Free Republic

Plenty of people rightly mocked the news a few years ago that the Associated Press was working on a plan to "DRM the news." The idea was to put some sort of licensing mechanism together to get news aggregators to pay to promote their news. This seemed incredibly dumb for a whole host of reasons. It added no value. Its only purpose was to limit the value for everyone in the system by putting a tollbooth where none needed to exist. When it finally launched last year to great fanfare in the newspaper world, under the name "NewsRight," we pointed...

One of the most disgusting serial killers in American history is standing trial in Philadelphia at the moment – and, since it’s happening in the US, where reporting restrictions are light, the media are free to discuss his case. Only they haven’t – at least, not until recently, and even when the crimes are reported, they haven’t merited many headlines. Which is horrifying, when you consider what the killer is accused of. I’m going to leave out the nastiest details – but, seriously, if you don’t want to feel sick to your stomach, look away now.

PHILADELPHIA — Take five or 10 minutes, the professor said, and write down things that you love, like, need or enjoy. Now pair up with someone you don’t know and spend 20 minutes introducing yourself. Talk about whatever you want. But don’t mention anything that you wrote down. Try going on for a half-hour without a word about the most important things in life. Imagine a full day. “It might be difficult,” said instructor Robin Brennan. “That’s what this course is about. That is just a glimpse of what it is like for somebody who is LGBT” — lesbian, gay,...

... In 1930, when he was 12, my dad was caught in bed with another boy at his New England prep school and sent home. My enraged grandfather hired a psychologist to straighten him out. The psychologist proclaimed that my grandmother’s extravagant love of her eldest child, and my grandfather’s harsh discipline, were responsible for Dad’s sexual confusion. He pronounced the cure: that my father leave home. ... So at the age of 12, he was exiled by his family to board at schools and summer camps and spent the rest of his life on the run. After my mother...

Some 40,000 workers at more than 250 New England supermarkets approved new collective bargaining agreements this month in an uneasy embrace by their union of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, also known as Obamacare. The contracts between the regional Stop & Shop grocery chain and five separate locals of the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) union were ratified in rank-and-file votes held March 10—but only after tortured contract talks that centered on the impact of Obamacare on low-income shelf stockers, check-out clerks and other part-time workers, UFCW leaders say. In the end, despite what the union sees as...

A recent story in Slate looked inside the community of “gaybros” on Reddit.com, a group of masculine-identified gay men who feel that they’ve been somewhat estranged from the wider LGBT community because of their masculinity. Columnist Bryan Lowder met with the gay bros, learning about their typical interests – sports, video games, grilling, the military, and so forth – and exploring the difficulties they’ve sometimes faced in relating to other gay men and dealing with cultural stereotypes of what it means to be a gay man. ... But here’s the thing: I don’t have that option. You get to walk...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PJpa8GGVw0

Leave it to the UN technocrats to define “torture” down. Elsewhere, I write about a new report by the special rapporteur on torture, the Argentine human rights activist Juan E. Méndez, to the General Assembly that seeks to define torture in the healthcare context. And guess what? Laws outlawing abortion are viewed as torture. From my piece: [The report] brands with that extreme term not only medical actions and omissions that clearly are not torture as most people understand it, but also national policies disfavored by the international ruling class. Thus, “The Committee against Torture has repeatedly expressed concerns about...

The United Auto Workers has won the backing of the head of an influential German union in its effort to represent the hourly workers at Volkswagen AG's Chattanooga, Tenn., assembly plant. “In Chattanooga, you need union representation” to negotiate working conditions, IG Metall President Berthold Huber said in a letter distributed in early March to the plant's 2,350 hourly employees. A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters. “We strongly recommend that the eligible employees at Volkswagen, Chattanooga, decide that the UAW should represent them,” he added. Huber's letter is another positive sign for the UAW. Last week, Horst...

