PA Troopers raid popular bars for unlicensed beers
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Philly.com
More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location. The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board - a process that requires the brewers or their importers to pay a $75 registration fee for each product they want to sell in Pennsylvania. Based on a complaint from someone the State Police refuse to identify, three teams of officers converged last Thursday on the three bars. (03/08/10)

CA students protest Title X
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Sign On San Diego
Shock and frustration continued to flow among student-athletes yesterday at Point Loma Nazarene University, where about 100 marched in protest of the school’s recent decision to eliminate four sports programs. Some carried signs that said “Title IX sucks” and “Save our sports.” Others said federal gender equity regulations “backfired” on them and called it “reverse discrimination” against male sports. (03/06/10)

WI Police dept will not release abortion report
Topic: Abortion
Source: WKBT
A police department is standing by its decision not to make public a controversial intelligence report about abortion protesters. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security prepared the "threat assessment" and shared copies with the Middleton Police Department and the Wisconsin Department of Justice. DHS acknowledged the review was improper because it contained information about protesters who posed no threat to homeland security, and destroyed its copies. (03/09/10)

Stupak more optimistic abortion fight will end
Topic: Abortion
Source: FOX News
Prospects are good for resolving a dispute over abortion that has led some House Democrats to threaten to withhold support of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a key Michigan Democrat said Monday. Rep. Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for the procedure. "I'm more optimistic than I was a week ago," Stupak told The Associated Press. (03/09/10)

Vatican involved in gay prostitution?
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: CNN
One of Pope Benedict 's ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St Peter's Basilica have been implicated in a gay prostitution ring. A Nigerian man who sang in a Vatican choir arranged gay liaisons for an Italian government official who served in the unpaid role of papal usher, according to transcripts of wiretaps collected by Italian authorities. The wiretaps were gathered as part of an investigation into how public-works contracts were awarded. The purported conversations were between Angelo Balducci, who oversaw the Italian government's awarding of construction contracts -- including work on the airport at Perugia -- and Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 39-year-old Nigerian singer. They were recorded between April 14, 2008, and January 20, 2010. (03/05/10)

UK, 7 yrs old watch graphic sex film
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Associated Content
A British mother took her little girl out of school in March 2010 after seeing a sex education film the seven-year-old had been made to watch in class. The cartoon film showed a couple in a bedroom, naked and having sex. The young pupils were made to watch the Channel 4 sex education DVD, "Living and Growing", at their village primary school in Lincolnshire. After seeing the film herself, Lisa Bullivant removed her daughter from the school and placed her in another local primary school. Mrs Bullivant's complaint was that the cartoon was sexually explicit, very graphic and not suitable for children seven years old. Her daughter had been frightened by what she saw, she said, and children in the class had been trying to copy what teachers had shown them on film. [Ed.: teaching sex and sexual attitudes is not the bailiwick of bureaucrats and civil servants known as teachers. If an average person showed such a film to a 7-year-old, he or she would be arrested for child abuse.] (03/05/10)

Trial for fourth FLDS man starts Monday
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Salt Lake Tribune
The fourth criminal trial stemming from a 2008 investigation at a polygamous sect's ranch will begin Monday with attorneys picking jurors to hear the state's case against Merril Leroy Jessop. Jessop, 35, is charged with first-degree sexual assault based on allegations he conceived a child with a 16-year-old girl in 2006 at the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. Jessop, who allegedly has four wives, also is charged with first-degree bigamy but the trial will focus only on the sexual assault offense. So far, the state has sent three members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to prison for engaging in sex with minors to whom they had been spiritually married at the ranch. (03/08/10)

UK, New charges for johns
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: The Daily Mail
Kerb-crawlers can be arrested on their first offence under new laws designed to tackle the demand for prostitution, Home Office minister Alan Campbell has announced. And a poster campaign launched to coincide with International Women's Day will warn potential 'punters' of new criminal fines of up to £1,000 for having sex with a woman forced into prostitution against her will. Changes to the law coming into effect on April 1 will remove a requirement for police to establish that a man is 'persistently' kerb-crawling before arresting him. [Ed: the criminalization of johns is one way for the police department and government to raise money without raising taxes. And, given that all prostitutes are considered exploited, aren't all johns open to having this draconian fine levied against them? It is a way to criminalize prostitution itself while appearing sympathetic to the women.] (03/08/10)

