NEW IFEMINIST CONTENT TODAY
Topic: Individualist Feminism
Source: ifeminists
REMEMBER: Commentary is added to the newsfeed on a daily basis. To access the new commentaries, scroll down the center column to the category Commentary. NEW MATERIAL: a new article by Manfred Schieder has been posted under the Ayn Rand to the left; a new guest editorial by Carey Roberts and a 'Provocation' by Tony Zizza have appeared in the right-hand column. Scroll down to access. And enjoy!

India, Bodies of Shopian women to be exhumed
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Investors Business Daily
The High Court in India-controlled Kashmir has directed the police to exhume bodies of the two women in Shopian, whose death on May 30 triggered widespread protests and violence, a court official Saturday said. On May 30, the two women aged 17 and 23 years were found dead under mysterious circumstances in Shopian town, 50 kilometers south of Srinagar, the summer capital of India-controlled Kashmir. Locals alleged the duo were first raped and then murdered. They suspected the hand of Indian troopers in the incident. Police first denied the allegations and cited drowning as the reason underlying their death. However, the forensic reports later on suggested rape and murder of the duo and forced the police to register the case accordingly. (07/04/09)

Aussie navy faces huge sex scandal
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: News.com.au
THE Navy is facing a sex scandal involving claims male sailors took part in a competition to bed women sailors, assigning a dollar value to each female conquest. Higher values were placed on officers or lesbians and scores were recorded in a book referred to as ``the ledger.'' Competitors were also encouraged to have sex in unusual places such as on pool tables. The allegations have been made against crew aboard HMAS Success, the largest ship ever built for the Australian Navy and the flagship of the fleet. (07/04/09)

CA SC clarifies liability to sex har outside of work
Topic: Sexual Harassment
Source: Central Valley Business News
The California Supreme Court says to prove sexual harassment outside of the workplace, the incidents must be pervasive or severe. It ruled Thursday in the case of a former wife of the late Mark Hughes, multi-millionaire founder of Herbalife International Inc. The divorced wife, Suzan Hughes, sued Christopher Pair, who succeeded Mr. Hughes upon the latter’s 2000 death and who was a trustee of a $350 million trust fund set up for the Hughes’ son. The lawsuit was filed after Ms. Hughes was denied a request to tap the trust fund to pay $180,000 for two month’s rent of a Malibu beach house. (07/02/09)

Afghan Shiites demand ratification of womens law
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Reuters
About 1,000 Afghan Shi'ite Muslims rallied in Kabul on Saturday to demand the ratification of a controversial law which contains harsh provisions on women some critics have called a step back towards Taliban-era rules. The Shi'ite Personal Status Law applies to Shi'ites who make up about 15 percent of Afghanistan's roughly 30 million people. It requires women to satisfy their husband's sexual appetites, which critics have said could be used to justify marital rape. U.S. President Barack Obama has called the law "abhorrent" and the United Nations and other rights groups have called for it be scrapped or changed. It has been under review by Afghanistan's Ministry of Justice since May. 906/27/09)

Luring law adds cellular technology
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Daily Camera
A Colorado law against "Internet luring of a child" previously included just computer communication, but the amended law -- which Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said he supports -- wraps in cellular technology. Along with the stronger law, which went into effect Wednesday, Garnett said he wants to take a more aggressive approach toward catching Internet -- and cellular -- predators. He's looking at creating a child sex offender-investigations unit, like one that exists in the First Judicial District Attorney's Office in Jefferson County, that will hone prosecutor skills in catching predators who lure children and teenagers via the Internet and cell phones. [Ed.: expect a lot more entrapment. The paying of police to act like ten year olds in order to induce people to commit crimes against their faux kid personas. Because, after all, no crime against real people is occurring.] (07/03/09)

VT, Longer sex offender list raises fairness question
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Boston Globe
A law passed this year expands from about 400 to about 1,600 the number of people included in the online registry available for public viewing. Some 740 of the new listings will be people who have already completed their terms of probation and parole. State officials say courts have ruled that inclusion on such a registry is not considered a punishment, and therefore doesn't violate the constitutional ban on changing the punishment after the crime. But Defender General Matt Valerio is among those who argue the change does raise fairness issues. (07/03/09)

KS, Woman faked sex attack
Topic: Sexual Harassment
Source: FOX 4
A Kansas City woman has admitted her role in a scheme in which she was sexually assaulted in an attempt to increase the settlement in a sexual harassment case against her former employer. Lindsey D. Crawford pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The 23-year-old acknowledged that she and another woman hired a man to physically assault the two and then sexually assault Crawford in her garage. (07/02/09)

Obama, Court leaves room for affirmative action
Topic: Affirmative Action
Source: Yahoo Daily News
President Barack Obama said Thursday the Supreme Court is "moving the ball" to limit affirmative action, but he stressed that its ruling in favor of white firefighters still allows employers and educators to take race into account in hiring, promotions and admissions. The president, a former constitutional law professor, avoided criticizing this week's 5-4 ruling even though it reversed a decision his own high court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, had endorsed as an appeals court judge (07/02/0)

NJ, Mediation OK to use for child custody
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Courier Post
The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that divorcing couples can choose to settle child custody issues outside of court through mediation. The unanimous decision expands on a 1997 ruling that lawyers acting as mediators can resolve disputes over alimony. But the court said Wednesday that couples must be made fully aware that agreements made through a [Ed.: a step in the correct direction.] (07/03/09)