The UN peace force in the Democratic Republic of Congo has issued an ultimatum to two units within the army over allegations of mass rape. Unless swift legal action was taken against the accused soldiers before the end of March, the UN said it would stop working with their brigades. In December, it said it had evidence of at least 126 rapes carried out by soldiers fleeing a rebel offensive. Armed groups in eastern DR Congo often use rape as a weapon of war. The region's mineral riches have been plundered by numerous groups and countries over the past two...

<p>The Associated Press on Thursday updated its stylebook so that married individuals will be referred to as husband and wife, regardless of whether they are in a same-sex marriage. The change comes a week after the AP received criticism for an internal memo designating the word "partners" for individuals in same-sex marriages.</p>

There are people on both sides of the gun debate who make good points. And then there are people who have absolutely no clue. In that latter camp we might include Senator Lamar Alexander, who thinks that, when it comes to people getting shot to death, "video games are a bigger problem than guns." We might also include at least some of the 495-plus people who have shared a picture of me on Facebook and tried to make me a poster child for all that is wrong with people who like guns. These people—some of them confused, some of them...

Former climate change alarmist Dr James Lovelock, famous for popularising the "Gaia" metaphor, continues his journey back to rationality. Lovelock is objecting to a "medium sized" (240ft high) erection planned for his neighbourhood in North Devon by infamous windfarm operator Ecotricity. The UK currently has 3,000 onshore turbines and 6,000 are planned: this is the main reason why electricity bills are soaring out of control in order to pay for the inefficient, highly expensive windmills. Lovelock calls the runaway windmill building "industrial vandalism". In an objection to the planning application made to Tiverton council, Lovelock points out that one nuclear...

In the four decades since Roe v. Wade, states have enacted hundreds of provisions restricting access to abortion services—the majority of which were legislated in 2011 and 2012. In many cases, these provisions, such as mandatory wait times, make it more difficult for women seeking abortions, and in other cases have caused clinics to close. The most recent abortion-provider census data assembled by the Guttmacher Institute dates back to 2008, and found about 850 clinics. The Daily Beast gathered its own data and called more than 750 clinics, to confirm their locations and the number of weeks of pregnancy through...

A transgender woman named Elizabeth Tremblay, who deserted the Marines 31 years ago when she was Pvt. Donald Tremblay, learned today she will get a discharge "with honorable conditions." ... I've posted video up top of the interview Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal reporter Daryn Slover conducted with Tremblay before she learned she would get her honorable discharge.

More than a thousand Catholic priests have signed the letter to The Daily Telegraph arguing that the Government's gay marriage plans will "severely restrict the ability of Catholics to teach the truth about marriage in their schools" and rejecting promised safeguards as "meaningless". I'll be honest: when I read the news story about the letter, I thought: gosh, a thousand conservative/traditionalist priests are standing up to be counted. But that just goes to show the folly of assuming that the Catholic Church is as factional as the Church of England. Because when I worked my way down the names, I...

Britain's most persecuted minority have found a new advocate. An article this morning in the Guardian by feature writer Jon Henley addresses misconceptions about paedophiles, quoting one "expert" who believes that: "It is the quality of the relationship that matters". No, this is not not some sick send-up on my part. "If there's no bullying, no coercion, no abuse of power," says Tom O'Carroll, "if the child enters into the relationship voluntarily … the evidence shows there need be no harm." O'Carroll is a former chairman of the Paedophile Information Exchange with a conviction for distributing indecent photographs. The Guardian...

BOSTON (JTA) -- At the 2009 General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington, 50 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews and their allies gathered in a small room on the ninth floor of the conference hotel. The event was not part of the official GA program, and the room was in the hinterlands of the hotel, hidden from the public eye. It reminded me of photos of 1950s gay bars, underground dives with no signs or windows. At the biggest annual gathering of Jews in the world, it felt like LGBT Jews were still stuck in...

