US: Hobby Lobby Allegedly Fired Employee Due to Pregnancy

Either that or she has a massive fupa..

- When a very pregnant Felicia Allen applied for medical leave from her job at Hobby Lobby three years ago, one might think that the company best known for denying its employees insurance coverage of certain contraceptives—on the false grounds that they cause abortions—would show equal concern for helping one of its employees when she learned she was pregnant.

Instead, Allen says the self-professed evangelical Christian arts-and-crafts chain fired her and then tried to prevent her from accessing unemployment benefits.

US: The Typical Household, Now Worth One Third Less

(newyorktimes)- Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.

The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 94 percent of the population had less wealth and 4 percent had more.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years. Other research, by economists like Edward Wolff at New York University, has shown even greater gains in wealth for the richest 1 percent of households.

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Illinois: Employers Now Banned From Conducting Background Checks on Interviewees

Equality!

- Employers in Illinois can no longer access criminal background checks on potential hires until after an interview is conducted.

Gov. Quinn signed into law this week a bill that prohibits private employers from asking applicants about their criminal history prior to determining if they are qualified for the job.

“Everyone deserves a second chance when it comes to getting a job,” Governor Quinn said in a press release. “This law will help ensure that people across Illinois get a fair shot to reach their full potential through their skills and qualifications, rather than past history. It will also help reduce recidivism, fight poverty and prevent violence in our communities by putting more people back to work.”

Read more at Visionofamerica

US: Job growth picks up in states that raised minimum wage

It's a conspiracy!

(foxnews) - WASHINGTON – Maybe a higher minimum wage isn't so bad for job growth after all.

The 13 U.S. states that raised their minimum wages at the beginning of this year are adding jobs at a faster pace than those that did not, providing some counter-intuitive fuel to the debate over what impact a higher minimum has on hiring trends.

Many business groups argue that raising the minimum wage discourages job growth by increasing the cost of hiring. A Congressional Budget Office report earlier this year lent some support for that view. It found that a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, as President Obama supports, could cost 500,000 jobs nationwide.

But the state-by-state hiring data, released Friday by the Labor Department, provides ammunition to those who disagree. Economists who support a higher minimum say the figures are encouraging, though they acknowledge they don't establish a cause and effect. There are many possible reasons hiring might accelerate in a particular state.

"It raises serious questions about the claims that a raise in the minimum wage is a jobs disaster," said John Schmitt, a senior economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. The job data "isn't definitive," he added, but is "probably a reasonable first cut at what's going on."

Just last week, Obama cited the better performance by the 13 states in support of his proposal for boosting the minimum wage nationwide.

Wider car parking spaces for women drivers in China spark accusations of sexism

(Telegraph) - The parking spaces outside a Chinese shopping mall are distinctive: marked out in pink, signposted "Respectfully reserved for women", and around 30 centimetres wider than normal.

The slots at the Dashijiedaduhui – or "World Metropolis" – centre have sparked debate in China, which officially embraces gender equality but where old-fashioned sexism is rife in reality.

The mall, in the centre of the northern port city of Dalian, has little to distinguish itself from thousands of other retail complexes that have sprouted across the country as part of a vast urbanisation drive.

It boasts chain clothing stores, fast food franchises, glass lifts, a cinema and the inevitable Starbucks, a favourite hang-out of China's new middle class.

Unusually, though, the 10 spaces outside the main entrance were provided after women had trouble parking in the standard basement slots, managers said.

Unconstitutional: Court makes major ruling on Oklahoma’s ban on gey marriage

DEMOCRACY!

OKLAHOMA CITY – The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has made a major ruling in the case of Oklahoma’s ban on gay marriage.

The ruling states Oklahoma’s law is unconstitutional, saying same-sex couples have a Constitutional right to marry.

“Oklahoma’s efforts to retain its definition of marriage are benign, and very much unlike race-based restrictions on marriage invalidated in Loving v. Virginia,” the court ruled.

It continued by saying, “The court shortchanges the analysis of whether the fundamental right to marriage includes same-gender couples by asserting, “one might just as easily have argued that interracial couples are by definition excluded from the institution of marriage.”

