Israeli Police Officer Beaten, Seriously Injured By Settlers

Angry settlers beat and seriously injured a female Israeli police officer Tuesday, police said, as she tried to enforce a government ban on new housing construction in Jewish West Bank settlements.

It was the most serious clash between settlers and authorities since the building restrictions were imposed last month. Settlers have vowed to defy the orders and have confronted government inspectors, scuffling with them.

Tuesday's incident went beyond the usual pushing and shoving.
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SAN JUAN, Texas — A south Texas couple put an aborted 7-month-old fetus in a gift box under a Christmas tree after they were unable to flush the remains down a toilet, authorities alleged Monday.

Ruby Lee Medina, 31, and Javier Gonzalez, 37, of Mission, have been charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Bond was set Monday at $20,000 each.

A woman who answered the telephone at the San Juan city jail Monday night said she could not say whether Medina or Gonzalez had retained an attorney.

San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said police found the fetus inside the woman's trailer home Thursday after getting an anonymous tip.

Autopsy results are pending, but Gonzalez said police believe the woman used pills to induce an abortion Thursday, then called an ambulance after she began bleeding and told doctors she didn't know where the fetus was.

The police chief said the couple tried to flush the fetus down the toilet, but that didn't work.

"Apparently they cleaned up the fetus and they placed it inside a gift box under the Christmas tree," the police chief said.

Source: AP & YouTube

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Heather Richard, 32, had suffered three miscarriages, and was told by the doctors that she couldn't have children.

So on Sunday, December 13th, the birth of a five pounds baby boy caught her by surprise, she was in pain and in the bathroom when; “It just fell out. I thought it was my intestines, so I’m freaking out,” adding that she thought she was going to die, “But then it’s a little boy.”

The baby was in the toilet but Heather was still in shock, and her teenage cousin who was there didn't know what to do. Fortunately, the two street crime unit officers who had just arrived on scene to arrest Richard for her alleged involvement in a pair of thief, came to their aid. Darrin Richard, 20, said a female officer, assisted by a male officer, pulled the boy out of the toilet, put him on the counter, cleaned off his face and began CPR.

In spite of a skull fracture (likely from when his head struck the toilet), the baby was in stable condition, and along with the mother (who was joined by her boyfriend at the hospital), would be released in a few days. Richard said the warrants had been taken care of, Police spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said that they were delaying her arrest in light of her having given birth, and that Richard was not considered a flight risk. The officer who had given CPR had also received a course of medications in case of bodily fluids contamination.

The family expressed gratitude to the police, the paramedics, and the hospital. Heather Richard said her baby would have died without the police officer's help; “Thank you, you saved my baby’s life."

Sources: Dec 15th: Cops save drowning toilet bowl baby - Canoe News, and Mom of baby rescued from toilet wanted for theft - CBC.

Edited to change all Richards to Richard

At first I was like yeah OK, that not fair, and then I read on and went, oh OK, headline is a little misleading.

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A BUSINESSMAN who fought off knife-wielding burglars who were threatening to kill his family has been jailed for 30 months in a British case that has reignited the debate on how far householders can go to protect themselves and their property.

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Connecticut Democrat calls for Joe Lieberman recall

A House Democrat from Connecticut said Tuesday that Sen. Joe Lieberman should be recalled from office over his opposition to the Senate health care bill.

"No individual should hold health care hostage, including Joe Lieberman, and I'll say it flat out, I think he ought to be recalled," Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told POLITICO.
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Durbin: Medicare Buy-In Is Out, Progressives Won't Defect

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters on Tuesday that he believes health care reform has the votes to pass the Senate before Christmas after Democrats removed a provision to expand Medicare coverage.

"It is my understanding that, at this point it is going to be changed and removed," Durbin said the proposal to allow people between 55 and 64 to buy Medicare. "I think we are very close. We are still working with a few senators who have not made a commitment and until those commitments and votes are made we are going to keep working... Ultimately, we will pass it before Christmas."
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Police Issue Teacher $175 Ticket For Disorderly Conduct

A Milwaukee teacher is charged with disorderly conduct after punishing a first-grader by cutting her hair.

