US newspaper readers are in uproar over this photo. The Washington Post’s internal ombudsman has defended the newspaper’s decision to carry a front-page photo of a gay couple kissing. The newspaper printed the image last week on the first day gay couples in the district were able to apply for marriage licences. Couple Jeremy Ames and Taka Ariga are shown sharing a peck on the lips outside the DC Superior Court. But Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander said he received complaints from readers: "A few of the readers have engaged in rants, often with anti-gay slurs. One called me to complain about ‘promoting a faggot lifestyle’.” Read on…

• Australian Senate rejects gay marriage bill even ‘tho 60% of Aussies support it
• New Bill will allow British schools to teach that homosexuality is wrong
• France first country to delist Transgenderism as a mental illness
• Lithuanian law bans promotion of gay marriage & sexual relations between minors
• US congress renews PATRIOT Act, keeps abandoning civil rights
• US fesses up to potentially illegal spying, including peace groups and Planned Parenthood
• Texas stores blood samples of new born babies for massive DNA database
• Citibank closes bank account of gay social network, says content is “objectionable”
• Iceland’s new free speech laws for media after Swedish model pass first discussion
• US copyright lobby says using open source software makes you a pirate

After threatening to end its adoption and homeless services programs in Washington D.C. if the City Council approved gay marriage there, the catholic church’s charities unit is indeed dismantling its foster care program because they fear the city might somehow "force" the church to officiate gay unions and recognize same-sex partners of employees. However, maybe this has turned out for the best. The children, their families, and even the program’s semployees have found a new home — at the National Center for Children and Families, which is not affiliated with any religious institution. Which means these children will still have the services they very much need, without the intervention of a church that abandoned them to uphold discrimination and seeing how church institutions have sexually & physically abused thousands of kids it might be for the better.

• Papst befahl Bischöfen die systematische Vertuschung sexuellen Missbrauchs
• Amnesty International kritisiert CDU & FDP für Blockade von Diskriminierungsschutz
• Zensurgesetz tritt in Kraft, CDU & FDP ignorieren Petition von 134.000 Deutschen
• Rot-Rote Regierung in Berlin beschließt Programm gegen Homophobie
• Parlament schickt mehr Soldaten nach Afghanistan, gegen den Willen der Bevölkerung
• Zu links um Deutsch zu sein, Linksparteipolitkerin darf nicht eingebürgert werden

Photo by & with Xag

The laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools’ administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the a high school student was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. Most kids have their laptop in their room while getting dressed, having private discussions with friends & family, and so on. And it’s hardly necessary to mention the habit of regular masturbation of the average high school student which in many cases will involve using the very laptop. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students’ clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious. But when schools take that personal information, indiscriminately invading privacy (and, of course, punishing students who use proxies and other privacy tools to avoid official surveillance), they send a much more powerful message: your privacy is worthless and you shouldn’t try to protect it.

Sources: Text partly from Boing Boing, Photo released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License by bionicteaching and edited by Nimatek with a picture from the film 1984.

• US Comic Collector jailed 6 months for importing lolicon manga
• Iceland plans future as global haven for freedom of speech
• France is introducing internet censorship “to protect the children”
• Australia wants Google to censor YouTube like they did in China
• Homosexuals are gay! Or not? Americans are confused ;p

How easy it became for boys to scare the hell out of our society. They just have to dare to look a little bit too feminine: A suburban Dallas school district has suspended a 4-year-old from his prekindergarten class because he wears his hair too long and does not want his parents to cut it. The boy, Taylor Pugh, says he likes his hair long and curly. But the school board in Mesquite voted unanimously to enforce its ban on Beatles haircuts, much less anything approaching coiffures of bands like Led Zeppelin. School officials say the district’s dress code serves to limit distractions in the classroom.  No exception could be made for the pint-size rebel, who sat through the hearing with his hair in a ponytail, manifestly bored. Read more at the New York Times.

• Subversiver Protest in Österreich: Hetero-Paar will Homoehe
• Schweiz rächst sich, will Schwarzkonten deutscher Politiker offenlegen
• Nazis? Nicht so schlimm. CDU & FDP jagen lieber “Linksextreme”
• Deutschlands Arme leben in römischer Dekadenz: Findet Westerwelle.
• Island will Hafen für Meinungs- und Pressefreiheit werden

Someone has to state the obvious ;)

• FBI wants records kept of web sites visited for two years
• US Police wants backdoor to web users’ private data
• Sweden rather pays fine to EU than spying on its citizen
• Ex-gay therapy is getting funded by UK National Health Service
• Australian government websites hacked by Anonymous over censorship
• Britain tempts youth onto huge ID database with alcohol and games
• Gay animal rights group denied place in Sydney Mardi Gras
• South Carolina wants people to register before they overthrow the government

Lolicon mascot Pedobear has been dubbed the 2010 Vancouver Olympic mascot by one factually challenged newspaper in Poland. Lesson: Don’t use Google Image Search to illustrate your articles.

• Absage an US-Schnüffler: SWIFT-Daten bleiben in Europa
• Neuer Ministerpräsident in BaWü ist Schwulen-Hasser
• FDP im freien Fall, Schwarz-Gelb unbeliebteste Koalition seit langem
• FDP findet, Pressefreiheit ist nur was für andere Staaten
• FDP bläht Verwaltngsapparat auf, der Vetternwirtschaft zuliebe
• Gericht findet Polizei darf Frau das Nasenbein brechen

So they minimize the risks of some bad things by subsidizing them. For instance, government will subsidize tobacco growing, help subsidize people who get cancer from smoking, provide “insurance” to people who build in flood planes, etc.  All of these are cases where government lowers the cost of risky behavior thus encouraging more of it. At the same time Nanny increases the risks artificially in other areas. Two teens exchanging dirty photos are clearly less at risk than if they were bonking behind the swingset unless the state gets involved. At that point it becomes very dangerous indeed. The fact is, that even the safest sex, for young people, is highly dangerous when politicians take note. This was what two randy students in Valparaiso found out recently. The middle school students had used their cell phones to exchange nude photos. Now these two kids are charged with being child pornographers.