ORANJESTAD, Aruba — A speck of an island in the Dutch Caribbean has become increasingly popular with gay couples after legislators legalized same-sex marriages in a region still openly hostile to gays and lesbians. Two men were recently married in Saba, marking the first ceremony of its kind in the region and setting off a frenzy of calls from gay couples in other Dutch Caribbean islands seeking to marry, said Julietta Woods with Saba’s Civil Registry office.”People keep calling me every second,” she said by telephone this week. As part of the Netherlands Kingdom, the islands of Saba, Bonaire and...

For the last century all fully-qualified submarine officers have been men. But that all changed when two women were honored with their Navy dolphin pins. The ceremony on Wednesday at Naval Base Kitsap was a graduation day of sorts with crowds, caps, and uniforms. From a cluster of colleagues, two female crew members of the USS Maine ballistic missile submarine were called front and center for a designation that made them qualified submariners. The two junior lieutenants were among the first three women in the submarine force's 112-year history to get their dolphins. "This is the mark where your command...

Attorneys for sex offenders who claim they’re too poor to register have filed a separate case against the city of Chicago on behalf of homeless sex offenders who say they can’t register because they don’t have permanent addresses. Douglas M. Montgomery, a plaintiff in the new case filed Thursday, says in the lawsuit he’s been in the Cook County Jail since July 2011 when he was arrested for urinating in public. He’s awaiting trial on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender. Montgomery, 57, said he was living under a bridge in January 2011 and police refused...

I’ve usually avoided talking about the trial of Private Bradley Manning, given that I’ve been directly involved with this situation before and I probably will be in the future. But I feel that certain recent developments in the case deserve to be addressed. ... As part of this phase of the trial, the court heard the testimony of Master Sgt. Craig Blenis, who acted as Manning’s counselor during his detainment at Quantico. According to reporters covering the hearing, Blenis stated that Manning had sent two letters from the brig using the name “Breanna”, and he considered this a reason to...

Avoiding sequestration remains a critical policy goal for Congress. Doing so is important for all Americans, including gay and transgender Americans and their families. As this report details, many federal programs, both directly and indirectly, function to support and serve the gay and transgender population. If across-the-board budget cuts go into effect, this population will experience a host of negative outcomes, including the following: Sequestration would hurt gay and transgender workers and threaten their employment security because federal agencies would have fewer resources to investigate claims of employment discrimination. Sequestration would compromise gay and transgender health by reducing programmatic funding...

Military policy prohibits HIV-positive service members from being stationed outside the United States. But on Aug. 13 the Pentagon quietly released a revision to the Department of the Navy policy, which now allows HIV-positive Sailors to be stationed at U.S. military installations outside of the country and on select large ship platforms. The policy change, listed under Secretary of the Navy Instruction (SECNAVINST) 5300.30E, is intended to “reflect current knowledge” of HIV and marks the biggest change in military HIV policy since the late 1980s when mass testing for HIV went into effect. Though the update removes logistical barriers to...

... While some researchers have suggested that fetuses yawn, others have disagreed and claim it is simple mouth opening. But the new research clearly distinguished 'yawning' from 'non-yawn mouth opening' based on the duration of mouth opening. The researchers did this by using the 4D video footage to closely examine all events where a mouth stretch occurred in the fetus. Using their newly developed criteria, the research team found that over half of the mouth openings observed in the study were classed as yawns. The study was carried out on eight female and seven male fetuses from 24 to 36...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

Sonia Sotomayor and Abby

YouTube video featuring "real" women. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcc0EMPcfhg

Anti-gay parenting activists in Marseille were left irked on Wednesday after two women trumped their protest against same-sex parenting with a lesbian kiss, which was captured by a photographer and promptly went viral. A demonstration against same-sex parenting was interrupted Wednesday by its very target, when two women interrupted the event by sharing a kiss. The “Un papa une maman" ("one dad one mum") demonstration featured a performer sporting a spandex suit and wings, fluttering between “mamas” and “papas” before gaining steam from the cheers of both. The performance was supposed to demonstrate that a child needs both a mother...