Lamya Cammon is angry, confused, and scared by the incident last week in which the apparently frustrated teacher cut one of her braids off after she wouldn't stop playing with them in class.

Cammon, 7, sports a few dozen braids, but one is conspicuously absent.

"She told me to stop playing with it. Then cut it off and sent me back to my desk," Cammon said.

Cammon's a first-grader at Congress Elementary and said her teacher used a pair of classroom scissors to cut off one of the braids after she absent-mindedly kept playing with them.

"Tell me how you play with your hair. Show me what that means," 12 News reporter Nick Bohr said to Cammon.

"I wasn't playing with it that loud," Cammon said.

She said the teacher called her to the front of the room and cut it in front of the whole class.

"What did you do?" Bohr asked.

"I went to my desk and cried. And they was laughing," Cammon said. "She threw it away, and she said, 'Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma? ' And I said, 'That you cut off my hair,'" Cammon said.

Cammon's mother is furious. She went to the school and confronted the teacher.

"I said, 'Well, you know, you cut a lot of her hair off.' And she was like, 'Well, I do apologize.' She said, 'But I was frustrated,'" Cammon's mother, Helen Cunningham, said.

The Milwaukee Public Schools District said it is going through the disciplinary process with the teacher, who remains in class, although Cammon has been moved to a different classroom by the principal.

"The main thing is, from the heart of the principal, and me speaking for the district, we're very sorry that this happened," MPS spokeswoman Roseann St. Aubin said.

Cammon's mother said she appreciates the apology but said the district should seriously question whether the teacher should keep her job.

"Why would we want someone like that teaching our kids? We trust our kids once they go to school to be safe," Cunningham said.

Milwaukee police investigated the case and referred it to the district attorney for possible physical or mental abuse of a child charges.

When the district attorney's office decided not to file criminal charges, police this week issued the teacher a $175 ticket for disorderly conduct.

The Milwaukee Teachers Education Association can't talk about the incident, but said stress is not unusual.

"As budget constraints get tighter every year, the stress level and frustrations do increase," said the MTEA's Sid Hatch.

12 News called the teacher Friday night and went to her home for comment, but someone came to the door and said she did not want to talk.

Source.




Their/her defence? Stress. Seriously. STRESS.

Newsflash: 7 year old children are annoying. They play with their hair. They fiddle with pencils. They stare out the window half the day. They swing their feet. They tip on their chairs. THEY'RE SEVEN. THEY ARE ANNOYING. If you can't handle that, you have no business becoming a teacher.

Dear Friend of Marriage,

Earlier this afternoon, the DC City Council voted 11 to 2 in favor of same-sex marriage, sending the bill to Mayor Adrian Fenty who has promised to sign it.

The media would have you believe this fight is over.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I told the press a few minutes ago:

"The people of D.C. have a right, guaranteed by the charter, which is D.C.'s constitution, to vote to protect marriage. Politicians on the city council are acting as if they have the right through legislation to deprive citizens of D.C. of their core civil right to vote, but we will not let them get away with it."

"We have one message for David Catania and the rest of these politicians today: this fight is not over. We will go to Congress, we will go to the courts, we will fight for the people’s right to vote and we will win!"

( Moar NOM bs behind the cut )

An Odd Post-Crash Couple
Spurning Obama, McCain and Cantwell propose resurrecting Glass-Steagall to break up Wall Street.


John McCain lost the 2008 presidential election because of the financial crisis—at least that's what his chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, suggested. "We were three points ahead on Sept. 15 when the stock market crashed. And then the election was over," Schmidt said in a postmortem earlier this year. McCain was tarred with the regulatory failures of the Bush years, and it didn't help that he had been a longtime acolyte of the Senate's dean of deregulation, Phil Gramm, who once derided Americans as "a nation of whiners." McCain also seemed to have few new ideas of his own about how to address the financial panic.

