I did not know Hilary Swank was making an Amelia Earheart biopic

But she is.

For Swedish readers

Via Dan Savage:
An AIDS-prevention organization in Stockholm is passing out 100,000 individually-numbered condoms. The group, LAFA, is inviting Swedes who use one of the numbered condoms to visit a website and share their condom’s story—just what and who was done—and inviting other Swedes to log on and read these stories. People will visit Kondom08 for [...]

Sarkozy: Burqa “not welcome in France”

Been meaning to blog on this for a while. Via the AP via the Denver Post, of all places (Also, thanks to sometimes commentor Tania for prompting the discussion, in a different venue):

President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Monday that the Islamic burqa is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of [...]

Monday Morning Surrealism

Poseidon sat at his desk, doing figures. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work. He could have had assistants, as many as he wanted — and he did have very many — but since he took his job very seriously, he would in the end go over all the figures and calculations [...]

150,000,000-200,000,000

The number of women affected by the horror of genital mutilation worldwide.
I feel oblidged to cover this topic whenever possible; that’s why I’m posting this video, which provides only a very hurried primer on the topic. Journalist  Thomas Von Der Osten-Sacken :

Michelle Bachmann: Interment camps a possible ramification of filling out your census

Ah, the living Gladys Leeman, that gift from Minnesota that keeps on giving. I just feel sorry for the poor bastards she represents:

Even Glenn Beck winces.

I used to think Bratz were the worst toys imaginable

Then, I saw a line of horses in stripper heels called–I wish I were kidding–Struts.

Congressional panal to issue recomendations to reduce prison rape

Via the NY Times:
A Congressional commission plans to issue recommendations on Tuesday for standards to reduce sexual assaults in the nation’s jails and prisons.
The commission cited an estimate by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that 60,500 state and federal prisoners were sexually assaulted in 2007.
Congress authorized the National their compliance with those standards or [...]

Levels of oppression: from the spatial to the psychological

It’s summer, so I have plenty of these stories.
The other day I was walking with a group of maybe 7-8 people, pretty evenly split between male and female. We were walking down Halsted Ave. on University of Illinois-Chicago’s campus. I was walking on the outside of the group, closest to the street. The guy I [...]

Levels of objectification: From annoying to harassing

I’m walking outside the union just now and as I pass a middle-aged man I smile and say ‘hi’ (I try to do this as much as possible with people) and he responds with “good morning, beautiful.” I feel disgusted. I hate when people I do not know, people I merely pass on the street, [...]