Shut Up, Sit Down

“Paying for sex with prostitutes who are controlled by pimps is set to become a criminal offence, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is expected to announce.

She will also say that people who knowingly pay illegally trafficked women for sex could face rape charges.

Ms Smith is to promise that more kerb-crawlers will be prosecuted and police will get powers to close brothels.

Buying or selling sex is legal but many prostitution-related activities, such as soliciting and pimping, are not.”

Arzigul Tursun, six months pregnant with her third child, is under guard in a hospital in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, scheduled to undergo an abortion against her will because authorities say she is entitled to only two children.

[...]“Arzigul is being kept in bed number three,” a nurse in the women’s section at Gulja’s Water Gate Hospital said in a telephone interview. “We will give an injection first. Then she will experience abdominal pain, and the baby will come out by itself. But we haven’t given her any injection yet—we are waiting for instructions from the doctors.”

[...]“When she fled the village to avoid abortion, police and Party officials, and the family planning committee officials, all came and interrogated us,” said [Nurmemet Tohtasin, Tursun's husband]. “The deputy chief of the village, a Chinese woman named Wei Yenhua, threatened that if we didn’t find Arzigul and bring her to the village, she would confiscate our land and all our property.”

"Women who become mothers as teenagers or in their early 20s are more likely to suffer depression during pregnancy, a study said. Children born to women who became mothers between the ages of 16 to 22 are also more likely to have emotional problems and a lower than average IQ. This is particularly true if the mother was depressed during pregnancy, or smoked when carrying the child or did not breastfeed, the research found."

I've had depression since well before I fell pregnant, and only breastfed him for a couple of weeks. I was 19 when he was born. I don't believe he has emotional problems, and he certainly doesn't have 'a lower than average IQ'.

However, I do agree that young mothers are more likely to suffer depression - not just depression during pregnancy but post-natal depression as well. Many people don't realise that post-natal depression can last for years. The lack of support and the stigma surrounding young parents makes these statistics sadly believable.

The Austrian father who allegedly imprisoned and abused his daughter for 24 years has been charged with murdering one of their seven children.

Austrian prosecutors say the charges against Joseph Fritzl carry a prison sentence of 10 years to life.

Mr Fritzl is also charged with slavery and rape. If found guilty, he faces 20 years in jail on those charges.

The gap between men and women's pay in the UK has started to widen again, according to official government figures just released.

On average, men earn £15.54 an hour, compared with £12.88 for women.

The Office for National Statistics calculates the gender pay gap at 17.1%, up from 17% the year before.

The TUC said the private sector gap was 21.7%, because many private firms were unwilling to carry out checks of their pay patterns to ensure they were fair.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "The link between fair pay and checking pay systems is clear. The case for mandatory pay audits is stronger than ever."

The figures showed that a typical man's gross weekly pay was £631, compared with £485 for a woman. Men also worked more overtime and earned higher commissions and bonuses.

The GMB union said the UK had fallen 20 places behind in an international gender pay league.

"This is a montage of images from hyperventilating stories about Salma Hayek “Still”! Breastfeeding! At! 13! Months!

The world has burst into a babblefest of gossip about how bizarre this is. There has been an outpouring of shock and disdain, complete with accusations of perversity and child sexual abuse. Here’s a sampling of the buzz.

…Why are the presses stopped? Because Salma Hayek’s breasts are public property, that’s why."

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"I am probably rehashing a discussion that has probably occurred since the Bond films came into existence. But I am relatively new to the scene and have only been recently offended by the series. The only thing that keeps me watching is the hope that something unformulaic will occur. Maybe one day there will be a strong female lead who doesn’t succumb to the “charms of Bond.”"

"I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967. … If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay."

"The EU has dumped legislation dictating beauty standards for fruit and veg.

This is terrific because:

A) It’s arrogant, wasteful and petulant to refuse to eat perfectly nutritious food because it ‘looks funny’. Think of the hungry children.

B) Maybe the idea that conformity to an arbitrary standard isn’t the be-all and end-all will eventually spread up the food chain.

I live in hope."

"Now, I’ve recently been seeing commercials for KY Yours & Mine, and was curious enough to read the package. The “Yours” is supposed to be “for him” and the “Mine” is supposed to be “for her,” so I will now refer to them as “his” and “hers.”We’re going to leave aside for now the obviously problematic nature of assuming all sex takes place between “him” and “her.”

Get this: his has sweeteners - honey and sucralose (which is Splenda!) - while hers has “fragrance.” Seriously. Hers does not have sweeteners, and his does not have “fragrance.”

Now, I suppose it’s possible that the other ingredients in his just taste terrible and need some help, and the other ingredients in hers smell bad and also need a boost. The message I’m going to walk away with, though, because I think it’s more likely, is that his (and only his) body is for tasting while hers is naturally stinky.

Harumph."

Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has spelled out his views on gay marriage on the eve of the election.

The White House front-runner said in an interview with MTV he did not support same-sex weddings and believed "marriage is between a man and a woman".

"These dolls look like girls. Not babies or late adolescents, but girls. And the business was started by a Western Australian woman, Helen Schofield.

The characters have actual hobbies that don’t involve conspicuous consumption or beauty rituals. Amy plays sports, Belle snorkels at the beach, Jasmine is a muso, and Emily loves animals and is rocking her hiking boots. None of them are “sassy” or “foxy” or “hot”."

"All that said — my glorious status as mother of two boys acknowledged with gratitude and love — I can’t help sometimes thinking that I sure do have to deal with a lot of penis these days. Remember Mr. Brown in Reservoir Dogs? “I’m talking morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.” Diaper changes, baths, getting dressed: it’s a veritable Vienna sausage party around here. SO MUCH TINY PENIS, ALL THE TIME WITH THE PENIS."

"I refuse to carry any national ID card that is based around a national database and would rather go to prison than submit to this attack on my privacy and security. They will have to get my biometric data* by force and I will shred any ID card of this type that I am sent."

"I wrote in the previous post, echoing a commentator from last night, that Americans just elected president a man whose parents' marriage would have been illegal 40 years ago.

Upon hearing that California's anti-gay marriage amendment passed, I guess they will say the same of my sons, if either of them runs for president."

"It does however seem a pile of pants to say anyone can become President. Of course they can’t. You still have to be, as Obama is, connected to the right people. And having a penis doesn’t hinder you of course. And you need a spouse and children to parade for the cameras. And you need to believe in the (Christian) God."