The Pink Choice - Maika Elan
Photographs of gay and lesbian couples in Vietnam
her website: http://www.maikaelan.com/index.php
more about The Pink Choice at http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/real-faces-real-people-real-love-in-vietnam/
A slender majority of Israelis support the creation of a separate Palestinian state, but do not have high hopes for a peace deal, a survey said on Friday.
The survey by daily Israel Hayom asked more than 800 Israelis “do you support or oppose the idea of two states for two peoples, i.e. the creation of a Palestinian state independent from Israel?”
Almost 54 percent said they favoured the idea, and 38 percent rejected it, with the rest refusing to answer.
The survey’s margin of error was 3.4 percentage points.
More than 54 percent of those surveyed, however, thought a peace deal with the Palestinians was impossible, the study said, and 55 percent did not consider Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas a “partner for peace.”
A question on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank almost split respondents down the middle, with 43.4 percent supporting it, and 43.5 percent in favour of a freeze on construction.
Three Israeli rightwing parties, including two that are expected to be part of the next government after a January 22 general election, are talking seriously about annexing all or part of the West Bank.
Seized by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, the West Bank is now home to hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers, as well as about 1.7 million Palestinians.
Polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud-Yisrael Beitenu coalition is poised to win the election, but a gradual erosion of support for the list might leave him less room to manoeuvre when it comes to forming his next government.
“American’s greatest mass hanging — the execution of 38 Sioux Indians — was personally ordered by the ‘Great Emancipator,’ President Abraham Lincoln.”
Largest mass hanging in United States history
38 Santee “Sioux” Indian men
Mankato, Minnesota, Dec. 16, 1862What brought about the hanging of 38 Sioux Indians in Minnesota December 1862 was the failure “again” of the U.S. Government to honor it’s treaties with Indian Nations. Indians were not given the money or food set forth to them for signing a treaty to turn over more than a million acres of their land and be forced to live on a reservation.
Indian agents keep the treaty money and food that was to go to the Indians, the food was sold to White settlers, food that was given to the Indians was spoiled and not fit for a dog to eat. Indian hunting parties went off the reservation land looking for food to feed their families, one hunting group took eggs from a White settlers land and the rest is history.
A war veteran who claims he was falsely arrested, beaten, and almost died due to neglect in an Oakland prison has launched legal action against the jail, claiming his pleas for help were ignored.
Kayvan Sabeghi, 33, was arrested during an Occupy rally in Oakland,California, in November last year. Video footage shows him being beaten with batons and he suffered a lacerated spleen which his attorney Dan Siegel says almost killed him after he was left without treatment for 18 hours in prison.
Siegel estimated damages in the case will be upwards of $1m but said his main aim was to change the practices at the jail. “The greater concern that he has is that there be some changes at the jail. It’s a big problem that the county has privatised health services in a public jail and that the company that’s doing it is more concerned about making money than providing quality care.”
A private company, Corizon, is hired by the prison authorities to take care of the medical needs of prisoners at Glenn Dyer. Corizon is named as one of the defendants in the suit, along with the county of Alameda, Sheriff Gregory Ahern and an officer at the county sheriff’s office.
On arrival at the prison Sabeghi told medical officers that he had been beaten by police and he offered to show them his injuries.
Corizon staff are accused of refusing to look at Sabeghi’s injuries.
The suit claims that his condition deteriorated and that despite showing severe distress and vomiting, Sabeghi did not receive treatment for 18 hours and was mocked by prison guards who dismissed his suffering as heroin withdrawal symptoms. It further claims that one officer filmed Sabeghi as he lay on the floor in agony and vomiting.
By the time his friends posted his bail, at 2pm the following day, he was so ill he could not lift himself from the concrete floor of his cell. Four hours later his friends came to the prison to get him out and an ambulance was called.
