The FBI will broaden its definition of rape:
Home care workers will receive federal wage protections:FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed Wednesday that the agency would expand its definition of “rape,” which has not been updated since 1929.
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program currently defines rape as “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” Rape without force is not included.
The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage.The weed of crime bears bitter fruit:
Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.
Hours after the release of a Justice Department report that said that Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio fueled a culture of anti-Latino bias in his office, the Department of Homeland Security said it was kicking him out of an immigration enforcement program.
Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday the department is ending an agreement with the Maricopa County sheriff's office that allowed trained deputies to enforce immigration laws.
Nancy Northup, president and CEO of CRR, stated, "We intend to take every legal step necessary to hold the FDA and this administration accountable for its extraordinary actions to block women from safe, effective emergency contraception. It has been ten years of battling to bring emergency contraception out from behind the pharmacy counter. The FDA cannot simply continue moving the goal posts down the field for women's reproductive healthcare."LOLOL, as we say on the Internets:
A 22-year-old man who shouted slurs at a lesbian couple before breaking the windshield of their car soon found himself in a vulnerable position – pinned to the ground by one of the targets of his vitriol.The Institute of Medicine has called for an end to most medical experimentation on chimpanzees:
After nine months of deliberation, a panel of independent experts judged that most current experiments involving man's closest primate relative can safely be discontinued.As part of its plot to impoverish and enslave us, the EPA has legalized the use of alternative refrigerants:
The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, said he accepted the panel's recommendations and promised to name a working group to figure out how to implement them.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued a rule making greener refrigeration gases legal in household refrigerators and some commercial freezers.Adding insult to injury, it also plans limit our access to the mercury our bodies need:The agency added three hydrocarbons as acceptable alternatives in household and small commercial refrigerators and freezers through EPA's Significant New Alternatives Policy program, SNAP, which evaluates substitute chemicals and technologies for ozone-depleting substances under the Clean Air Act.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve a tough new rule on Friday to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxins from the country’s power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard. Though mercury is a known neurotoxin profoundly harmful to children and pregnant women, the air toxins rule has been more than 20 years in the making, repeatedly stymied because of objections from coal-burning utilities about the cost of installing pollution control equipment.New technologies may reduce noise pollution in the world's oceans:
Several new R&D projects are underway by providers of ocean technology, each of which either aims to reduce the harmful behavioral impacts on marine creatures, or may limit harmful impacts as a byproduct of their innovations.Solar-powered drip irrigation is working well in Benin:
This technological innovation means the women’s collectives can keep producing crops during the region’s six-month dry season, provide greater food security to their families, and start thinking about sending their kids to school. It also could help communities survive and adapt to climate change. The project is now expanding: At least eight more villages in Benin will start using the solar irrigation systems.In India, solar power is apparently cheaper than diesel generators:
Renewable Energy News reports that solar is becoming cheaper than diesel generators in India as French-company Solardirect has bid to supply the energy grid with solar power at a rate cheaper than the average for diesel generators:Scientists have found the world's smallest frog in Papua New Guinea:
Paedophryne dekot and Paedophryne verrucosa attain a length of only 8 to 9 mm (0.31 inches), slightly longer than a tic-tac mint. The frogs are about 2 mm smaller than the previous record, which belonged to other members of the same genus.The Los Angeles City Council has voted unanimously in favor of a constitutional amendment against corporate personhood:
Every struggle to amend the Constitution began as just a group of regular Americans who wanted to end slavery, who thought women should vote, who believed that if you're old enough the be drafted, you should be old enough to vote. ... We're very proud to come together and send a message but more than that, this becomes the official position of the City of Los Angeles, we will officially lobby for this.Folies elastiques. Antarctica starts here. Audubon's aviary. The deep ocean wilderness. Fabelvæsener. Photographs of Copenhagen. Czech film posters, 1930-1989 (via Coudal). Ooh. Wee. Faces. Marbled paper. And scenes from Zhuravlyonok:
(Photo at top by Frederic Lezmi, from his series "Poor Politicians," 2011.)
6 comments:
What a lovely way to round out the week. Thanks for your time and effort. Greatly appreciated.
I'm on the outer. So be it. My reaction to the plan B thing has nothing to do with sex, babies, abortion rights or the great US cultural war. My first reaction was: I don't give a shit what any sci-body had to say about it, but large dose hormone treatments, on principle, shouldn't be as easily available as gum to minors. Yes, I do appreciate the age thing, the pregnancy-rate thing, the vagaries associated with getting abortifacients in normal events and the abdication by catholic centres and pharamacy professionals. Seriously, I get it all, including the fact that I'm warm and cozy in my adult malehood and am priviliged to be able to agitate without there being any risk/ownership by me.
But it's a serious compound and serious compounds on first principles necessitate adminstration under orders/advice/monitoring. All else is politics about a different thing entirely. If it means that states have to employ 900 den mothers who act as co-responsible parties to sidestep parents and so alternatively confer high safety etc etc etc, then it's *that* problem that needs a remedy and not good pharmaceutical practice.
2c (written at high speed 1/2-way out door; admittedly sub-par formation of totality of argument &c)
Highlight of the week--thanks so much for your wonderful curatorial skills and sublime sense of humor.
I don't give a shit what any sci-body had to say about it, but large dose hormone treatments, on principle, shouldn't be as easily available as gum to minors.
That's an interesting point. However, I think it's wrong to say that Plan B would be as "available as gum." The mere fact that something is sold in a store doesn't necessarily make it easy to acquire (as any teenager who hasn't had the nerve to buy condoms in a small town where she's well known could attest). Getting the drug in another town, or procuring it though the mail, may pose additional problems, especially in certain parts of the U.S.
Also, as a science-based objection this should ideally include some sort of scientific support showing that the risk of using Plan B is greater than the known risks of pregnancy, abortion, childbirth &c. Simply "not giving a shit" what sci-bodies say isn't adequate, I don't think. It seems to me we could take a stab at quantifying and comparing the risks here.
I agree that a doctor's advice is ideal, but as we both know, things are not that simple. Especially not in this country.
Personal opinion, for whatever it's worth: I'd assume that greater availability / fewer sanctions will make minors overall more likely to seek help or advice from a pharmacist. Minors will find a way to get the drug if they need it, just as they find ways to get booze and cigarettes now; the difference is, they'll be committing two acts of "wrongdoing" and therefore be less likely to talk to a pharmacist. That's what I think, anyway.
You're quite right to call me out on my flippancy ("dont give a shit") which I now regret saying.
If we were in the same room you might allow that it was intended rhetorically as a defence of principles (how drugs should be dispensed and monitored in the perfect world) rather than a true rejection of the FDA findings.
In other words, I approach this as an academic affair. I'm not blind or callous really, I'm sure we agree on what outcomes are best in the bigger picture, but I might slink away with a final defensive note that it's easier from this distance to sidestep the (enormous) practicalities with which I'm not closely familiar, and hew to a more utopian principled position. It's what you get brought up on in the health industry. Those embedded beliefs can be safe harbours, you might say, in controversial topics.
Anyway squire, best of the silly season and happy new year to you. I'm always glad to see your irregular offerings in the rss reader.
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