“The Court has been vigilant in striking down impermissible constraints on the right to marriage, but there is nothing in the earlier cases suggesting that marriage has historically been defined as only an emotional union among willing adults,” the ruling stated.

* * * *

As usual no one is going to protest the decision. If these people had any sense of justice they would go and remove these judges for interference of democracy. Off with their heads!

Obama to sign order barring federal discrimination against gays

EQUAL RIGHTS SO WOMEN CAN VOTE!

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama will sign an executive order on Monday barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, the White House said on Friday.

The order does not include new exemptions for religious organizations, a fact that was cheered by gay rights activists.

Some religious leaders had pressed Obama for added flexibility in executing the rules, but senior administration officials said that had not been granted.

Instead, protections already allowed for religious entities from previous non-discrimination rules were left in place but not expanded.

Religious organization would be barred from making hiring decisions based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but exceptions would be allowed for ministers, and groups would be allowed to favor individuals of a particular religion.

"We're so proud today of the decision made by the Obama administration to resist the calls by a small number of right-wing conservatives to insert religious exemptions into civil rights protections," said Heather Cronk, director of GetEqual, an activist organization.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters on Friday that Obama's action would update two previous orders about discrimination already on the books.

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Malaysia jet crashes in east Ukraine conflict zone: Report

At least they know where it is..

A Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 295 people has crashed in east Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

(BBC) - There are no signs of survivors at the scene of the crash near the village of Grabovo, in rebel-held territory close to the border with Russia.

Both sides in Ukraine's civil conflict accused each other of shooting down the plane with a missile. It is still not clear why the plane came down.

It is the second disaster suffered by Malaysia Airlines this year.

Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Malaysia to China in March and still has not been found.

At a news conference at Schiphol airport, Malaysia Airlines' European chief Huib Gorter said they were still trying to identify some of the passengers from flight MH17.

He said of the passengers that have been identified there were:

154 Dutch nationals, 27 Australians, 23 Malaysians, 11 Indonesians
Six Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three from the Philippines and one Canadian
All 15 of the crew were Malaysian

Other airlines have announced they are now avoiding eastern Ukraine.

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Australia abandons disastrous green tax on emissions

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has finally won backing to end the tax on carbon emissions Down Under, signalling the pointlessness of such schemes

(telegraph) - In the history of taxes, Australia's levy on carbon emissions must go down as one of the most unsuccessful in history.

Tony Abbott, Australia's centre-right Prime Minister, finally made good on his pre-election pledge after his government repealed the measure introduced by his Labor predecessor Julia Gillard.

Poorly thought out and highly unpopular, the tax is almost unique in that it generated virtually no revenue for the Australian Treasury due to its negative impact on productivity; contributed to the rising costs that have taken the gloss off the country's resources boom; and essentially helped to bring down Ms Gillard's former Government.

The repeal of the tax, which will be replaced by a scheme that will offer companies grants to help Australia meet its target of cutting emissions by 5pc by 2020, is a bitter blow for campaigners who have claimed that harsh green taxes are required to head off climate change.

Oops: Washington man sets house afire trying to kill spider with lighter, spray paint

(Komonews.com) SEATTLE -- Fire officials say a West Seattle man was using a lighter and a can of spray paint to kill a spider in his laundry room when the house went up in flames.

Fire crews were called to a home in the 10200 block of 34th Avenue SW just before 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Firefighters originally battled the blaze from a distance after learning there may be ammunition inside. Crews were eventually able to extinguish the fire, but not before it did significant damage to the structure.
A man who lived at the home told fire officials he was trying to kill a spider in his laundry room using a can of spray paint and a lighter when the wall caught fire, according to Kyle Moore with the Seattle Fire Department. The man wasn't able to put the fire out himself, and he left the home when it began to spread.

Japan: Artist jailed for obscene vagina boat; vows to fight charges

But it's art!

(Reuters) - A Japanese artist who made figures of Lady Gaga and a kayak modeled on her vagina said on Wednesday from jail she was "outraged" by her arrest and vowed a court fight against obscenity charges.

Megumi Igarashi, 42, says she was challenging a culture of "discrimination" against discussion of the vagina in Japanese society.