Thousands protest abortion law in Spain
Topic: Abortion
Source: SIFY News
Thousands of people took to the streets in nearly 100 cities Sunday to protest against abortion and demand the nullification of the new law recently approved in Spain regulating voluntary interruption of pregnancy. The International March for Life 2010 was called by some 270 organisations with the aim of requesting the revocation of the law, which will go into force at the beginning of July and which sets 16 as the age of majority for a woman in deciding whether to end her pregnancy of up to 14 weeks. Under the slogan 'Spain Life Yes. In democracy one listens to the people', the largest demonstration was held in Madrid. [Ed.: Spain is interesting on the abortion issue largely because I view it as a bellwether for how other Catholic nations are likely to handle the issue.] (03/08/10)

TX GOP primary could reshape nations textbooks
Topic: Sexual Harassment
Source: Yahoo News
What millions of students read about science and history could hinge Tuesday on a Republican primary in Texas for several seats on the state board of education, a panel whose decisions affect the content of textbooks sold nationwide. Five of the eight seats on the ballot are Republican-held, setting up a unique battle within the GOP that in some races pits a bloc of Christian conservatives against challengers who believe the incumbents have pushed their pro-religious views too far. The elections are the first since the board tackled evolution curriculum in 2008. During that heated debate, which ultimately led lawmakers to oust McLeroy as chairman, the board decided Texas schools would no longer have to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. Teachers still would be encouraged to consider "all sides" of scientific theories. (03/02/10)

VA AG to colleges, End gay protections
Topic: Gay/Lesbian Issues
Source: Washington Post
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has urged the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school that their boards of visitors had no legal authority to adopt such statements. In his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January, Cuccinelli (R) wrote in the letter sent Thursday that only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees, students and others -- a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take as recently as this week. [Ed.: tax funding always muddies issues. Private schools like individuals have a right to discriminate based on a right of free association but, once the private status has been surrendered, how can you ban classes of people who have paid taxes from receiving the benefits of that money?] (03/06/10)

Gendercide in Asia
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
New technology combined with ancient prejudices are producing communities in Asia with thousands more men than women, it has emerged. Ultrasound scans which can detect the sex of babies have contributed to a massive rise in abortions of female foetuses in cultures which value males much more highly. In China and Northern India, more than 120 boys are now being born for every 100 girls - up from an imbalance of 108 boys to every 100 girls in the 1980s, according to statistics published in The Economist. These rates are biologically impossible without human intervention. [Ed.: a recession/depression will make male sons more valued because they can work the farm and otherwise take care of parents in old age.] (03/05/10)

Coerced sex not a gender issue?
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: ncr nl International
Have you ever forced anybody to commit a sexual act? is a difficult question to ask any youngster. But clinical psychologist Jan Hendriks and criminologist Anne-Marie Slotboom did just that. This week, the results of their research will be published in the Dutch scientific publication, Tijdschrift voor Seksuologie. Their findings are remarkable: one out of ten boys and one out of every twelve girls they interviewed have used sexual coercion at one point. Their acts varied from forcing a kiss or touching someone to involuntary genital intercourse or oral sex. The scientists also looked whether education and ethnicity, such as Moroccan, Turkish, Antillean or Dutch descent had any influence on such behaviour. (03/05/10)

EU to propose hiking womens pay
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Business Week
The EU will introduce new rules to equalize women's average pay with men's thrughout the 27-nation bloc, a top official said Friday. EU Fundamental Rights Commissioner Viviane Reding said she was "deeply concerned that the gender pay gap has barely fallen over the last 15 years." Women in the EU earn 82 cents for every euro1 that men bring in, according to a newly released study. [Ed.: they will merely increase unemployment and make businesses less profitable. The reason women are paid less and accept less have little to do with discrimination and much to do with preference...e.g. working less hours to spend time with the family.] (03/05/10)