“There are a lot of people taken to jail who have substantial medical problems,” said Siegel. “There are a lot of people with drug and alcohol problems and they need to be adequately cared for … When you have guards who ridicule people with health problems, that’s a setup for failure. Maybe there are some who exaggerate their symptoms but I think they should all be checked out and if someone continues to complain, they should be given the benefit of the doubt. At least get a doctor.”
The suit further claims that a medical staffer did take Sabeghi’s blood pressure but reported, wrongly, that he was a diabetic and alcoholic and sought no further treatment for him.
Sorry, college students. President Obama hascutyour access toPell Grantsby 33%; he just forgot to mention it before Election Day.
During the recent campaign,President Obama claimed credit for increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, which provides college funds, free from repayment, to millions of students. However, an email sent out Tuesday to some Dallas college students is revealing a detail the President forgot to mention: the time a student can receive a Pell Grant has been cut, by as much as three years. With Pell Grants for the fall semester now dispersed, colleges are informing students of their options, bringing the cuts to light.
The email, sent out by the Dallas County Community College District, informed students of the changes to the Pell Grant program. It revealed that the number of semesters a student could receive a Pell Grant had been cut from 18 semesters down to 12. It is a detail likely unknown to most students; in fact, the cut in grants has gone largely unreported by the media.
The email states that the cut in eligibility was part of an education bill President Obama signed into law in 2011. “On December 23, 2011, President Obama signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012 (Public Law 112-74). This new federal law states that the amount of Federal Pell Grant funds a student may receive over his or her LIFETIME will be reduced to the duration of a student’s eligibility from 18 semesters (or its equivalent) to 12 semesters (or its equivalent). This new law applies to ALL Federal Pell Grant eligible students effective with the 2012-2013 award year beginning July 1, 2012. (DCL-GEN-12-01)”
The cut in grant eligibility has serious ramifications for non-traditional students. Part-time students who do not receive a full semester grant may lose out on funds if they do not earn an undergraduate degree within 12 semesters. Adults who go back to school, including retraining for a new career, will also have limited access to grants.
This is fucking bullshit.
and I present you your savior, liberals.
Anonymous named Todd’s alleged bully on Monday in a post on Pastebin.com. The accusers allege that the man who targeted Todd, made her flash him and then turned her life into a living nightmare is a 30-year-old from New Westminster, British Columbia. The post describes him as the man who “extorted amanda todd for pictures. This is the pedophile that social engineered Amanda Todd into supplying him nude pictures.”
Anonymous also revealed his address.
Vice magazine posted information that reportedly further links Todd to the alleged bully, including Google Map screenshots of his house, his Facebook profile, chat conversations and screenshots from a “jailbait” website account supposedly tied to the man.
Amanda Todd’s Alleged Bully Named By Anonymous After Teen’s Tragic Suicide
A youth-suicide epidemic is sweeping Indian country, with Native American teens and young adults killing themselves at more than triple the rate of other young Americans, according to federal government figures.
In pockets of the United States, suicide among Native American youth is 9 to 19 times as frequent as among other youths, and rising. From Arizona to Alaska, tribes are declaring states of emergency and setting up crisis-intervention teams.
…
The suicide risk factors for Native youth are well known and widely reported. In their homes and communities, many Native youngsters face extreme poverty, hunger, alcoholism, substance abuse and family violence. Diabetes rates are sky high, and untreated mental illnesses such as depression are common. Unemployment tops 80 percent on some reservations, so there are few jobs—even part-time or after-school ones. Bullying and peer pressure pile on more trauma during the vulnerable teen years.Native youngsters are particularly affected by community-wide grief stemming from the loss of land, language and more, researchers reported in 2011. As many as 20 percent of adolescents said they thought daily about certain sorrows—even more frequently than adults in some cases, the researchers found.
“Our kids hurt so much, they have to shut down the pain,” said Garreau, who is Lakota. “Many have decided they won’t live that long anyway, which in their minds excuses self-destructive behavior, like drinking—or suicide.”
A Canadian psychiatrist accused of human rights abuses in apartheid South Africa for subjecting gay soldiers and conscientious objectors to electric shock “cures”, will stand trial in Calgary on Wednesday for allegedly sexually abusing male patients.