More than a year after the election, the Arizona Republican is looking to repair that reputation by joining up with Democratic firebrand Maria Cantwell to propose something that will be anathema to both Wall Street and the Obama administration. According to two congressional sources, the two maverick senators want to reinstate Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that forced the separation of regular commercial banking from Wall Street investment banking. The senators' proposal echoes a failed amendment introduced in the House last week by Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York.

The Senate prospects for the success of the McCain-Cantwell bill—which the two plan to announce together on Wednesday morning—seem bleak at best. But McCain and Cantwell join a still small but not insignificant insurgency of chronic doubters, including former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who say not nearly enough is being done to change Wall Street and, in particular, to address the "too big to fail" problem. The issue is one of the few in Washington that can unite the left and right sides of the political spectrum. Democrats like Cantwell deplore Wall Street's outsize role in the real economy and its lobbying influence, and conservatives such as McCain are appalled at the way the market system has been undermined—some would say rigged—by the power of the big banks.

Bankers and regulators, Volcker said earlier this month, "have not come anywhere close to responding with necessary vigor" to the crisis. He wants to ban federally guaranteed commercial banks from risky trading in derivatives and other arcane instruments that could precipitate another huge bailout some day. That too is a proposal no one who currently controls the levers of power in Washington is considering. But among those who now support Volcker is Arthur Levitt Jr., the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "I tend to be in the Volcker camp in saying banks should either be investment banks or take deposits and make loans," Levitt told me in an interview this week.
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British Airways passengers face the prospect of holiday season chaos after cabin crew voted to strike for almost two weeks over Christmas and New Year in protest over cost-cutting measures introduced by the airline.

More than 12,500 BA employees, balloted by trade union Unite in November, voted by a 92.5 percent majority to walk out from December 22 for 12 days, Unite Deputy General Secretary Len McCluskey announced Monday.

In a statement to customers on its Web site, BA said it was reworking its flight schedules for the strike period and would announce them as quickly as possible. It said it would inform affected customers by e-mail or text message.

The strike ballot came after the airline introduced cost-cutting measures including a two-year pay freeze and reducing the numbers of cabin crew members on long-haul flights.

( Read more... )

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Lieberman: Liberal Enthusiasm Convinced Me To Oppose Medicare Buy-In

In an interview with the New York Times, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) revealed Tuesday that he decided to oppose a Medicare buy-in in part because liberals like Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) liked it too much.

[I]n the interview, Mr. Lieberman said that he grew apprehensive when a formal proposal began to take shape. [...]

And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.

"Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it's the beginning of a road to single-payer," Mr. Lieberman said. "Jacob Hacker, who's a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, 'This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.'"

Lieberman's comments go a long way toward validating the prevalent theory in progressive blogger circles -- that he, as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein put it, "seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals."
Washington Monthly blogger Steve Benen speculated just on Monday about what would have happened if liberals had expressed disappointment with the Medicare buy-in, rather than enthusiasm. "Would Lieberman -- who not only ran on a Medicare buy-in platform in 2000, but also signaled some preliminary support for the idea last week -- be willing to kill reform over the idea now?"
Lieberman had supported a Medicare buy-in as recently as three months ago.
Meanwhile, the fickle senator said he's closer to supporting reform, but still not there yet.
source

In a blow to the bill grinding through the Senate, Howard Dean bluntly called for the bill to be killed in a pre-recorded interview set to air later this afternoon, denouncing it as “the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate,” the reporter who conducted the interview tells me.

