Roman Polanski’s attorney said he has already been punished enough by serving 42 days in prison back in 1978. You know, after he gave drugs to and raped a 13-year-old girl? Forty-two days! Polanski is currently in jail in Switzerland and may be in prison for up to two years if he’s sent back to the U.S. for a trial. [L.A. Times]
Lady buffaloes in California are being put on birth control because they’re screwing like bunnies. Sorry, folks, I just thought slutty buffaloes would make you giggle on a Friday afternoon. [L.A. Times]
Conan O’Brien is the subject of pissy Tweets by plus-sized actresses Kirstie Alley and Star Jones after cracking jokes about Alley’s size. Example? A recent earthquake drill in California might have just been a response to Alley jazzercising. [New York Daily News]—Ah, fat jokes: the province of lazy comedians. Maybe he could mix up his repertoire and do ugly jokes, too? And for her part, maybe Alley could practice what she preaches and stop drawing so much attention to her own weight.
An analysis by George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services found that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to Obama’s health care reform bill would “produce industry-wide effects, leading to the elimination of health plan coverage for nearly all medically indicated abortions.” The GW study arrived at this conclusion after examining how “the health benefits services industry adjusts its products over time to conform to the regulatory environment in which it operates.” [George Washington University Medical Center]
Poor women in developing countries will be most negatively affected by global warming, according to a new report by the United Nations Population Fund. Weather-related natural disasters are likely to affect how they get their food, water and energy. [BBC]
Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook, was arrested by military police and contained at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, after she refused deployment to Afghanistan by not showing up for her flight. Hutchinson, a 21-year-old single mother, said she hasn’t been able to find care for her 10-month-old son, Kamani, while she is gone, explaining that her mother is overwhelmed by caring for three sick relatives. Hutchinson’s attorney said one of her superiors told her Kamani would be placed in foster care if Hutchinson couldn’t find care during her deployment. A spokesperson for Hunter Army Airfield said he does not know what Hutchinson was told by her superior, but she wouldn’t be deployed unless she could find Kamani care. Hutchinson’s mother ended up flying from California to Georgia to pick up Kamani anyway, since her daughter could face charges from the Army for going AWOL. [AP]
One month before late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered by an anti-choice extremist, the FBI in Kansas City received an anonymous letter warning them that Scott Roeder posed a physical threat to abortion providers. The FBI said they didn’t heed the letter as a credible threat, apparently because the letter writer was involved in a custody battle with Roeder. [The Wichita Eagle]
Tony Alamo, a 75-year-old evangelist preacher, has been sentenced to 175 years in prison for taking underage girls as “child brides” and molesting them. Alamo apparently threatened the girls with “the loss of their salvation.” [NY Daily News]
Some pregnant women are forgoing the H1N1 vaccine, saying they are more comfortable with holistic approaches, like acupuncture, yoga and “obsessive hand washing,” to fend off the swine flu. [Chicago Tribune]
An 18-year-old female student at Loyola University recanted an allegation made this morning that she was sexually assaulted after drinking with three men in her dorm room last night. Police said she was being evaluated at a local hospital. [ChicagoBreakingNews.com]—I wonder if she was copycatting the young woman who lied about a gang rape at Hofstra.
“Pleasure is in your own hands” is the new pro-masturbation slogan used by a sex ed program in the Extremadura region of Spain. The campaign has upset some Catholics in the country, despite having received funding from local youth and women’s affairs ministries. [Guardian UK]
The federal government released a report on Tuesday which found that DNA evidence culled from “rape kits,” which are performed when a victim visits an emergency room or doctor’s office after a rape, are often never sent to crime labs. A CBS news investigation found that when raped kids are not tested for months or even years, the rapists are walking free and continuing to commit crimes. [CBS News]
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman5:40PM, Wednesday November 11th 2009Filed in:
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Cynthia Stewart, a 17-year-old junior in Alabama, event planner on the prom committee and out lesbian, allegedly asked her high school principal if she could bring her girlfriend as her date and was told no. When Stewart’s aunt/guardian appealed the principal’s decision to the school board, they let it stand. Happy prom, kids! [Feministing]
For the first time ever, the Mormon church has announced support for gay rights legislation by speaking up for Salt Lake City laws which would ban discrimination against gays in housing and employment. The church still says it doesn’t support gay marriage, though. [CBSNews.com]
In this video clip, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) speaks out against the health care reform bill’s Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which limits how private insurance companies can offer coverage for abortion. More conservatively inclined Democrats voted for the House of Representative’s version of the health care bill this past Saturday night only after the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was included. The video is a little snoozy at first, but 45 seconds in, Sen. Gillibrand gets to the good stuff about why Stupak-Pitts isn’t good for our reproductive rights. [YouTube]
Speaking of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has said today that the Senate has the 60 votes needed to block the controversial bill when it makes its way to there. Let’s hope so. [Huffington Post]
The city of Richmond, California, is struggling to deal with the horrific gang rape of a 15-year-old girl, which allegedly had up to 20 witnesses, outside a homecoming dance. For some in Richmond, this means blaming the victim and criticizing the “snitches” who put seven of the alleged rapists in jail. [NY Times]
A study of 13,000 high school students found girls who play team sports are less likely to smoke, be depressed, and use marijuana. Unfortunately, it also says boys who play team sports are more likely to behave violently and binge drink. [ABC News]
Marilyn Manson has an extremely disturbing new video for his song “Running To The Edge of the World” where he murders a bikini-clad woman who looks like his ex, Evan Rachel Wood. I guess it wasn’t enough for Marilyn to tellSpin after their breakup, “I have fantasies every day about smashing her skull with a sledgehammer.” [You Tube]