Aubrey Levin, known in South Africa as “Dr Shock” for his use of electroshock therapy, is charged with sexual assaults on 10 patients, mostly prisoners assigned by the Canadian justice system for treatment. On Tuesday, a jury ruled he was fit to stand trial after the defence claimed Levin, 72, was suffering from the early stages of dementia.
Levin was arrested only after a male patient secretly filmed him making sexual advances. Earlier complaints by others were ignored by the authorities or not believed. His licence to practice has been suspended and the Alberta justice department has reviewed scores of criminal convictions in which the psychiatrist was a prosecution witness.
One of Levin’s patients told CTV two years ago he endured abuse because he was afraid to protest.
“I didn’t want him to write anything negative about me. So I pretty much kept quiet through the whole ordeal and the next time I came forward I was going to bring a tape recorder and record everything he was going to say, just to protect myself,” the man said.
After his arrest, about 30 other patients came forward to accuse Levin of sexual abuse.
Levin’s arrest raised questions in Canada as to how he was allowed to become a citizen and permitted to practice at the University of Calgary’s Medical School even after he was named by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for “gross human rights abuses” during the apartheid era.
Levin was a colonel in the South African military and chief psychiatrist at 1 Military hospital in Pretoria in the 1970s and 80s, where he was in charge of a unit where electric shocks were administered to “cure” gay white conscripts. Levin also oversaw the use of electroshocks and powerful drugs against conscientious objectors refusing to fight for the apartheid army in Angola or suppress dissent in the black townships, who were held against their will and classified as “disturbed”.
On September 9, I wrote that the Obama administration, based on statistics from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was nearing its millionth deportation. It seems I was only about three days off. According to Reuters, the administration hit that milestone on September 12. How does that compare with Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush? The answer, if you’ve been hearing Republicans accuse Obama of “backdoor amnesty” and holding the border hostage, may surprise you.
The Obama administration had deported about 1.06 million as of September 12, against 1.57 million in Bush’s two full presidential terms.
That’s right, Obama is on the verge of deporting more undocumented immigrants in a single term than Bush did his full eight years in office.
Despite the administration’s stated focus on unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, more than half of those deported had no criminal records, 54 percent to 46 percent. But that number doesn’t convey what percentage of removals categorized as criminal include serious or violent offenses as opposed to minor ones.
The theory behind Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) assertion earlier this week that women who are victims of “legitimate” rape would not get pregnant appears to be based on 1972 research that cites experiments done in Nazi concentration camps, a Missouri newspaper reported on Monday.
During an interview with KTVI over the weekend, Akin had claimed that women were not likely to get pregnant because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
This reasoning, based on 1972 article by a University of Minnesota Medical School assistant professor, has been used for decades by anti-abortion activists to argue that no exceptions to abortion bans are necessary, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In the article titled “The Indications for Induced Abortion: A Physician’s Perspective,” Dr. Fred Mecklenburg concluded that it “is extremely rare” for a rape to result in pregnancy.
Mecklenburg cited a number of factors for his theory, including that not all rapes resulted in “completed act of intercourse” and that it was “improbable” that a rape would occur within “the 1-2 days of the month in which the woman would be fertile.”
But it was Mecklenburg’s presumption that a traumatized rape victim “will not ovulate even if she is ‘scheduled’ to” that appeared to be the basis of Akin’s recent remarks.
To support his conclusion, Mecklenburg cited studies that were allegedly done at extermination camps in Nazi Germany.
Nazis reportedly tested the theory “by selecting women who were about to ovulate and sending them to the gas chambers, only to bring them back after their realistic mock-killing, to see what the effect this had on their ovulatory patterns. An extremely high percentage of these women did not ovulate,” the article said.
Mecklenburg also speculated that “frequent masturbation” was likely to make rapists infertile.
More recent research, however, has debunked the ideas in Mecklenburg’s article.