Dean said the removal of the Medicare buy-in made the bill not worth supporting, and urged Dem leaders to start over with the process of reconciliation in the interview, which is set to air at 5:50 PM today on Vermont Public Radio, political reporter Bob Kinzel confirms to me.
The gauntlet from Dean — whose voice on health care is well respsected among liberals — will energize those on the left who are mobilizing against the bill, and make it tougher for liberals to embrace the emerging proposal. In an excerpt Kinzel gave me, Dean says:

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

Kinzel added that Dean essentially said that if Democratic leaders cave into Joe Lieberman right now they’ll be left with a bill that’s not worth supporting.
Dean had previously endorsed the Medicare buy-in compromise without a public option, saying that the key question should be whether the bill contains enough “real reform” to be worthy of progressives’ support. Dean has apparently concluded that the “real reform” has been removed at Lieberman’s behest — which won’t make it easier for liberals to swallow the emerging compromise.
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The Washington City Council voted Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage in the nation's capital. The bill will be given to Mayor Adrian Fenty, who has expressed his support and vowed to sign the bill.

If the mayor signs it, Congress will have 30 days to intervene before it would take effect. It is considered unlikely that the Democratic majority on Capitol Hill will block the bill

Tuesday's second vote was needed to send the measure to Fenty. The council passed the bill in an 11-2 vote December 1.
If the measure becomes law, Washington will join Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Iowa in allowing legal same-sex marriages. A law legalizing gay marriage in New Hampshire takes affect January 1.

Lawmakers in Maine approved legalized same-sex marriages this year, but voters in the state last month passed a referendum to overturn the new law.

Last week, New York's state Senate defeated a bill that would legalize gay marriages. A similar bill stalled last week in New Jersey's state Senate.

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Officially ignoring recent allegations of sexism, Marvel Comics is nonetheless making 2010 their Year of Women with new Marvel Women branding and — announced today — a special series untouched by male hands, called Girl Comics. Yay?

We're torn about Girl Comics; on the one hand, a series written, drawn, lettered, colored, edited and all production work (proofreading, design, etc.) by women seems very... gimmicky, for want of a better way of putting it, and not unlike a token move that "proves" that women can work for Marvel too. But on the other, whatever cynicism we have is quickly dispelled by the quality of creators involved in the three issue series (many making their Marvel debut): Kathryn Immonen, Ann Nocenti, Trina Robbins, Louise Simonson, G. Willow Wilson, Amanda Conner, Jill Thompson, Colleen Coover, Molly Crabapple and Carla Speed McNeil all contribute, and io9 favorite Devin Grayson makes a long overdue return to comics in the series as well. Editor Jeanine Schaefer talked to Publisher's Weekly's The Beat blog about the project:

Although some creators have gravitated towards their favorite female super hero, it's not specifically focused on our female characters, and I'm not trying to generate content that I think will appeal to more women... I think the characters and the stories will draw in just as many men in as women, and will get people thinking that good comics aren't about the gender of the writer or artist, it's about where what you like to read intersects with what they like to create.

The series debuts in March, to coincide with Women's History Month (and She-Hulk's 30th anniversary).

Source.

Military Abortion Ban: Female Soldiers Not Protected by Constitution They Defend
By Kathryn Joyce
December 15, 2009

Unable to get an abortion during a tour of duty in Iraq a soldier is left with no option but to do it herself—a humiliating but not uncommon dilemma. Women in the military are forced to obtain a leave to get the care they need; but if they’re honest about why, they put their military career in jeopardy. If they’re not, they put their career in jeopardy.


“You hear these legends of coat hanger abortions,” a 26-year-old former Marine sergeant told me recently, “but there are no coat hangers in Iraq. I looked.” Amy (who prefers not to use her real name) was stationed in Fallujah as a military journalist two years ago when she discovered she was pregnant. As a female Marine, a distinct minority in the branch, Amy was fearful of going to her chain of command to explain her situation.

For military women, who lack all rights to medical privacy, facing an unplanned pregnancy is a daunting obstacle. Thanks to anti-abortion forces in Congress, military hospitals are banned from providing abortion services, except in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest (and for the latter two, only if the patient pays for the service herself). Amy says her options were “like being given a choice between swimming in a pond full of crocodiles or piranhas.”