Polish bikini model-slash-“Dancing With The Stars” contestant Joanna Krupa says posing for Playboy is feminist because so many women are involved in the photo shoot. I have to admit she’s got some good points in the interview. [Fox News]
The magazine Publisher’s Weekly compiled its annual list of the year’s best books and it has zero women on it. Zilch! WTF? Tell us the names of incredible books written by women in 2009 that you’ve read in the comments. [New York Times]
Meet Margarita Vargas, an 18-year-old girl and the one decent human being who thought to call the police when a 15-year-old girl was being gang-raped outside a high school homecoming dance in California while as many as 20 people watched. “I’m like ‘We should call the cops because that’s the right thing to do.’ I didn’t think about it twice,” Vargas said. “I think people are scared, especially in a community like this where ‘snitching’ is a big thing to people.” [CBS]
A dozen anti-abortion activists were arrested at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office in D.C., some for disorderly conduct and others for unlawful entry. Pelosi’s staff said the protesters were upset about the wording regarding abortion in Obama’s health care reform bill. [AP]
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman5:45PM, Wednesday November 04th 2009Filed in:
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Emma Thompson initially signed a petition calling for Roman Polanski’s freedom, but has she had a change of heart? A reader at the blog Shakesville may have convinced her to remove her name from his list of supporters. [Shakesville]
An Illinois judge has blocked the enforcement of the state’s controversial parental notification law, which mandates that a physician inform a parent or guardian if a minor age 17 or younger seeks an abortion. The law was blocked through a temporary restraining order by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. [Chicago Breaking News]
Illinois’ controversial parental notification law for minors seeking an abortion has been delayed at least until Wednesday morning as officials meet to verify that girls can waive the notification process by petitioning a judge, who has 48 hours to rule on it. The parental notification law does not give parents consent, but requires that they be notified. An exemption is made in the case of a medical emergency or if a girl puts it in writing that she was sexually abused. [Chicago Tribune]
Six women’s bodies were found at the home of Anthony Sowell, 50, of Cleveland, Ohio, when police arrested him on a rape and felony assault warrant last Thursday. Sowell already served 15 years in prison for a 1989 rape of a 21-year-old woman. Although the bodies have not yet been identified, at least two women who lived within several blocks of Sowell went missing over the summer. [CBS News]
Illinois’ parental notification law, which requires physicians to inform a parent or guardian when a girl under the age of 17 wants an abortion, will go into effect tomorrow. The parent or guardian will not be allowed to give consent, but he or she must be notified about the abortion. Girls can bypass notifying their parents by going before a judge, but the judge has 48 hours to rule. Parental notification also isn’t required in the case of a medical emergency or if the girl declares in writing that she is the victim of sexual abuse. [Chicago Tribune]
A judge upheld a restraining order on a new law which would’ve required details about Oklahoma women who’ve had an abortion to be posted online. Anti-choicers had hoped the law would go into effect on November 1. [Tulsa World]
Great post by Sadie at Jezebel about “Secret Keeper Girls,” a Christian organization for tween girls which, among other things cares about promoting modesty and purity in fashion. Sadie agrees that less-slutty clothes for young girls would make conservatives and feminists happy, but wishes Secret Keeper Girls wasn’t so gung-ho about sexual purity. [Jezebel]
A TV segment on WJLA Channel 7 in Washington about breast self-exams will feature two women fully exposing their naked boobies on late-afternoon and evening broadcasts. One of the women is a cancer survivor who said she hopes to help other women spot cancer before it spreads. [Washington Post]—Awesome! It’s about time we stopped treating a woman’s body as if its only purpose is to make boners happen.
The health care bill written up by the House of Representatives officially prohibits domestic violence as a “pre-existing condition.” [SEIU.org]—Great! Now, how about we legislate getting raped isn’t a “pre-existing condition,” either?
Bea Arthur, the “Golden Girls” star who passed away earlier this year, left $300,000 for a homeless shelter for LGBT youth. Thank you for being a friend, Bea! [PinkNews]
Iceland is the best place in the world for women, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index. The index ranked 134 countries based on women’s access to resources and opportunities like income parity, health care, paid maternity leave, and political empowerment. Iceland took Norway’s place this year as the best place in the world for women to live, while both the USA and the UK slid down the list. [Forbes]
Five people have been arrested in connection with the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a homecoming dance in Richmond, California, last week. So far all of the men arrested are under the age of 21, which is depressing. But what is even more horrifying is how police say possibly as many as 10 suspects took part in the gang rape while as many as 20 stood by and watched. [ABC News]
A 15-year-old girl was gang raped, beaten and robbed by as many as seven people after a homecoming dance at Richmond High School in Richmond, CA. Police say the girl left the dance and was invited by a friend to join a group drinking in a court yard near the school, where she consumed “a large amount of alcohol.” After being sexually assaulted, she was left semi-conscious near a picnic table and eventually found by someone who alerted the police. A 19-year-old and a 15-year-old have both been arrested, but cops say five others may have been involved. [MSNBC]—This incident would be sad enough if it hadn’t happened just last week at a school dance in the U.K., too.
A hopeful beauty queen for the Miss Plastic Hungary pageant (only for silicone-laden beauties!) fell over onstage and tore a ligament in her foot, allegedly under the weight of her new boobs. A friend told a newspaper, “She had not got used to the extra weight on top and her new hair extensions got in her eyes—she just lost her balance.” [News.com.au]
Pro-life extremists have taken to eBay to sell their “memorabilia”—a cookbook compiled by a woman in prison for abortion clinic bombings and arson, anyone?—to raise money for the defense of Scott Roeder, the man charged with murdering late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Other items include artwork by Roeder, an autographed bullhorn, and a pro-life manual by the extremist group, Army of God. EBay has not revealed whether it will allow November 1st auction to be held. [McClatchy]
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