European Parliament To Vote On EU ‘Ban On All Forms Of Pornography’

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Photo Credit: ALAMYControversy has erupted over next Tuesday’s European Parliament resolution “on eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU”, meant to mark international women’s day, after libertarian Swedish MEPs from the Pirate Party spotted the call for a ban in the small print.
While not legally binding, the vote could be the first step towards European legislation as the EU’s assembly increasingly flexes its political muscle within Europe’s institutions.

The proposal “calls on the EU and its member states to take concrete action on discrimination against women in advertising… [with] a ban on all forms of pornography in the media”.

Kartika Liotard, a Dutch left-wing feminist MEP, is seeking “statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in advertising and for a ban on advertising for pornographic products and sex tourism”, including measures in the “digital field”.

The MEPs are also demanding the establishment of state sex censors with “a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls”.

Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party which campaigns for internet freedom and has MEPs, warned that there is “a clear majority in favour of this report, much because of its title and a belief that there’s nothing odd about it”.

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Godfather Doubles Down: Chicago May Expand ‘Gun Offender’ Registry

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Photo Credit: Ted CoxChicago’s gun offender registry needs to be expanded to include the names of people busted committing crimes with a gun, Ald. Ed Burke (14th) said Thursday. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel agrees. The powerful alderman wants to force anyone convicted of a violent crime with a firearm, including kidnapping, assault, robbery and vehicular hijacking, to end up on the list, which now has 584 names on it of those convicted of less serious gun violations.

Burke said he was shocked to hear the current list had so few names. “Clearly I felt that there are thousands of offenders that should have been added to the registry,” Burke said.

In July 2010, the City Council passed an ordinance establishing a “gun offender registry,” similar to a sex offender registry. But the law only requires those convicted of unlawful use of a weapon, which includes illegal possession of a gun among other charges, to register with police.

Burke’s plan to expand the list was approved at the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety hearing Thursday and is on the agenda in front of the full council Wednesday. “We believe the ordinance can be implemented and will help achieve the Mayor’s goal of reducing gun violence and illegal weapons in the city of Chicago,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office said in a statement.

Thomas Byrne, chief of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Detectives, told the committee that the number of people that would be added to this registry is currently uncertain.

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Marine Corps Rapid-Response Team Ordered To Africa To Thwart Another Benghazi Attack

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U.S. Marine CorpsU.S. Africa Command will get a new Marine Corps rapid response force as part of a plan to beef up its crisis response capabilities.

More Leathernecks will be at the ready after the military was unable to get timely aid to Benghazi, Libya last year, during a terror attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and members of his security detail.

Gen. Carter Ham, Africom’s commander, told Congress this week about the planned new force, Stars and Stripes reported Friday.

“The Marine Corps have proposed a new … Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force specifically tailored for crisis response in Africa,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The force had not yet been formally approved, he said, but added, “we think that that will be available in the relatively near future.”

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The Calm Before The Solar Storm? NASA Warns ‘Something Unexpected Is Happening To The Sun’

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Photo Credit: NASA‘Something unexpected’ is happening on the Sun, Nasa has warned. This year was supposed to be the year of ‘solar maximum,’ the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. But as this image reveals, solar activity is relatively low.

‘Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent,’ the space agency says.

The image above shows the Earth-facing surface of the Sun on February 28, 2013, as observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

It observed just a few small sunspots on an otherwise clean face, which is usually riddled with many spots during peak solar activity.
Experts have been baffled by the apparent lack of activity – with many wondering if NASA simply got it wrong.

However, Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center believes he has a different explanation.

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Vitter: EPA Lied About Official’s Use Of Private Emails For Government Business

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner Sen. David Vitter, R-LA, charged today that Environmental Protection Agency officials “lied” about the extent of former Region 8 Administrator James Martin’s use of private email accounts to conduct official business.

“EPA should start owning up to the facts piling up before them. Their blatant disregard for proper procedure and transparency is now being regularly exposed, and EPA’s leadership must be held accountable,” Vitter said. An EPA spokesman has been asked for a response.

Vitter’s charge comes on the eve of Sunshine Week, which begins Sunday, March 10, 2013. Sunshine Week is intended to commemorate passage of the federal Freedom of Information Act in 1966, which guarantees the public the right to obtain copies of all government documents not otherwise exempted from disclosure.