Igarashi, who worked under the alias Rokudenashiko, which means "good-for-nothing girl" in Japanese, built a yellow kayak with a top shaped like her vagina after raising about $10,000 through crowdfunding.

Igarashi sent 3D printer data of her scanned vagina – the digital basis for her kayak project - as a thanks to a number of donors.

She was arrested for distributing indecent material on Saturday and faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000.

Apple’s sexist iPad engraving policy

*The following contains graphic language*

- (Salon.com) - Lots of people engrave their names and addresses on their iPads, just in case they get lost. But what if you’d like to personalize it further by engraving the name of, say, your favorite reproductive organ on it? Well, that all depends on whether you’re packing the bun, or the hot dog, so to speak.

IT REALLY IS A WAR: Mexico And Guatemala Sign Agreement To Invade U.S

- Excerpted from THE DAILY DOSE: A Monday joint press conference was held by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina to announce their agreement to jointly cooperate in and facilitate the invasion of their northern neighbor, the United States.

Labeled “The Southern Border Program to Improve Passage,” it is an officially-sanctioned, coordinated effort on the part of Mexico and the nations of Central America to invade the United States.

The agreement provides a network of border checkpoints through which an internal Mexican travel document will be issued, which is valid for a period of 72 hours. That document, known as a Regional Visitor’s Card, will provide temporary legal status to those in Mexico illegally for the sole purpose of invading the United States.

The announcement, officially granting the “privileges” to illegals from Guatemala and Belize, is expected to be applied to anyone who reaches the southern Mexican border with the intention of invading America.

Additionally, this action even provides special protections as well as financial assistance to unaccompanied minors.
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Read more HERE

Missouri: Man Serving Life for Pot, Asks Public to Write Letters to Gov. Nixon

How's that war on drugs Governor Nixon?

- Jeff Mizanskey wants you to write the governor.

The only person in Missouri serving a life without parole sentence for nonviolent, marijuana-only charges, Mizanskey says he is overwhelmed by all the attention his case has received over the past year, which included nationwide coverage and a Change.org petition with nearly 500,000 signatures asking Governor Jay Nixon to give clemency to the 61-year-old prisoner.

But Mizanskey is still in the same place he has been in for the past 21 years. So he called Daily RFT to ask readers for a favor: Write Nixon a letter. Here's Mizanskey's official statement:

Hello to everyone out there. Thank you all for your help, signing the petition, and making calls to the governor. I appreciate the concern and help. Unfortunately, I am still in prison, but I have some good news and some bad. Good news first: I just found out last week that I'm going to be a great grandpa sometime this year. I just pray I can be there for my great grandchild. As you all know, I could not be there for my grandkids. With all of your help, that's possible.

Now the bad news: I've been sitting in prison going on 21 years for a nonviolent crime. I still have not heard much of anything from the governor. I was told by Tony [Nenninger], my lawyer, that he talked to one of the governor's men and was told that there have been around 1,000 calls and about 100 letters since, as well as 470,000 signatures on the petition.

Thank you all for what you have done. Unfortunately, Tony also told me that the governor pays more attention to letters most of all. So now I have to come back to you all and ask for more help. If you can find a few minutes to send a short letter to the governor, I know it would help. I don't have anyone else to ask but all of you. Thank you all again. Please write and call the governor.

I'd also like to give a special thanks to Show-Me Cannabis - especially John Payne and Amber Langston, Tony Nenninger, my son Chris, brother Mike, and everybody else who has helped.

For those who would like to contact Nixon, here's his info:

Office of Governor Jay Nixon
P.O. Box 720
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Phone: (573) 751-3222

Mizanskey tells us that life in prison hasn't changed much since his story went viral on the Daily RFT blog last year. He has received a few more letters and had a few visits from reporters.

"Food's gotten worse. But you can survive if you hold your nose when you eat it," Mizanskey jokes.

But that's about it. The former building contractor still does what he's been doing for most of the time he has been locked up: working 38 hours a week building furniture for the Missouri Department of Corrections and training new prisoners on the job -- something he takes pride in doing.

(Source)

Google Co-Founder Says People Shouldn't Have to Work So Much

(abcnews) - It sounds like a dream: Work part-time while maintaining the same standard of living.