... But I had private communications, too, from people who encountered the “libertarian” Left during those years. “In the late Sixties and early Seventies, I worked at a school operated by the Inner London Education Authority,” wrote a retired schoolteacher. “The teachers there were almost all Marxists or, as they would have said, Maoists. They were supporting an initiative to lower or abolish the age of consent, which they said was just a way for the upper classes to keep the working classes in their place. According to them, children were sexual beings who had a right to express their...

... Since Dabney and Amy Rice spent hours talking on their first date at Hamburger Mary’s in 2003, the two New Jersey transplants had moved from the District to the suburbs, bought a home, saved for fertility treatments and shared in the awe of childbirth. But when they left a delivery room in Montgomery County last year, after Rice had given birth to twin boys, they quickly fell into the legal bog of every lesbian couple with a child in Maryland. Because Rice was the one to give birth, she was, in the eyes of the state at least, the...

He’s being treated for bipolar disorder — a mental illness that can bring depression, mania, risky behavior and delusions. He’s had a highly publicized relationship with a “social acquaintance” that rocked his marriage. His name is repeatedly linked to disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Now he’s the target of a federal investigation into “suspicious activity” into his congressional finances. What does all this mean for Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s political future when the Nov. 6 election is a little more than three weeks away? “He’s going to be re-elected,” political consultant Thom Serafin said. “In this particular part of the...

This fall, Tatjana Plitt, an artist from Australia, is working to document these gay and lesbian service members, who for the first time can publicly express their love and commitment to their husbands, wives, or partners. She's touring much of the East coast from September through December to photograph same-sex military couples, and eventually, she'd like to include a collection of the photos in art galleries or a photo book.

Three powerful unions representing Ontario teachers and education workers declared war Tuesday against the governing Liberals after a controversial anti-strike bill passed in the legislature. The two biggest unions representing elementary and secondary school teachers are urging their members to withdraw from any voluntary activities as a show of protest of what they're calling "draconian" legislation. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation is telling its members not to do any voluntary activities — such as coaching sports teams — on Wednesday. The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) is urging its members not to participate in "any school-based or system...

... What they find, however, is still a little different from the big four of New York, London, Milan and Paris. A film made by Vice, as part of its Fashion Week Internationale series, goes behind the scenes of the hype. Host Charlet Duboc finds transgender models as a matter of course, tensions around race and a disconnect between the lean catwalk silhouette and the curvy body type fetishised in the baile funk scene....

The Canadian Auto Workers union is turning up the pressure in contract talks with the Detroit Three auto makers, saying it is prepared to go on strike against all of them at the same time if no deal is reached by the Sept. 17 deadline. “The corporations are refusing to add any costs whatsoever – instead they insist on cutting costs from our existing agreements,” the CAW said in a leaflet distributed Wednesday at Canadian plants operated by Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. “None of the three companies have demonstrated that they are serious about...

Police investigators in Lincoln, Neb., have not ruled out the possibility that a 33-year-old lesbian allegedly attacked last weekend because of her sexual orientation might have staged the hate crime. But they’re also not ready to call her story, which has ignited interest across the country, a complete fabrication. Chief Jim Peschong told the Lincoln Journal Star that investigators, aided by the FBI, continue to search for suspects in the case but remain uncertain whether the attack even took place. The woman, whom Nebraska gay advocates have dubbed “Rainbow Jane,” told police that three men wearing masks stormed into her...

It’s completely understandable that many people would explain being trans in this way: as an inborn characteristic, not a matter of choice, and a cause of perpetual suffering that can only be alleviated by transitioning. For plenty of us, this really is the case, and the claim that we had no choice in this is a strong rebuttal to the people who believe we’re only trans so that we can rape people in restrooms, confuse everyone’s children and destroy the fabric of society. It’s a way of making it clear that this is a real condition, in a world that...

