Social Issues

CBC | The Harper government is throwing its weight behind a private member's bill that would give police the power to arrest anyone hiding their identity during a riot or unlawful assembly.  Conservative backbencher Blake Richards is proposing penalties of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000 for protesters who wear a mask or disguise.

Raw Story | Web wanderers are more likely to get a computer virus by visiting a religious website than by peering at porn, according to a study released on Tuesday.  “Drive-by attacks” in which hackers booby-trap legitimate websites with malicious code continue to be a bane, the US-based anti-virus vendor Symantec said in its Internet Security Threat Report.

Geek Logie | This is 21-going-on-6-year-old Valeria Lukyanova (links to her Ukranian Facebook-y thing with LITERALLY 10,000 more photos of Little Ms. Vain). Valeria always dreamed of being a real life Barbie doll. And now, after numerous surgeries, she's finally realized her dream AND CAN HOPEFULLY MOVE ON TO ACTUALLY DREAMING ABOUT SOMETHING WORTHWHILE. Wow, of all the dreams in the world to come true of course it's squandered on the girl who wants to look like Barbie and not everybody hoping for a cure for cancer. "That little bitch." *pointing* That girl said it, not me!

Patheos | A couple of months ago, Summit High School in Spring Hill, Tennessee held a “Fictional Character Day” in which students could come to school dressed as their favorite fictional character. Like the Mad Hatter. Or Darth Vader. Or SpongeBob SquarePants.

11 Points | In all the Titanic 100th anniversary press I spotted a statistic that approximately one out of three people actually survived the wreck. And while that does mean about 1,500 people died... it's still a pretty strong survival rate for one of the most famous disasters ever. I guess there were plenty of people who DID decide to share their giant floating doors that had more than enough room for two.

Mega 949 | Randy Cox was reportedly diagnosed with seminoma earlier this year. That’s typically a type of testicular cancer, but in Cox’s case it’s non-testicular and tumors appeared in his chest and elsewhere in his body, colleagues say. The condition is treatable with chemotherapy.

Spiderplantland | Some people have raised the issue of why there is no real uproar on social media sites about the conviction today of  Sir_Olly_C, the tweeter who has been jailed for using the ‘C’ word at councillors on Bexley Council.

Irish Central | Rabbi Arthur Waskow, the well known Rabbi who is founder and director of New York's Shalom Center, has this week condemned what he calls the Catholic Church's 'outrageous attempt to impose sharia law on the US government and the American public.'

Nine MSN | Video has emerged of rapper The Game urging an unwilling female fan to show her breasts at a show in Adelaide before his friends grope her and eventually push her off stage.  The footage, which follows another clip of the US rapper spitting at a group of women on the Gold Coast, has led anti-violence groups to condemn his behaviour during his Australian tour in February.

Reuters | "Mexico will release codices, artifacts and significant documents with evidence of Mayan and extraterrestrial contact, and all of their information will be corroborated by archaeologists," said Julia-Levy, son of actor Raul Julia.

Daily Mail | Christians who argue they should be exempt from equalities legislation are no different from Muslims who want to impose sharia law in Britain, a human rights chief has declared.  Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, said religious rules should end 'at the door of the temple' and give way to the 'public law' laid down by Parliament.

Yahoo Voices | Canadian Web programmer Saeed Malekpour faces impending execution in Iran, confirms the Iranian media. This is after a high court reinstated his death sentence for allegedly moderating a pornographic website.

Salon | There’s this lawmaker out of Kansas, Rep. Peter DeGraaf, who has a lot to say about abortion. He’s currently best known for saying that women should plan ahead in case of rape and not expect their regular insurance to cover an abortion after an assault. And I could spend a lot of time discussing the flaws in his logic, or even hashing out when life begins, but what I’m really concerned about is the idea that anyone besides a pregnant woman should have a say in what she does with her body after finding out she’s pregnant.

Alternet | Working at the Drug Policy Alliance for the last twelve years I have read and heard countless stories of people having their lives ruined because of our country's cruel war on drugs. Last weekend, the nationally syndicated show This American Life highlighted a story that is so insane, you don't know whether to laugh or puke.

Grits for Breakfast | A few years back Grits posed the question, "Is babysitting while white reasonable suspicion for police questioning?" after my granddaughter and I were detained and questioned at length in my neighborhood on suspicion of some nefarious deed (it was never quite clear what).

MSNBC | Some 200 Catholic priests suspected of sexual abuse are living undetected in communities across California, according to an attorney who represents hundreds of plaintiffs who sued the LA Archdiocese alleging molestation they say was inflicted on them by priests and clergy of the church.

