TUESDAY, New material on ifeminists front page
Topic: Individualist Feminism
Source: ifeminists
Two items have been added to the front page at the left hand side under the Ayn Rand category: McSweeney on Rand and Repudiating Whittaker Chambers. REMEMBER to scroll down the center newsfeed to access the Commentary Section that is updated daily. Enjoy!

Mexico reduces sadistic abortion punishment
Topic: Abortion
Source: AFP via Yahoo! News
Six women condemned to up to 29 years in prison for abortion will see their sentences reduced to eight years thanks to a reform in central Mexico, defense groups said Monday. The reform, which passed last week in Guanajuato state, still considers abortion an "infanticide," said Veronica Cruz, the head of a local women's group. [Ed.: 29 years for having a medical procedure on your own body! Is this what pro-lifers want for women in North America.] (06/09/10)

Lenny Bruce and his gay naval ruse
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: The Smoking Gun
After serving 30 months in the Navy and participating in four overseas invasions during World War II, comedian Lenny Bruce went to the sick bay on the U.S.S. Brooklyn in May 1945 to report that he was feeling a little gay. In a handwritten letter, Bruce stated that he was “normal in all aspects” when he came aboard the ship in late-1942. But the “fellows on board,” he claimed, gave him much “abnormal attention,” including “feeling my body” and “kissing me.” After 15 months overseas, Bruce became “attracted physically to a few of the fellows,” one of whom he “kissed a lot but committed no sex act although I had a strong desire to.” It was the “knowledge that it was a crime against society and the navy” that kept Bruce, 19 at the time, from committing homosexual acts, he wrote (31/08/10)

Wage gap, Women make more than men
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: Time
The fact that the average American working woman earns only about 8o% of what the average American working man earns has been something of a festering sore for at least half the population for several decades. And despite many programs and analyses and hand-wringing and badges and even some legislation, the figure hasn't budged much in the past five years. But now there's evidence that the ship may finally be turning around: according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. (01/09/10)

Russian gov. urges citizens to smoke, drink
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: CBS News
Times are tough all over, but one Russian government official thinks he has the perfect medicine to cure his country's economic ills - more smoking and drinking. "If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates," Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin said, according to the Interfax news agency. "People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," he said. (03/09/10)

Vatican, stoning in Iran adultery case brutal
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Breitbart
The Vatican raised the possibility Sunday of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery. In its first public statement on the case, which has attracted worldwide attention, the Vatican decried stoning as a particularly brutal form of capital punishment. Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Catholic church opposes the death penalty in general. It is unclear what chances any Vatican bid would have to persuade the Muslim nation to spare the woman's life. Brazil, which has friendly relations with Iran, was rebuffed when it offered her asylum. (05/09/10)

99 lashes for Iranian woman, stoning pending
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: FOX News
n Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is now facing a new punishment of 99 lashes because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her, the woman's son said Monday. There was no official confirmation of the new sentence. The son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, 22, said he did not know whether the new lashing sentence had been carried out yet, but heard about it from a prisoner who had recently left the Tabriz prison where his mother is being held. (06/09/10)

U.S. gov. protects its own on child porn?
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Upshot
A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department -- including some with the highest available security clearance -- who used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon investigated only a handful of the cases, Defense Department records show. [Ed: if the offfenders were not in the Dept of Defense would the gov. have investigated further?] 03/09/10)

Homeschooling surges in America
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WorldNetDaily
More and more parents are opting to educate their children at home. In fact, statistics show the number of homeschooled students in the U.S. has nearly doubled over the past 10 years, making learning at home the fastest growing form of education in country. "Homeschooling grew from 1.7 percent of the school age population in 1999 to 2.9 percent in 2007, a 74 percent relative increase over 8 years," states Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute. (06/09/10)

Botswana, Homeschoolers cited for violating U.N. mandate
Topic: Children and Family
Source: WorldNetDaily
An international organization that has fought pitched battles over parents' rights to educate their own children in Germany, Sweden and the United States, as well as lesser fights in a number of other countries, is taking on officialdom in Botswana after police there grilled homeschoolers, confiscated their teaching materials and ordered them to appear in court. (06/09/10)

La. officials suspend abortion clinics license
Topic: Abortion
Source: Boston Globe
Louisiana health officials suspended an abortion clinic's license Friday, the first time the state has used its new authority to shut down such a facility over health and safety concerns. The Louisiana health department ordered the Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport to immediately cease performing the procedures, saying an investigation found the clinic failed to ensure that a physician performed and documented a physical exam on each woman before a procedure. The clinic also failed to follow several procedures involving anesthesia, including not properly monitoring vital signs, the agency said. Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a law in June giving the health department the authority to shut down clinics. Before the law took effect, the clinics could continue to operate while appealing a license suspension. [Ed.: I have no idea if this is legitimate or a pro-life tactic.] (05/09/10)

MI, psychics and Fortune tellers being regulated
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Yahoo News
Starting this week, fortune tellers in Warren, Mich., must be fingerprinted and pay an annual fee of $150 - plus $10 for a police background check - to practice their craft. The new rules are among America's strictest on palmists, fortune readers and other psychics, part of a growing push to regulate a business that has never been taken, or overseen, very seriously. Regulating an industry that deems itself clairvoyant, has no standard education requirements and yet rakes in cash for revealing spiritual truths may itself be an act of faith. It also might make good economic sense: about 1 in 7 Americans consulted a psychic or fortune teller in 2009, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. That could be 30 million or more people. [Ed.: this is flat out money grab by local government.] (05/09/10)