The image: JCPenney is charging into the debate over gay rights — again — with a Father's Day ad featuring a same-sex couple laughing and playing with their children. (See the full ad below.) ... It features real-life dads Todd Koch and Cooper Smith with their kids, Clair and Mason. The text reads: "What makes Dad so cool? He's the swim coach, tent maker, best friend, bike fixer and hug giver — all rolled into one. Or two." ...

The phrase "One nation under God" has been officially part of the Pledge of Allegiance since 1954. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Addition_of_.22under_God.22 ... The phrase "under God" was incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance June 14, 1954, by a Joint Resolution of Congress amending §7 of the Flag Code enacted in 1942 ... And we haven't won a single war since then. Think about it.

While the right to privacy may have been the key to securing abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, some advocates of the controversial procedure today want to walk around with a sign, t-shirt to be exact, broadcasting their reproductive decisions. In 2004, abortion advocate and author Jennifer Baumgardner launched the “I Had an Abortion” project to encourage women and men to “come out” about their procedures. The campaign featured shirts that read “I Had an Abortion,” a book, photo exhibit, and documentary film featuring 10 women – including feminist Gloria Steinem – describe their abortion experiences spanning seven decades. In...

Short video at link

The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda. Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s...

More peer-reviewed science contradicting the warming-alarmist "scientific consensus" was announced yesterday, as a new study shows that the well-documented warm period which took place in medieval times was not limited to Europe, or the northern hemisphere: it reached all the way to Antarctica. The research involved the development of a new means of assessing past temperatures, to add to existing methods such as tree ring analysis and ice cores. In this study, scientists analysed samples of a crystal called ikaite, which forms in cold waters. “Ikaite is an icy version of limestone,” explains earth-sciences prof Zunli Lu. “The crystals are...

(Reuters) - Three Occupy Oakland protesters accused of surrounding and taunting a woman before stealing her wallet were charged on Friday with robbery and hate crimes, authorities said. Michael Davis, 32, Nneka Crawford, 23, and Randolph Wilkins, 24, confronted the woman on the streets of Oakland in February after she told them not to riot in her neighborhood, the Oakland Police said in a written release. "She was surrounded by three protestors and battered as they yelled vulgar epithets regarding their perception of her sexual orientation," Oakland Police spokeswoman Johnna Watson said. The female victim was not identified except as...

... The new CBA, released Tuesday, added the words “sexual orientation” to its section on discrimination. This development was first reported by the Daily News, and later confirmed by a news release, issued jointly by MLB and the Players’ Association, that read, “Non-discrimination based on sexual orientation were added to Article XV.” Article XV, Section A of MLB’s expiring Basic Agreement, in effect from 2006-2011, states: “The provisions of this Agreement shall be applied to all Players covered by this Agreement without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” In the new agreement, the words “sexual orientation” were added...

OAKLAND (CBS SF) — The Occupy Oakland encampment recently broken up outside City Hall was the setting for a gay pornography video apparently shot on site. New York-based Dirty Boy Video set their latest flick, “Occupy My Throat,” at the encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza, using footage of the protests in their B-roll before going X-rated.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2011) — A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies -- and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007. Authors of the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation's Paleoclimate Program and published online this week in the journal Science, say that global warming is real and that increases in atmospheric CO2 will have multiple serious impacts. However, the most Draconian projections of temperature...

Mike Wallace - "The Homosexuals" (1967)You Tube

The College is considering adding language to its application for admission that would allow prospective students to self-identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 told The Crimson. “We want to send a positive signal to students who are grappling with the issue of [sexual orientation] or gender identity,” Fitzsimmons said. “I think this campus is really welcoming to all students and that’s the signal we want to send.” Fitzsimmons said identification as LGBT would not act as a positive “tip” in the application process, unlike other factors like place of...