Front Page Mag | In 1938, Hitler began fulfilling his plan to create a racial German empire, one that also was put into place by “phases.” Just as the Middle East regimes today claim that their hostility to Israel results from the maltreatment of the Palestinians, who have been dispossessed of their homeland by an oppressive invader, Hitler justified his aggression against Czechoslovakia as in fact the liberation of his fellow Germans from an alien government oppressing them and violating their rights.

Richmond Times Dispatch | The state Senate on Thursday approved the "conscience clause" bill that allows state-funded private adoption agencies to deny placement services to children and prospective parents who don't share their beliefs.

Alternet | The results of a five-year study of the Millennial Generation—people born between 1982 and 1993—are in. Thanks to the Barna Group, a 28-year-old, California-based, Christian research firm, we now know that conservative evangelical churches are losing formerly–affiliated “young creatives:” Actors, artists, biologists, designers, mathematicians, medical students, musicians, and writers.

New York TImes | Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to the controversy over a breast cancer advocacy group that cut off most of its grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screening, said Thursday that he would make up a large part of the missing money.

Torrent Freak | A few moments ago Sweden’s Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running Pirate Bay criminal trial. This means that the previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström will stand.

Yahoo News | Gingrich opened up the possibility of the moon becoming the 51st state, something he believes could happen once a permanent settlement reaches a population of 13,000 Americans. While a 1967 United Nations document says that no one country can claim sovereignty over the moon, the U.S., Russia, and China failed to sign a more recent U.N. treaty to settle the question of who owns the moon.

The Diplomat | Among them is Indonesia, which has enhanced its reputation over recent years through its improved handling of human rights, but has raised more than eyebrows when police arrested a 31-year-old atheist for blasphemy.

New York Times | SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

Treehugger.com | For decades, the lush Amazon rainforest in Brazil has served as the backdrop to escalating tensions between an indigenous population which calls the region home, and illegal loggers dead-set on exploiting its natural wealth -- though the worst of the resulting atrocities may be at hand. According to a representative from the Guajajara community in northeastern Brazil, a group of illegal loggers recently captured a young indian girl from a neighboring uncontacted tribe and burned her to death.

El Pais | Cardinal Archbishop Antonio Rouco Varela used an open-air gathering in Madrid's Plaza Colón on Friday to attack the policies of the previous Socialist Party government, calling for a repeal of legislation that provides for abortion on demand, as well as same-sex marriage.

Ranker.com | One of the most iconic television shows of all time, as well as one of the most quoted properties in pop culture history, The Simpsons has made hundreds of jokes that we all know, remember and reference on a daily basis. Often times, these jokes revolve around extremely absurd concepts that could only happen in a cartoon or a satire -- according to the writers at the time. Sometimes, these jokes underestimate just how low humanity (and often, America) can go.

CoEd Magazine | You’ve probably seen those “Above The Influence” anti-drug commercials in which they show worst scenario outcomes to people smoking weed. Really depressing sh*t. They always make the person out to be an accidental murderer, or homeless, jobless, friendless. No prospects of anything positive on the horizon. Well, we have a list of the smartest people who ever admitted to smoking pot as a nice complement to the most successful people who owned up to puffin’ dope. Suck it, ATI.

Global Post | If American, Europeans and others stopped buying the drugs, the vast black-market for the trade wouldn't exist. The drug traffickers wouldn't be able to charge huge profits, and they wouldn't be able to afford the massive weaponry and build the network of informants, enforcers, dealers and mules that allow them to sustain their production and distribution supply chain.

BBC | The Red List, drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), has declared the subspecies extinct.  A subspecies of white rhino in central Africa is also listed as possibly extinct, the organisation says.

The Intel Hub | Two dozen men and women from Occupy Vancouver and the Occupy the Vatican movement, most of them aboriginal, faced assaults and a human blockade from members of the Catholic Knights of Columbus yesterday outside Holy Rosary Cathedral, while trying to peacefully occupy it and enforce a legal eviction order against the Roman Catholic church for its murder of thousands of residential school children.

Amarillo Globe-News | An Amarillo man has been sentenced to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of copyright infringement, according to court records.  A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced Richard Kevin Gilbert, who confessed to selling pirated DVDs at his home, and ordered him to pay a $2,400 fine, the court’s judgement said.

Think Progress | Texas is now joining over 15 states that have introduced bills to guard against the non-existent threat of Islamic Sharia law. In proposing legislation to ban state courts from considering foreign religious or cultural laws like Sharia, Texas state Rep. Leo Berman (R) — the bill sponsor — said, “We want to prevent it from ever happening in Texas.”

Ian Visits | Just before midnight on the 9th September 1940, sailors up on deck of the cargo sailing ship, Seven Seas were watching an air raid by German bombers over the Charing Cross railway bridge when an explosion hit the river and a large wave struck the ship. A few moments later, a large fountain erupted out of the River Thames that lasted for about half a minute before dying away.