Google co-founder Larry Page thinks it should be a reality for everyone.

The tech titan and his co-founder, Sergey Brin, sat down for a rare joint interview that was moderated by fellow billionaire, Vinod Khosla, and posted to YouTube.

"If you really think about the things you need to make yourself happy -- housing, security, opportunity for your kids ... it's not that hard for us to provide those things," Page said. "The idea that everyone needs to work frantically to meet peoples' needs is not true."

Page said the world should be living in a "time of abundance" in which robots and machines could help meet everyone's basic needs much more easily.

He explained that people have a desire to feel needed, wanted and productive, often leading them to work in industries the world doesn't necessary need, thus contributing to the destruction of the environment.

"I was talking to Richard Branson about this," Page said of the founder of the Virgin Group. "They don't have enough jobs in the U.K. He's been trying to get people to hire two part-time people instead of one full-time, so at least the young people can have a half-time job rather than no job."

With a more productive society, Page said he believed people would be happy to "have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests."

Brin said he had to "quibble a little bit" with his colleague's vision for future employment.

"I don't think that in the near term, the need for labor is going away," Brin said. "It gets shifted from one place to another, but people always want more stuff or more entertainment or more creativity or more something."

At a later moment in the interview, a member of the audience asked if the two men had ever had a fundamental disagreement. They both said no.

"We've gotten to think a lot alike," Brin said.

Full Story.

How about slave labour instead? Seattle businesses strike back against $15 an hour minimum wage

Here I thought $5.15 was too high...

American Thinker

A group of Seattle area businesses have gathered 20,000 signatures to place a referendum on the November ballot asking voters to repeal the new $15 an hour minimum wage bill passed by the city council.

Reuters:

Forward Seattle, which represents restaurants, retailers and other businesses, handed in just under 20,000 signatures to the Seattle City Clerk on Wednesday, more than the 16,510 needed to qualify for the November ballot, said group co-chair Angela Cough.

The proposal would ask Seattle voters to repeal a $15 minimum wage increase that was approved by a unanimous vote of the City Council last month and signed by Mayor Ed Murray. It is scheduled to go into effect over several years.

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Modern Moderate Myanmar: Buddhists burn school in riot-hit Mandalay

Via BlazingCatFur:

Mandalay, Myanmar: Muslims in Myanmar's second-largest city accused police on Saturday of standing by as a Buddhist mob went on a rampage, torching a school and other buildings.

Angry mourners, some carrying crude weapons, rioted in Mandalay after the funeral of a 36-year-old Buddhist victim of the country's latest eruption of religious unrest, witnesses said.

A school and dormitory in the Muslim area of a cemetery on the outskirts of the city were seen charred and damaged on Saturday.

“More than 70 police were here but did nothing,” said Win Naing, a Muslim donor to the school, who watched the attack from his hiding place in the home of a Buddhist friend...

Harley-Davidson rolls out the Tesla of motorcycles

(yahoonews.com) - It might be the Tesla (TSLA) of motorcycles, or it might be a flop. Last week Harley-Davidson (HOG) allowed me and a few other drivers to test ride Project LiveWire, the company’s new electric motorcycle.

Project LiveWire is a prototype motorcycle that isn’t going to be road model, at least that’s what they tell us. Harley’s first ever electric powered bike definitely looks the part, although it’s range is only about 55 miles on a full charge. And the sound it makes is decidedly not very Harley-like, but more on that later.

The LiveWire will feel familiar to sport-bike enthusiasts accustomed to 600 cc engine or so, which is fairly mid-range for sport-bikes. Handling is nimble yet the bike feels heavy enough to be comfortable on the highway. I didn’t peg the throttle, but Harley says the LiveWire runs from 0 to 60 in less than 4 seconds. What I can say is there’s plenty of pickup for passing the pokies next to you and catching that light that just turned yellow. On my congested downtown ride, twisting the throttle put a grin on my face as I darted ahead of buses and put instant space between me and the traffic in the rear-view mirror.

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Robert Mugabe says no whites may own land in Zimbabwe

(csmoniter.com) HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has ordered the nation’s remaining white farmers to be booted off their farms in order that the land be given to black Zimbabweans.