Sunshine Week coincides with the birthday of James Madison, who wrote the First Amendment and its guarantee of freedom of the independent press.

Martin resigned shortly after Vitter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, announced on Jan. 29, 2013, a joint investigation of the EPA official’s email practices.

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ABC’s ‘The View’ Reportedly Firing Show’s Lone Conservative Over ‘Extreme’, ‘Right-Wing’ Views

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesElisabeth Hasselbeck is being fired from ABC’s “The View” because market researchers found that her conservative views were out of touch with the show’s audience, according to a report in Us Weekly.

The magazine, citing unnamed sources, reported Friday that Hasselbeck will be leaving the show along with Joy Behar, an outspoken far-left liberal who quit the show by choice.

“The viewers they polled all said she was too extreme and right-wing,” a show insider whose name was not reported told UsMagazine.com about Hasselbeck Friday. “People did not watch the show because of Elisabeth. So they told her yesterday her contract would not be renewed.”

TV Newser later reported similar developments. The site referenced two separate sources that confirmed the conservative co-host was leaving “The View.”

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Republicans Denounce NYC Terror Trial For Bin Laden Son-In-Law

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Photo Credit: APRepublicans are denouncing the Obama administration’s decision to bring Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law to New York for a civilian trial, arguing he belongs in military custody in Guantanamo Bay.

Slaiman Abu Ghayth pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to kill Americans Friday in a brief appearance in New York federal courtroom. The presence of bin Laden’s son-in-law, who serves as a spokesman for al Qaeda, in New York City just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers were demolished — is reigniting a fiery debate over whether terrorists should be tried in civilian court or military commissions.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the decision to try Mr. Ghayth in New York demonstrates “a stubborn refusal” to hold additional terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay facility and could impede intelligence collection.

The intelligence team that located Osama bin Laden, Mr. McConnell said, relied on information gathered through the interrogation of detainees. Right now, the nation’s intelligence community is trying to locate al Qaeda’s new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and do everything they can to disrupt potential terrorist attacks.

Citing public records, Mr. McConnell also said Mr. Ghayth possesses “valuable knowledge of al Qaeda’s activities within Iran.” “Our intelligence community and military are laboring to understand the structure, threat and communications methods of al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, North Africa and the growing threat of Al Nusra front within Syria,” he said. “They deserve the same access to intelligence and methods of defeating the enemy available to the team that found bin Laden.”

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Countdown To Launch Former Iranian Official Launches ‘Countdown To An Attack On Israel’

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Photo Credit: Free BeaconAn ally of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has launched a “countdown to an attack on Israel” following the Jewish state’s launching of an operation to destroy weapons in Syria last month.

Alireza Forghani, a Khamenei confidant and former governor of Iran’s Kish province, published an article arguing that Tehran and Syria should launch a tag-team attack aimed at the total “eradication [of] Israel from the planet.”

“There remains no excuse for not [waging] a total multipartite attack on Israeli soil, with hopes of completely eradicating Israel from the planet (Allah willing),” Forghani wrote, according to a new translation of his Jan. 29 essay by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

“Attacking and completely eradicating Israel from the planet is the only solution to this problem,” Forghani wrote. “If this problem isn’t resolved with this golden opportunity, it is not known when there may be another.”

Iran has provided logistical support for embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he battles rebel forces and is well positioned to provide more assistance.

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Google: FBI Spying On Thousands Of Users

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Photo Credit: dannysullivanIn a Google report released Tuesday, the tech giant revealed that thousands of inquiries have been made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the personal information of its users.

The document, entitled “Transparency Report: Shedding more light on National Security Letters,” was posted by Richard Salgado, the legal director of law enforcement and information security at Google.

“The FBI can seek the ‘name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records’ of a subscriber to a wire or electronic communications service” by filing a National Security Letter (NSL), the report said. Google has received as many as 4,000 NSLs since 2009, requesting information for as many as 10,000 accounts.

In a 2010 report by the Congressional Research Service, NSLs were described as “comparable to administrative subpoenas,” and could also be directed toward credit agencies, in addition to “communications providers [and] financial institutions.” The report said the applicable scenarios for filing NSLs were broadened under the Patriot Act.

According to the Google report, for information to be released, the NSL must be “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

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