The Independant | They appear to have ended up in the line of fire in 2006, not long after the broadcast of "Trapped in the Closet", a highly controversial episode of the adult cartoon, which attempted to mock the Church's science fiction-based theology. According to an internal memorandum, Scientology's Office of Special Affairs mounted an investigation into Parker and Stone's circle of close friends, seeking "viable strings that can be pulled" to either discredit the duo, or to persuade them to refrain from satirising the Church in future.

The Guardian | In December 2010 three of the world's biggest payment providers, Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, cut off funding to WikiLeaks. Ten months later, Julian Assange has announced the whistleblowing site will suspend operations until the blockade is lifted – and warned WikiLeaks does not have the money to continue into 2012 at current levels of funding.

Salon.com | Brazilians have long accepted such malfeasance as the necessary cost of doing business, be it in commerce or public service. Every year, the country loses up to $47.4 billion to undeclared tax revenue, vanished public money and other casualties of widespread corruption, according to an August survey by the Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo.

The Examiner | According to Rev. Kevin Annett, Secretary of the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (www.itccs.org), the Mohawk Institute was “set up by the Anglican Church of England in 1832 to imprison and destroy generations of Mohawk children. This very first Indian [First Nations] residential school in Canada lasted until 1970, and, like in most residential schools, more than half of the children imprisoned there never returned. Many of them are buried all around the school.”

Feature length (95 minute) documentary following the building of a golf resort by Donald Trump on a unique stretch of natural wilderness in Scotland.

Slashdot | Today a court Belgium overruled an earlier judgment and ordered an ISP to block The Pirate Bay. The type of block to be used by the ISP is a simple DNS filter, which is similar to ones used before in Denmark.

MSNBC | The parents of 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer, who was found dead at their home on Sept. 18, indicated in an exclusive interview with TODAY’s Ann Curry on Tuesday that their daughter endured further taunts at a school function immediately after Jamey’s wake. At a homecoming dance she attended shortly after her brother’s death, a potentially poignant moment turned ugly after a song by Lady Gaga, Jamey’s favorite artist, who recently dedicated a song at a concert in his memory.

Science Direct | When and how infants begin to discriminate noxious from innocuous stimuli is a fundamental question in neuroscience. However, little is known about the development of the necessary cortical somatosensory functional prerequisites in the intact human brain. Recent studies of developing brain networks have emphasized the importance of transient spontaneous and evoked neuronal bursting activity in the formation of functional circuits and. These neuronal bursts are present during development and precede the onset of sensory functions and.

Cafety | GAO recently testified before the Committee regarding allegations of death and abuse at residential programs for troubled teens. Recent reports indicate that vulnerable children are being abused in other settings. For example, one report on the use of restraints and seclusions in schools documented cases where students were pinned to the floor for hours at a time, handcuffed, locked in closets, and subjected to other acts of violence

A survivor sent his story to me. I want to preface this by saying isolation is one of the worst forms of torture; even the strongest soldiers start to go insane after just 30 days of isolation. They numbered the kids at Heritage, like Provo Canyon School, he was #12. Having your name taken away must be incredibly dehumanizing.

I ran away from home when I was 15. My father had just died and my mother was going through a midlife, batshit crazy crisis involving a boyfriend in prison for double homicide, a man she actually forced me to develop a relationship with, going so far as to bring me to the jail to visit him. At one point the man alluded to mafia contacts he could call to “take care of me” if I were to give my mother any more trouble. Doesn’t get much more charming than threatening a teenager with gang violence.

On May 10th of 2007 at around 2:30 in the morning two strangers barged into my bedroom. I started screaming and crying, as in my mind I was sure that these two strangers had broken into my house and were going to abduct me, rape me, kill me, or in some way harm me. They immediately told me that if I did not shut up that they would handcuff me.

In May of 1993 I was sent to a girls home called Cross Creek Manor (CCM) in southern Utah where I lived for four and a half months. This facility is owned and operated by a notorious umbrella organization called World Wide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP). While attending I was physically attacked, suffocated, tormented, and put in isolation on a regular basis for three day periods at a time.

From March 23rd, 2004 until July 29th, 2004, I was 'enrolled at Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs Residential Treatment Facility Tranquility Bay in Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, and from July 30th, 2004 until December 18th, 2005 I was 'enrolled' at Cross Creek Academy in La Verkin, Utah.

Anti-War | “It’s a dangerous time to be dark-skinned in Tripoli,” noted HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Director Sarah Leah Whitson, urging the rebels to stop arresting people unless they have concrete evidence of wrongdoing.  This seems unlikely, however, as the rebels have made it all but official policy to arrest anyone blacker than usual since they took over Tripoli, rounding up African migrants en masse and accusing them of all being “mercenaries” for the Gadhafi regime.