. According to the poll, residents want officials to increase penalties and step up efforts to enforce decency online.

Fewer than 10 percent of respondents indicated they feel the Obscene Articles Tribunal — the body charged with enforcing the ordinance — is doing its job.

BEIJING – Chinese website operators who include on their sites material classed by the government as “harmful” have been put on notice: Moving their sites to foreign servers will not protect them.

In the latest round of arrests of people associated with online smut, authorities expanded their nets to detain anyone who lives in or visits the country, regardless from where their websites are served. Porn designed to be viewed on mobile devices also was targeted.

According to police, the owners of two websites hosted on U.S. servers and updated via an encrypted virtual private network were arrested Sunday after authorities breached their security protocols.

LAS VEGAS, NV - Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), the other beleaguered adulterer from the right side of the aisle, is facing more allegations about his affair with the wife of a former aide and close friend of the family.

This time, the bombshells are coming from the cuckolded former aide, Doug Hampton, who told The Las Vegas Sun his wife was a "victim of coercion" by the senator, and not a willing participant in the affair.

He also claimed that Ensign, 51, paid his wife, Cynthia, who also worked for Ensign, "considerably more than $25,000 in severance when she was told to leave her job with Ensign’s campaign committee in April 2008."

Ensign did not report the payment, as required by law, according to a Washington watchdog group.

WASILLA, Ak. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced Friday afternoon that she is resigning as of July 25. The move is fueling speculation that Palin is either regrouping for a presidential bid in 2012 or is going to accept the offer from Playboy. Or was it Hustler?

The following text was posted to Palin's website:

Hi Alaska, I appreciate speaking directly TO you, the people I serve, as your Governor.