Porn judge admonished
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Houston Chronicle
A high-ranking federal judge who made sexually explicit material available on his Web site was cleared with an admonishment Thursday by fellow judges. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California was "careless" and "judicially imprudent" in possessing the material and not safeguarding his files, the panel found. He also failed to fully correct the problem when it was discovered, the judges said. However, the panel found no need to discipline Kozinski because he recused himself from an obscenity trial underway when news broke last year about the explicit photos and videos available on the Web site alex.kozinski.com. (07/02/09)

Private attorneys to defend Prop 8 in CA constitution
Topic: Unspecified
Source: WorldNetDaily
Private organizations have been given permission by a federal judge in California to defend the state's voter-approved and court-endorsed Proposition 8, which embeds in the state constitution a definition of marriage limited to one man and one woman. The ruling comes from U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker in the Northern District for California, who pointedly observed in his decision that "although the responsibilities of the Attorney General of California contemplate that he shall enforce the state's laws in according with the constitutional limitations," he will not be doing so. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier said the state would not defend the constitutionality of Proposition 8 – which technically is part of the state constitution – against a federal lawsuit brought by homosexuals who want a state-issued marriage license. (07/03/09)

Congo, Prison rape victims
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Insitute for War and peace Reporting
Women victims of mass rape during an attempted escape from at a prison in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, have spoken to IWPR of the incident, which provoked concern from the United Nations and human rights campaigners. The UN mission in DRC, MONUC, said about 20 women were raped and held hostage and several people killed or wounded in the incident at Muzenze prison in the provincial capital Goma on the night of June 21. (07/01/09)

Persistent myths in feminist scholarship
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Author: Christina Hoff Summers
"Harder to kill than a vampire." That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors. (06/29/09)

Sgt. DeJohn still waiting for fairness from Temple
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: FIRE
This Saturday, Americans will celebrate the 233rd anniversary of our declaration of independence. With our nation presently fighting two wars abroad, this year's Independence Day reminds us again that the brave men and women of our armed forces make unimaginable sacrifices every day in defense of our constitutional freedoms. It's fitting, therefore, to inform Torch readers that this Sunday, Sergeant Christian DeJohn of Wyncote, Pennsylvania, will return to active duty for the Army. One day after the Fourth's fireworks, Christian will be heading out on active duty to the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, right smack in the middle of the Mojave Desert. When he arrives, Christian will be greeted by 100-degree heat, 100 pounds of gear and body armor, and several weeks of very intense desert training. But Christian is used to enduring hardships for the constitutional freedoms of both himself and others. (07/02/09)

40 years after Stonewall
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: The Atlantic
Author: Andrew Sullivan
Fort Worth cops raid a gay bar and put one customer in intensive care. Seven men were arrested. The police chief says that the violence of the cops was because - wait for it - the cops were hit on. This is simply incredible. Does anyone honestly believe that a bunch of cops entering a gay bar armed with plastic cuffs to check for drunkenness would be cruised and hit on by the customers? I mean: seriously. Only a pathological homophobe would think such a thing - and the police chief needs to withdraw this absurd statement, which is denied by all the eye-witnesses. (07/03/09)

A bare minimum of student privacy
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Reason
Author: Steve Chapman
Public schools are filled with eager, fresh-faced youngsters, and prisons contain many rough-looking adults with uninviting personalities. But put aside that difference and you find some important similarities between the two places—government-run facilities where individuals are held for a specific number of years without their consent, at the mercy of their custodians. For years, the Supreme Court has been doing its best to further blur the distinction by giving public-school officials the same powers as the warden of San Quentin. So it was a mild surprise last week to learn there are some abridgments of freedom and invasions of privacy inflicted on children that the justices will not tolerate. (07/02/09)

Political correctness lost New Haven case
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Journal Inquirer
Author: Chris Powell
Many people are trying to discern important precedent for civil rights and employment law in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the New Haven firefighters case. But the decision doesn't change the law much, if at all, and the decision seems to have come down mainly to a matter of whom the justices decided to believe. If members of a certain racial or ethnic group do poorly on an employment or promotional test, is the test necessarily discriminatory and a violation of federal civil rights law? Of course it isn't. The test could be fine and applicants from a certain racial or ethnic group could be generally unprepared. Federal civil rights law has never held that results alone determine the fairness of a test, and the law never has been construed that way by the courts. Rather, the law and the courts have required that employment and promotion tests be fair and relevant to the jobs involved. (07/02/09)

Ayn Rand at 100
Topic: Ayn Rand, Objectivism
Source: CEI
Author: Fred Smith
She called businessmen "America's persecuted minority." And today—as has been the case at least since the start of the Industrial Revolution—many businessmen and -women feel they are the victims of a special scorn directed at them not because they cheat or steal but, rather, because they grow wealthy through their own honest efforts by producing goods and services that they sell to willing customers. Politicians translate this disdain into higher taxes, regulations, and special criminal penalties on these producers. (07/01/09)

International child custody cases
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Huffington Post
International parental child abduction is not a new phenomenon, but its increasing frequency appears to be a by-product of globalization. The 1980 Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is clear in its objective and intent of providing a speedy and efficient process for returning abducted children to their habitual place of residence. Unfortunately, the treaty is filled with bureaucratic loopholes, which leave important standards open for interpretation by each signatory country. These loopholes are the driving force behind the lengthy, monetarily and emotionally costly battles that surround international child custody disputes. The United States should take the lead and establish international parental child abduction as a human rights crime in order to encourage other countries to recognize the seriousness of this crime and its affects upon children.