The state's manslaughter laws weren't supposed to apply to women who lose pregnancies. Prosecutors don't seem to care.

On March 14, 2009, 31 weeks into her pregnancy, Nina Buckhalter gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. She named the child Hayley Jade. Two months later, a grand jury in Lamar County, Mississippi, indicted Buckhalter for manslaughter, claiming that the then-29-year-old woman "did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill Hayley Jade Buckhalter, a human being, by culpable negligence."

The district attorney argued that methamphetamine detected in Buckhalter's system caused Hayley Jade's death. The state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the case on April 2, is expected to rule soon on whether the prosecution can move forward.

If prosecutors prevail in this case, the state would be setting a "dangerous precedent" that "unintentional pregnancy loss can be treated as a form of homicide," says Farah Diaz-Tello, a staff attorney with National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a nonprofit legal organization that has joined with Robert McDuff, a Mississippi civil rights lawyer, to defend Buckhalter. If Buckhalter's case goes forward, NAPW fears it could spur a wave of similar prosecutions in Mississippi and other states.

Mississippi's manslaughter laws were not intended to apply in cases of stillbirths and miscarriages. Four times between 1998 through 2002, Mississippi lawmakers rejected proposals that would have set specific penalties for damaging a fetus by using illegal drugs during pregnancy. But Mississippi prosecutors say that two other state laws allow them to charge Buckhalter. One defines of manslaughter as the "killing of a human being, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another"; another includes "an unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth" in the state's definition of human beings.
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This makes me sick. I live in Mississippi and I'm starting to think that lawmakers here are batshit crazy, because the general public doesn't want these types of laws. They proved that when they voted down the personhood amendment in 2011. Where do these assholes get off thinking they're doing what their constituency wants when it obviously isn't? Do we have to beat them over the heads to make it sink in that we don't want these laws? This entire article and the comments at the source are pissing me off.

Japanese women trash 'notebook' idea for having babies

With Japan's birth rate stuck in low gear, the Abe administration has come up with a new idea to make babies: convince the women to have a child earlier rather than later.

It plans to give out notebooks to all young women - and perhaps also to young men - to get that message across.

The notebooks, to be available from next April, will indicate the most appropriate timeframes for pregnancy and childbirth.

Japan's low birth rate is said to be partly due to women opting for late marriage and delayed childbirth in recent years. In 2011, it stood at 1.39, far short of the 2.07 needed to stop the population from shrinking.

The "Women's Notebook", as it has been dubbed by the media, is the brainchild of a government task force which feels that young Japanese women need to be informed about the importance of not putting off childbirth.

Announcing the proposal earlier this month, Ms Masako Mori, the minister in charge of birth issues, said: "As (a woman) grows older, it becomes harder to become pregnant. The risk to mother and unborn child also increases. We must spread this knowledge among teenage girls and upwards to enable women to make choices and plan their lives."

( But the proposed notebook created an uproar among women, who saw it as the government attempting to blame only the female gender for the low birth rate.Collapse )

A judge has ruled that a North Texas lesbian couple can’t live together because of a morality clause in one of the women’s divorce papers.

The clause is common in divorce cases in Texas and other states. It prevents a divorced parent from having a romantic partner spend the night while children are in the home. If the couple marries, they can get out from under the legal provision — but that is not an option for gay couples in Texas, where such marriages aren’t recognized.

The Dallas Morning News reported that in a divorce hearing last month for Carolyn and Joshua Compton, Collin County District Judge John Roach Jr. enforced the terms detailed in their 2011 divorce papers. He ordered Carolyn Compton’s partner, Page Price, to move out of the home they shared with the Comptons’ two daughters, ages 10 and 13. The judge gave Price 30 days to find another place to live.

Paul Key said his client, Joshua Compton, wanted the clause enforced for his kids’ benefit.

“The fact that they can’t get married in Texas is a legislative issue,” Key said. “It’s not really our issue.”

The Comptons had been married for 11 years before their split. Carolyn Compton originally filed for divorce in September 2010.

Roach said the clause doesn’t target same-sex couples, adding that the language is gender neutral.

“It’s a general provision for the benefit of the children,” the judge said.

Price and Carolyn Compton said in a statement that they believe the clause is unconstitutional. But they also said they would comply with the order “even though it will be disruptive to their family and has the potential of being harmful to the children.”

They also said in the statement that the clause “is a burden on parents, regardless of their sexual orientation, that takes away and unreasonably limits their ability to make parental decisions of whom their children may be around and unreasonably limits what the United State Supreme Court has identified as the liberty of thought, belief and expression.”

They are considering whether to file an appeal.

In Collin County, the clause is part of the standing orders that apply to every divorce case filed and remains in force while the divorce is pending. In the case of the Comptons’ divorce, the clause was also added to their final divorce decree. It has no expiration date.

WaPo

A man has been killed in a machete attack and two suspects shot by police in Woolwich, south-east London.

Prime Minister David Cameron said there were "strong indications that it is a terrorist incident" and the UK would "never buckle" in the face of such attacks.

Footage has emerged showing a man wielding a bloodied meat cleaver and making political statements.

There are unconfirmed reports that the dead man was a soldier.

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Climate Change still a Myth. Still No Evidence of Climate Shift Change to be Manmade.