What is wrong with exploiting nature?
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Rob Lyons
Michael Moore and Al Gore have a lot to answer for. They popularised the campaigning documentary, with films such as Roger and Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth, and now new docs are being pumped out faster than Saudi crude. And ‘crude’ is a decent summation of the ideas contained in most of them. The latest such film to reach our shores is Dirty Oil. Directed by Leslie Iwerks and narrated by Canadian actress Neve Campbell, the film takes us to the Canadian province of Alberta where oil companies have been piling in to take advantage of the huge amount of bitumen and oil mixed with sand. We are encouraged to fret about these monsters tearing up the landscape. I just thought how cool it would be to drive one. (03/08/10)

Jon Venables and the myth of public hysteria
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Brendan O'Neill
There is something galling about the cultural elite’s attacks on the British public for allegedly wanting to know more about why Jon Venables has been returned to prison. Because who was it who made Venables, and his fellow killer of James Bulger, Robert Thompson, into a public spectacle in the first place, dragging him into an adult court when he was 11 years old, allowing his name and photograph to be published, and describing him as being possessed of an ‘unparalleled evil and barbarity’? The elite itself, judges, politicians and the media – the same people who now brand the rest of us ‘ghouls who get their kicks by vicariously wallowing in this crime’. (03/08/10)

U.S. home births rise
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Reality Check
Author: Amie Newman
For women who choose to go through pregnancy and childbirth, the freedom to choose where and with whom to birth is not always immediately accessible. Before childbirth in hospitals became the norm, women birthed at home, under the care of a midwife. It wasn't until the 1950s that childbirth care shifted significantly from midwives and homebirth to physicians and hospital birth. However, birth for healthy mothers and their babies does not necessarily have to be medicalized. And because it was becoming increasingly clear that birth was drifting, quickly, from the hearts and hands of women to the more medicalized, economic model put forth by hospitals, women's health advocates interested in natural birth created a movement. (03/04/10)

Smearing Ayn Rand
Topic: Ayn Rand, Objectivism
Source: Classically Liberal
One of the aspects about Ayn Rand that I have learned to really appreciate is how the mere mention of her name unhinges some rather extreme ideologues—both on the Right and the Left. But I have to admit that those on the Left are more entertaining. Blinded by their faith in the omnipotent state, they attack all heretics with a zeal worthy of the extreme fundamentalist. And like Ann “the Screech” Coulter they typically resort to extreme vitriol and dishonesty to accomplish their goal. [Ed.: good analysis. The left is going almost literally insane about Rand.](03/07/10)

So he slept with your ex. Get over it
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Spiked
Author: Duleep Allirajah
When the John Terry love rat story broke in late January, I threatened to rip up my (admittedly non-existent) England supporters’ club card if Capello stripped Terry of the captaincy. Now I feel like ripping up my membership card because Bridge and Terry are behaving like a couple of big kids. Of course, I was never seriously going to cheer for Anyone But Ingerland just because Mr Capello appeared to be caving into the moralists. But my point still stands. The personal feud between Terry and Bridge should have remained just that: a private matter. Footballers ought to be professional enough to keep their emotions in check for the greater good of the team. The ensuing farce, played out theatrically in public, suggests that I may have overestimated the ability of England’s finest to keep a stiff upper lip. [Ed.: think Tiger Woods.] (03/05/10)

Why everyone laughs at Canada
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked
Author: Patrick West
To my mind, the image of the Nice Canadian is best debunked by another son of Montreal, the scientist Steven Pinker, who recalled in his 2002 book The Blank State: ‘At 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969 ... the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broke, and three million dollars of property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order.’ And I was led to believe this kind of thing only happens in ‘less refined’ countries such as Haiti and Chile. (03/05/10)