The girl involved apparently forgot to turn off her cell phone in school. The phone rang and the teacher confiscated it. Local papers report: “The teacher told police the girl asked to delete something from the phone before it was turned over to the administration, but that request was denied.” Now this immediately raises some questions. While I can see the school requiring students to turn off cell phones, and I can even fathom why they might have the right to confiscate a ringing cell phone from a student, what I don’t see is how they had any right to search the contents. Merely asking to delete something from the phone is not a justification for a warrantless search.

Of course, the busybody schoolteacher, and remember in government systems teachers are part of the State, apparently told the police. And somebody, and I would bet without a court order, went through the phone. That was when they discovered that a few days ago the girl, and a boy from the school, had exchanged racy photos. Now, if you want the pure hypocrisy of the State on this matter consider the justification used by Deputy Prosecutor Cheryl Polarek. The local paper says she “said young people don’t understand the ramifications of texting nude photos… She said a nude picture could end up being shared with half the school and could get in the hands of people who seek out child pornography.”

Think about this. If a kid takes an erotic photo of him/herself the whole school could find out. But to protect kids from having that happen the State, in this case Cheryl acting as the State, makes sure the entire school finds out. And, to top it off, she prosecutes the kids, they can face jail time, and they can be forced to register as sex offenders depending on the whims of the prosecutors or the law. So, to protect a couple of “stupid kids” from some bad consequences we will subject them to even worse consequences, some of which can plague them till the day they die. And need I point out that the actual consequences for the kid are worse when the photos end up, not in the hands of someone who seeks out such things, but in the hands of teachers, school officials, police officers and prosecutors. We all know the reality of schools. Once the police got involved, and the boy and girl in question were arrested, it was only minutes before every single student knew who was arrested and why. The police may not release the names because they are minors but there is no privacy. And when all the kids knew, it was only a few hours before all the mothers knew, and when all the mothers knew, you can bet most the town found out shortly afterwards. Now, without condoning what these kids did, can anyone tell me how the situation could have been worse for the couple, if they weren’t being “protected” so much by the police and school officials? When will people figure out that most legitimate problems are merely made worse by state intervention? If the goal is to minimize harm to kids, shouldn’t we keep them out of the clutches of the police and, dare I say it, the teachers. Read on…

As it turns out, the Australian Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that sexually explicit illustrations of children qualify as child pornography. Law enforcement agreed that Milner’s images fell into that category, and he eventually pleaded guilty to possession of child exploitation material and using the Internet to get it. As a result, he was sentenced to a year in jail, but was wholly suspended for five years with a $1,000 bond for good behavior. He is also registered as a sex offender. Milner’s sentencing seems harsh, but this is neither his first conviction nor is it the first time an Australian court has gone after someone for possessing Simpsons porn. As pointed out by the Queensland Times.

In another attempt to clean up the moral mess in the country of bush fires & baby stealing dingoes (and teenagers) the Australian government  has reportedly banned mainstream pornography from showing women with small breasts, apparently on the grounds that they encourage paedophilia, and in spite of the fact this is a normal breast size for many adult women. The Australian Sex Party reports even Hustler has seen its publications refused publication, all thanks to the usual moral crusader “think of the children” arguments:

This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year. Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint’s Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications.

With small breasts now considered obscene, Australian adult rags are said to have suffered sharp increase in breast sizes. Presumably small breasted women taking photographs of themselves will now be guilty of creating simulated child pornography, to say nothing of the message this sends to women with modestly sized chests or those who favour them. Australia is also said to have banned pornographic depictions of female ejaculation, a normal orgasmic sexual response in many women, with censors branding it as “abhorrent”. It seems the UK and Australia are intent on regressing to Victorian standards of morality (although this time anyone criticising homosexuality may find themselves convicted of a hate crime), between them having now banned everything from BDSM to small breasts, even where participants are entirely imaginary.

Sources: Ars Technica & Sankaku Complex and, always relevant, Meanwhile in Australia

• Somali Pirates don’t only help the African economy but also want to share their booty with Haiti :D
• Aussie artists no longer able to rely on artistic merit defence under overhaul of child porn laws
• Merriam Webster’s dictionary banned in US schools for ‘Oral sex’ definition
• US Prop 8 supporter tells trial gays are ‘12 times more likely’ to be paedophiles
• FBI replaced legal process with Post-It notes to obtain phone records
• UK police plans to use military-style sky drones to spy on civilians
• Italy wants citizens to apply for official permission to upload videos
• Boston cops say citizen recording of abusive busts is "illegal wiretapping"

First Chinese Gay Pageant was shut down by police 

• Deutschland plant Zensur im Namen des Jugendschutzes
• Luxemburg öffnet Ehe für Schwule und Lesben
• Schwulensender TIMM is pleite, Betreiber meldet Insolvenz an
• Kuba erlaubt Geschlechtsanpassungen auf Staatskosten
• Atomausstieg abgesagt, FDP setzt Weiterbetrieb von AKWs durch
• FDP will Taliban einfach kaufen (mit Bestechungen kennen sie sich ja aus)
• Neue Feinde unter Schwarz-Gelb: Anti-Nazi-Website zensiert