( Read more... )

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Al Franken: Spars With GOP Leadership On Senate Floor, Accuses Thune Of Not Reading Health Bill (VIDEO)

Al Franken (D-Minn.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) were off the charts on Monday, at least by the Senate's typical debate standards.

In response to a speech by Thune, fourth in the Republican leadership, the freshman legislator honed in on claims made about benefits in the proposed health reform package.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts," said Franken. "Benefits kick in right away, and if you're going to hold up a chart that says when taxes kick in and when benefits kick in, you say '1,800 days,' you better include the benefits that do kick in right away."

Thune asked Franken to yield for a question, which led to a terse exchange.

"We gave the other side 30 minutes," chimed in Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). "Senator Thune wants to sort of monopolize our 30 minutes."

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts," Franken repeated after the back-and-forth. "The fact is benefits kick in on day one, and the large majority of benefits kick in on day one. And we shouldn't be standing up here with charts that say the exact opposite."

Later, while riffing with Brown, Franken added, "Senator Thune did say that none of the benefits started next year. He just, I guess, hasn't read the bill."

A woman who was given an anti-social behaviour order banning her from making loud noises during sex has admitted breaching the order.

Caroline and Steve Cartwright's love-making was described as "murder" and "unnatural" at Newcastle Crown Court.

Neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise.

Cartwright, 48, from Washington on Wearside, pleaded guilty to three counts of breaching the Asbo.

She will be sentenced on 18 January.

At an earlier hearing, next door neighbour Rachel O'Connor told the court she was frequently late for work because she overslept having been awake most of the night because of the noise.

She said: "The noise sounds like they are both in considerable pain. I cannot describe the noise. I have never ever heard anything like it."

In November, Cartwright appealed against a noise abatement notice imposed in 2007, as well as the subsequent Asbo, which banned the couple from "shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance".

Her bid was rejected by Recorder Jeremy Freedman, who said: "It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance.

"It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.

"It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night."

Sunderland City Council told the court they had recorded noise levels of up to 47 decibels using equipment installed at Cartwright's neighbour's house.

World Health Organisation guidelines state that 30 decibels is enough to cause sleep disturbance.

Source: BBC
Thank you Beeb for putting the thought of those two going at it in my head. While you're on can I please have something sharp to take out my mind's eye?

PARIS (Reuters) - A junior French minister has told young Muslims living in France they should dress properly, find a job and stop speaking slang.

Opposition politicians from the left denounced the comments by the minister for families, Nadine Morano, as racist.

The highly outspoken Morano, who is a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's inner circle, made the remarks on Monday evening in a small town in eastern France during a government-inspired debate on national identity.

"We are not putting young Muslims on trial. I respect their situation. What I want is for them to feel French because they are French," she said in a recording played on French radio.

"I want them to love France when they live here, to find work and not to speak in slang," she said, adding: "They shouldn't put their caps on back to front."

The comments tapped into stereotypical perceptions of youths from tough suburbs on the fringes of France's big cities, many of whom are from an immigrant background.

However, back-to-front caps, baggy trousers and a distinctive form of slang known as "verlan," once associated with those suburbs, have long since spread to high schools around the country and to youths of all backgrounds.

Anti-racism groups and Socialist politicians accused Morano of stoking racial tensions and said the government should abandon its series of highly controversial national identity debates before they provoked a violent backlash.

"This is a political operation designed to pit French people against each another and to create a war of culture and identity," said Socialist parliamentarian Arnaud Montebourg.

The human rights group SOS Racisme urged Prime Minister Francois Fillon to intervene and bring his cabinet to order.

Morano's office said the minister's words had been taken out of context.

Some five million Muslims live in France, the largest such community in Europe. Many of them are immigrants from former French colonies in North and West Africa.

Sarkozy's government has tightly linked the issues of immigration and integration and launched the national identity debate last month, playing on a theme that had served Sarkozy well during his successful 2007 election campaign.

Critics say the countrywide discussions will simply open a Pandora's box of prejudice and extremism.

Source