The picture says it all really.

A Christian Florida hate group used the picture on the left to describe a couple that was allowed to adopt a family member’s child they had been fostering. FFPC says it was a ‘mistake’.

More Here , Here and Here

(Via Feministing)
Students at John Carroll University in Ohio protested during a school basketball game over the school’s unwillingness to include sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination policy.

From a student statement on YouTube:

John Carroll’s mission is to create people for others. That means support, protection, love, and understanding for all people without regard to color, creed, sexual preference, gender, age, or other personal factors. That’s the goal of a Jesuit institution.

By not explicitly voicing its support of LGBTQ students, faculty, and alumni, John Carroll’s administration is breaking those unspoken bonds of trust that make JCU a community.

Despite support from the faculty union to include sexual orientation in the policy, the school’s administration is holding firm. JCU President Robert Niehoff issued a statement saying that the policy wouldn’t be changed because it goes against “traditional Catholic moral teaching.”

The nondiscrimination policy is the university’s promise to employees and faculty that the institution will not discriminate based on gender, religion or race. In his message earlier this week, Niehoff issued a lengthy explanation of his views that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people should be welcomed and respected at the university. He stopped short of recommending that the policy be changed, however, instead offering a “community standards statement” as a supplement to the policy.

For over a year a prison in Virginia segregated women they perceived as masculine or butch (those with short hair or ‘baggy clothes’), in order to separate them from their ‘girlfriends’. The Associated Press and civil rights advocates questioned the practice, with the warden stating that no such move was made, as that would be unconstitutional.

Trina O’Neal, left, and Casey Lynn Toney were two of the inmates placed in the so-called “Butch Wing” at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Va. “I have been gay all my life and never have I once felt as degraded, humiliated or questioned my own sexuality, the way I look, etc., until all of this happened,” stated O’Neal, 33. “Women sent to wing 5D — also called the “little boys wing,” “locker room wing,” and “studs wing” — told the AP they were verbally harassed by staff there, and taken to the cafeteria first or last to keep them separated from other inmates. Three guards confirmed the charges.”

Read more HERE & HERE

–Mr Kambaksh was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death last year for circulating an essay on women’s rights which questioned verses in the Koran.

It later emerged he was convicted by three mullahs, in secret, without access to a lawyer. The sentence was commuted to 20 years on appeal. At that appeal, in October, the key prosecution witness withdrew his testimony, claiming he had been forced to lie on pain of death. The prosecution then appealed to the Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. The defence appealed to quash his conviction altogether.–

From the Independent online:

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy in Afghanistan, has been told he will spend the next 20 years in jail after the country’s highest court ruled against him – without even hearing his defence.

The 23-year-old, brought to worldwide attention after an Independent campaign, was praying that Afghanistan’s top judges would quash his conviction for lack of evidence, or because he was tried in secret and convicted without a defence lawyer. Instead, almost 18 months after he was arrested for allegedly circulating an article about women’s rights, any hope of justice and due process evaporated amid gross irregularities, allegations of corruption and coercion at the Supreme Court. Justices issued their decision in secret, without letting Mr Kambaksh’s lawyer submit so much as a word in his defence.

(more…)

From the Union Librarian

More than 40 major British companies face legal action for allegedly buying secret personal data about thousands of workers they wanted to vet before employing them.

The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, will today publish a list of the companies he believes may have broken data protection laws, after an investigation by his office that was sparked by fears that many workers were being unfairly “blacklisted”.

Alan Ritchie, the general secretary of Ucatt, the construction union, said: “Ucatt members know from bitter experience of being refused work that blacklisting exists in construction.

“However, the extent of the practice and the fact that most of the major companies are involved in the practice is truly shocking. It is outrageous that construction workers have been barred from jobs simply for being trade unionists.”
See after the jump for the full press release   (more…)

Optimism? Belief in a broken system? I don’t recognize it, so it’s a bit off-putting.  I read this today and felt something shift in my head, like scooting a book over to fit more snugly to the next. Are things really going to change?

For more on this go Here but, if you’re anything like me, go Here and probably Here as well.

From the UK Times Online & BoingBoing

Of the 248 inmates inside the detention facility, 44 are refusing food — but 33 of those are receiving nutrition with tubes that are forced up their noses and into their stomachs. On election night, according to one official, news of Mr Obama’s win spread across the prison facility even though no inmates had access to television that evening, and chants of “Obama! Obama! Obama!” erupted throughout the complex.

Human rights groups claim the total number of hunger strikers is higher than officials say. Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, says that more than 70 men held at the US base in Cuba are refusing to eat. She cited reports from visiting lawyers.

According to one official, most inmates are now well informed about what is happening in the outside world through a combination of watching Arabic news programmes and meetings with civilian lawyers and the International Red Cross, who are allowed to visit the facility. Most are aware of Mr Obama’s pledge to close the prison, which received its first inmates seven years ago this week. Asked why so many were on hunger strike and why the number was increasing, an official said: “This is the seventh anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees, and a week today is the inauguration of a new president. Hunger striking is an acknowledged form of protest.”

Day three of the RNC and what has gone on during the convention is neither surprising or unusual, but intensely disappointing none-the-less. Perhaps saddest of all is the case of the St. Paul 8, a group of people who have been “arrested and charged with second-degree furtherance of terrorism, conspiracy to riot, conspiracy to commit civil disorder and conspiracy to damage property.” Those arrested include members of the RNC Welcoming Committee and are being held on$75,000 bail each. “If convicted, each faces up to five years in jail, a $10,000 fine, or both.” Items gathered in the search at the time of their detainment include gas masks, protective padding, homemade shields, locks and slingshots–sounds to me like they were trying to protect themselves.
You can read their press release here

You can donate to help here

For more info go here, here, here, and here 

I’ve been following this issue since the brouhaha that erupted after Verizon blocked NARAL (the national abortion rights action league) from allowing supporters to use SMS to subscribe to news alerts, stating that they often did not allow “unsavory” or “highly controversial”organizations to use this service. Now the FCC is getting close to making their decision on the legality of such a block– they are still accepting feedback from the public …

Read about it at Ars Technica

Or after the jump (more…)

From the BLF
“The Billboard Liberation Front today announced a major new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency. Focusing on billboards in the San Francisco area, this improvement action is designed to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants.”

 Just click on the photo to enlarge..