Child marriage endemic in Yemen
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: Al Jazeera
Sally recently won a divorce from Nabil after her story made headline news in local media and became the focus of a national debate that has polarised Yemeni society. "I don't call it marriage, I call it rape," said Shada Nasser, a lawyer who has worked on several child marriage cases. Nojoud Ali al-Ahdal, who was herself raped and beaten by her 30-year-old husband when she was nine years old, was the first of only three Yemeni child brides to win a divorce. But the practice of child marriage affects millions in Yemen. The International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) found that just under half of all girls in Yemen are married before they are 18 - classified as underage by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Yemen is a signatory. With no legal minimum age for marriage, a study by Sanaa University found that in some of Yemen's regions half of all girls are married before the age of 15. (06/09/10)

Child-porn raids net computer owners as young as 15
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Australian
POLICE have seized 35 computers from owners as young as 15 in raids targeting people believed to have accessed child sexual abuse material. A joint operation between the South Australian and Australian Federal Police targeted computers that had accessed a particular website -- with origins in Queensland -- featuring child exploitation material. Seventeen raids were conducted as part of Operation Difficult across metropolitan Adelaide and some regional areas on the weekend, with more to come. So far, one person has been arrested and one reported but more charges are expected once analysis of the seized computers is carried out, starting today. [Ed.: the police are the ones committing child abuse. Even if the teens had downloaded the material rather than having it downloaded without their knowledge (e.g. by a virus), it is natural for children to be curious about a social issue that is constantly in the news.] (06/09/10)

Decent drinkers vs demon drinkers
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Tim Black
With news that the Scottish parliament finally looks set to introduce a minimum price for alcohol, it seems that the British political class’s war on booze is picking up pace. Of course, it’s not actually an attack on alcohol itself. After all, I’m sure many politicians, health advisers and policy experts enjoy a hefty Sauvignon Blanc sesh themselves. No, the real problem is the people who are doing the boozing; this is less a case of ‘demon drink’ than ‘demon drinkers’. The message of the booze-pricing debate is that, yes, people like us can drink appropriately and responsibly - it is them who cannot; the people who buy cheaper booze, the polo-shirted, short-skirted denizens of Booze Britain. Not that such masses-fearing snobbery would ever be stated quite so openly. Rather it takes the form of something else: minimum pricing. (06/09/10)

Sex ads linger on Craigslist
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Salon
A single question came to mind when I heard that Craigslist had taken down its "adult services" section on Saturday: Where will sex workers turn next? So far, the answer seems to be … Craigslist. At the start of the Labor Day weekend, the company replaced the front page link to the "adult services" section with a single word: "censored." It's a provocative response to mounting pressure from activists and 17 state attorneys general who argued that the site was enabling pimps and sex traffickers to exploit women and girls -- but it's unclear how much it will change. The "therapeutic services" section already appears to have absorbed a lot of the content you would have previously found in "adult services," although it is much more toned down. (06/09/10)

A licence to interfere in our everyday lives
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Josie Appleton
The Liberal-Conservative coalition government’s proposed licensing reforms were whisked out for a brief consultation in August, which comes to a close this Wednesday (8 September). The anodyne title of the consultation (‘Rebalancing the Licensing Act’) and the rhetoric of ‘empowering communities’ are little more than pretty wrapping: the content is sinister stuff. Far from empowering communities, the proposed changes would increase the power of local councils, the police and other authorities, who will be removed from necessary checks and balances. Far from rolling back New Labour’s hyper-regulatory regime, the proposed changes would roll it out much further and faster. (06/09/10)

Proving you are an adult turns you into a child
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Dolan Cummings
In the UK, it is now common practice for supermarkets and other licensed premises to ask for ID from anybody who looks like they might be under-21 or under-25, depending on the policy of the company in question. This is a response to government crackdowns on under-age drinking, and is backed up with threats of fines for bar staff and cashiers. The new coalition government proposes to increase the penalty for serving under-age drinkers to £20,000. A new report from the Manifesto Club, 28 ¾: How Constant Age Checks Are Infantilising Adults, shows that these policies have a significant downside, with thousands of adults in their twenties and thirties being hassled by constant ID checks. (06/09/10)

The ruling class
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Reason
Author: Jesse Walker
Few essays attracted as much attention from right-wing readers this summer as "America's Ruling Class—and the Perils of Revolution," an extended argument that an incestuous social set "rules uneasily over the majority of Americans." Written by Angelo Codevilla of the Claremont Institute and first published in The American Spectator, this very long article has now been expanded into a very brief book, called The Ruling Class....Unfortunately, the book's portrait of the ruling class is overly narrow with Codevilla contriving to exclude even a president from the ranks of the rulers. (The absent executive is Ronald Reagan, apparently on the grounds that he was mocked in the media and in a private comment attributed to his vice president. With such standards, you might as well subtract Bill Clinton from the ruling class too.) (02/09/10)

Good intentions gone bad
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Reason
Author: John Stossel
You own a business, maybe a restaurant. You've got a lot to worry about. You have to make sure the food is safe and tastes good, that the place is clean and appealing, that workers are friendly and paid according to a hundred Labor Department and IRS rules. On top of that, there are rules you might have no idea about. The bathroom sinks must be a specified height. So must the doorknobs and mirrors. You must have rails. And if these things aren't right—say, if your mirror is just one inch too high—you could be sued for thousands of dollars. And be careful. If you fail to let a customer bring a large snake, which he calls his "service animal," into your restaurant, you could be in trouble. All of this is because of the well-intentioned Americans With Disabilities Act, which President George H.W. Bush signed 20 years ago. (02/09/10)