In the harshest official policy on race and land reform in a country that has been close to bankruptcy, the 90-year old autocrat said Wednesday that whites may no longer own any land in Zimbabwe. Whites would still be allowed to own businesses and urban apartments.

Speaking to farmers in Mhangura, a small mining town about 120 miles north of the capital Harare, Mr. Mugabe, said all remaining white farmers should leave – and closed the door even on white families renting farms from black owners, as some several hundred have been doing since most were violently chased away a decade ago.

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Joan Rivers Suggests Obama’s Gay; Calls Michelle a ‘Tranny’

News you don't need:

(mediaite.com) - 

Comedienne Joan Rivers has never really been afraid to offend people, and she clearly knew that when she made these remarks about President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The octogenarian comic was approached by a cameraman in New York City and asked: “Do you think the United States will see the first gay president or the first woman president?”

Her response: “We already have it with Obama, so let’s just calm down.”

She continued: “You know Michelle is a tranny.”

The cameraman clarified: “I’m sorry, she’s a what?”

“A transgender,” Rivers replied. “We all know it.”

Her use of the word “tranny” is what has generated the most controversy. As the Advocate wrote in response to the video: “Conservatives have long made jokes insinuating that the first lady is actually a transgender woman, but it’s not often that a liberal-minded comedian — let alone one who credits much of her success to her devoted LGBT fan base — make this type of uninspired joke.”

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Related: ‘It’s Not Mean, It’s Not Mean, It’s Not Mean’: Raging Joan Rivers Storms Off CNN Set

July 4

Have a safe &



(image from Google, no infringement intended)

PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi: No, Women Can't Have It All

The Horror!

(mashable) - In an unusually frank interview, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said she doesn't think that women can "have it all," adding that a career requires women to sacrifice some aspects of motherhood.

"I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so," she told David Bradley, owner of the Atlantic Media Company, at the Aspen Ideas Festival earlier this week. "We pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have it all," Nooyi, who has been married 34 years and has two daughters, said.

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The War Over World War I

- It is no exaggeration, then, to say there is a violent controversy over the question of who started World War I. There are few other historical questions that people are willing to kill and die for. A century after the war began, Britain’s top leaders are writing columns in national newspapers arguing over why the nation fought the war and who started it. Germany has publicly agonized over its role for decades. No other question of history gets the attention of world leaders the way this one does.

Why? It is a conflict that defined the century. Winston Churchill saw the two world wars as one conflict separated by a 20-year truce. Even historians with differing views see that the two are intimately connected. World War I was the crisis that founded the modern world.

5 things to know about the 1964 Civil Rights Act

WASHINGTON (AP) — On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the most significant civil rights achievements in U.S. history. This new law made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; It ended school, work and public facility discrimination, and barred unequal application of voter registration requirements.

Five hours after Congress approved the law, Johnson signed it, then turned and handed pens to various key figures in getting the legislation passed, including Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He went on to address the country in a nationally televised address, saying the law was a challenge for the United States to “eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country.”

In observing the law’s 50th anniversary Wednesday, President Barack Obama said “few pieces of legislation have defined our national identity as distinctly, or as powerfully.”

“It transformed the concepts of justice, equality, and democracy for generations to come,” Obama said.

Happy Holi(Canada)Day!

This blog wishes allof Canadia a Happy Independence...er Canada Day! Hope Moose claus left you plenty of presents under the maple tree.



(image courtesy of google images. no infringement intended)

Not again! Judge rules against democracy, says homosexuals have right to marry in Kentucky

Since when did marriage become a "right" in the US?

Via USAToday:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Same-sex couples have a right to marry in Kentucky, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

In February, District Judge John G. Heyburn II had ruled that Kentucky must recognize gay marriages performed in other states.

"In America, even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted," Heyburn wrote to invalidate Kentucky's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

In Tuesday's ruling in favor of two Louisville couples, Heyburn rejected the only justification that lawyers for Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear had offered — that traditional marriages contribute to a stable birth rate and the state's long-term economic stability.

"These arguments are not those of serious people," he said.

Full Story.