Saturday, November 5, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Douglas Feith: Israel Should Be A U.S. Campaign Issue
Feith writes in the Wall Street Journal that "Mr. Obama can expect to pay a substantial political price in 2012 for his antagonism toward Israel and feckless courting of its enemies." To read the full article visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577005812793260468.html Tweet
San Francisco Bans Naked Dining Amid "Hygiene Fears"
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Widely seen as the most tolerant and liberal city in the U.S., San Francisco is drawing the line at nude public dining.
The city's Board of Supervisors has adopted new rules that ban naked people from eating in restaurants, and forces nudists to place a cover on public chairs and benches before they sit down, the San Francisco Examiner reported.
Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the legislation, said, "We did hear from folks in the neighborhood that these are actually tangible issues that are happening in the Castro and so the legislation is important for that reason."
"I'm not a health expert, but I believe sitting nude in a public place is not sanitary," he said in September when the ordinance was introduced. "Would you want to sit on a seat where someone had been sitting naked? I think most people would say no."
Anyone who disobeys the new code will be fined $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second offense and three-time offenders face a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
The law was approved in an 11-0 vote with no debate and will face final consideration next week before it can be signed into law by Mayor Ed Lee.
Public nudity is generally tolerated in the city and is particularly popular in the Castro neighborhood.
Anti-Gay Statements About Fellow Building Resident Results In Liability for “Hostile Housing Environment Harassment”
UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh writes that "seems to be the holding of Gilbert v. 7355 South Shore Condominium Ass’n & Shelley Norton (Chi. Com. Hum. Rel’s July 20, 2011), leading to damages of $2100, fines of $1200, and 'reasonable attorney fees and associated costs,' which I suspect are likely to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. The statements were said by a condo association manager about a condo owner, but as I’ll note below the logic of this case would likewise apply to tenants speaking about another tenant." Tweet
French Weekly Publishes Cartoon Of Mohammed, Gets Firebombed
Agence France Press reported:
The offices of a French satirical newspaper that published a special Arab Spring edition with the Prophet Mohammed on the cover as “guest editor” were destroyed in a suspected firebomb attack Wednesday.
The attack came after Charlie Hebdo renamed the weekly newspaper Charia (Sharia) Hebdo for the occasion and featured a front-page cartoon of the prophet saying: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter!”
The newspaper’s website also appeared to have been hacked, with its regular home page replaced with a photo of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and a message reading: “No god but Allah”. The web site was later unavailable.
From The Guardian (UK):
French politicians defended the magazine. The prime minister, François Fillon, said: “Freedom of expression is an inalienable value of democracy and any incursion against press freedom must be condemned with the utmost force. No cause justified violent action.”
The interior minister, Claude Guéant, said: “You like or you don’t like Charlie Hebdo, but it’s a newspaper. Press freedom is sacrosanct for the French.” He added that all French people should feel solidarity towards the magazine.
François Hollande, the Socialist presidential candidate, told Le Monde newspaper the incident demonstrated that the struggle for press freedom and “respect of opinions” was a permanent battle, adding that “fundamentalism must be eradicated in all its forms”.
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