Alex Jones Explains How Government "Weather Weapon" Could Have Been Behind Oklahoma Tornado
The Government "Can Create And Steer Groups Of Tornadoes," But Jones Isn't Sure That Happened In Oklahoma

Conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones explained to his audience today how the government could have been behind the devastating May 20 tornado in Oklahoma.

On the May 21 edition of The Alex Jones Show, a caller asked Jones whether he was planning to cover how government technology may be behind a recent spate of sinkholes. After laying out how insurance companies use weather modification to avoid having to pay ski resorts for lack of snow, Jones said that "of course there's weather weapon stuff going on -- we had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force."

Following a long tangent, Jones returned to the caller's subject. While he explained that "natural tornadoes" do exist and that he's not sure if a government "weather weapon" was involved in the Oklahoma disaster, Jones warned nonetheless that the government "can create and steer groups of tornadoes."

According to Jones, this possibility hinges on whether people spotted helicopters and small aircraft "in and around the clouds, spraying and doing things." He added, "if you saw that, you better bet your bottom dollar they did this, but who knows if they did. You know, that's the thing, we don't know."



In April, Jones garnered attention for labeling the Boston Marathon bombings a "false flag" event staged by the U.S. government. Over the years, Jones has endorsed a wide array of paranoid conspiracies, including alleging that the U.S. government carried out or was somehow involved in the 9-11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing, and recent mass shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary school and the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

Despite his well-publicized career of pushing conspiracies, Jones is regularly validated by media figures and conservative politicians. Jones' biggest ally has been Matt Drudge, whose heavily trafficked Drudge Report website has linked to at least 244 different articles at Jones' Infowars website since April 2011.

In the midst of the controversy over Jones' comments about the Boston bombings, Drudge announced that he had "privately told friends" that 2013 would be the "year of Alex Jones."

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.

Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Tobacco Control, the study titled, 'To quarterback behind the scenes, third party efforts: the tobacco industry and the Tea Party,' is not just an historical account of activities in a bygone era. As senior author, Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor of medicine, writes:

"Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda."

( The two main organizations are Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks...Collapse )

Source article.

Abstract for the paper, and the paper itself in html or pdf.

This is back from February but it's still interesting. I didn't know the tea party was expanding internationally.

Edited to remove privacy lock on post.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of London's prestigious Chelsea Flower Show, the august members of the Royal Horticultural Society have decided this year to relax their century-old ban and for the first time allow the "little people" into the show—garden gnomes, that is, those tacky little statues of short bearded men with pointy hats.

Ever since the Chelsea Flower Show began, in 1913, organizers have rigorously excluded garden gnomes—and any and all such "brightly colored mythical creatures," from the exhibits. But in a break with tradition, as well as to raise money for the society's nationwide Campaign for School Gardening, gnomes will be made welcome.

A hundred of them, painted and decorated by celebrities such as Dame Helen Mirren, Joanna Lumley, and Elton John, will be making appearances among the greenery. Afterward they will be auctioned off on eBay, with the money going toward the RHS's programs to teach gardening in more than 16,000 schools around the country.

"I think it is a wonderful idea," says English garden historian Twigs Way, author of Garden Gnomes: A History. "Word that garden gnomes were going to be allowed in this year's Chelsea Flower Show has opened up a marvelous debate about what gardening is really supposed to be about. After all, we are a nation of gardeners, and for many of us, garden gnomes epitomize the great social divide on garden design. And now the social barrier has been broken, even if it is only for just this one season."

Tacky or Treasure?

Indeed, in class-conscious Britain garden gnomes are seen as strictly for the masses, nothing an upper-crust gardener would dream of having on his or her turf. In this nation of gardeners, radio talk shows have been sounding out their listeners on the subject, and countless column inches have appeared in the newspapers.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/22/fitness-work-tests-mental-health-unfair

The fitness-for-work test used to determine whether hundreds of thousands of people are eligible to claim sickness benefits substantially disadvantages people with mental health conditions, a court has ruled, in a decision hailed as a victory by mental health charities.

A tribunal judge ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had breached its duties to make "reasonable adjustments" under the Equality Act to ensure that people with mental health problems are treated fairly by the system.

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There was no decision on how the DWP should rectify the situation, and there will be further hearings. Lawyers for the DWP were planning to appeal.

A landmark legal case may finally put a stop to almost half a century of bizarre medical procedures in the United States, where children's genitals have been surgically altered to fit a standardized definition of the proper sizes for penises and clitorises.

South Carolina couple Mark and Pam Crawford adopted their son M.C. when he was 19 months old, after he had been the ward of the state for a few months. Before his adoption, M.C.'s doctors and social workers decided that the infant's penis was too small or ambiguous, and determined that the best course of action was plastic surgery that would make his genitals look female. There was absolutely no medical cause for the surgery. It was purely cosmetic. Now, M.C. is 8 years old and has told his parents that he wants to be a boy. But before he was able to make this decision, doctors had surgically altered him in a way that has already caused him grief and confusion.

The Crawfords are suing the South Carolina Department of Social Services, Greenville Hospital, and Medical University of South Carolina for gross negligence and medical malpractice. According to CNN:

The suit says the surgery violated the 14th Amendment, which says that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law."

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Source.