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As reported in the Guardian the US has cut funding for condoms in Marie Stopes’ African clinics. In 2007 MSI provided 129 million male and female condoms. Since 2001 with the Mexico City Policy commonly known as ” The Global Gag” The Bush administration has blocked birth control access at every turn. It has tried to redefine Contraception as Abortion.

These Conservative US policies hit health aid in Africa. TheGulagGagRuleOrg’s continuing research shows the gag rule is eroding family planning and reproductive health services in developing countries.

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In response to the falling value of their homes and high gasoline prices, Americans have become more frugal all year. But in recent weeks, as the financial crisis reverberated from Wall Street to Washington, consumers appear to have cut back sharply. Even with the government beginning a giant bailout of the financial system, their confidence may have been too shaken for them to resume their free-spending ways any time soon.

Recent figures from companies, and interviews across the country, show that automobile sales are plummeting, airline traffic is dropping, restaurant chains are struggling to fill tables, customers are sparse in stores.

When the final tally is in, consumer spending for the quarter just ended will almost certainly shrink, the first quarterly decline in nearly two decades. Many economists, who began the third quarter expecting modest growth, now believe the cutbacks are so severe that the overall economy did not expand either, and they warn that a consumer-led recession could be more severe than the relatively mild one earlier this decade.

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Edinburgh’s Evening News has discovered that, when it comes to personal privacy, Google’s Street View is a strictly one-way thoroughfare.

The paper was alerted yesterday that several examples of the Orwellian spycar fleet were being prepared for action at a disused garage site in Drum Brae South. It duly dispatched a snapper to record the action, but when he “began to capture the teams setting up the roof-mounted cameras, he was threatened with legal action”.

Photographer Ian Georgeson explained: “I was standing on public ground taking photos of the cars when one of the drivers came over and said that they didn’t want us to print their faces. He said if I used any shots of him they would sue us, because they were concerned about reprisals.

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The chaplain to the London Stock Exchange is under pressure to quit today after demanding gay men should be forced to have ‘sodomy’ warnings tattooed on their bodies.

[..]

‘Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.’

In the same blog, Mr Mullen, who is also rector of St Michael’s Cornhill and St Sepulchre without Newgate in the City, also calls for all gay pride parades – which he brands ‘obscene’ – to be outlawed.

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So heres my trip to Chernobyl in pictures.

You’ve probably all seen this (it was linked in one of the comments last week)

[Fark opened another thread:]

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Salmon do the upstream thing better than people… they even manage to get up waterfalls.
Albert Leichtfried and Markus Bendler climb waterfalls all over the world, by cheating… they wait until they are frozen. The waterfalls, not the climbers.

Hermann Erber was taking pictures of the dynamic duo, climbing this hundred meter high frozen falls in Japan, when the entire right side of the falls collapsed. Fortunately they were climbing the left side, and although the climb had to be aborted, they got down safely, probably changed underwear, and hiked out of there.

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WASHINGTON, Oct 05, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --


    WHAT: Holders of credit default swaps -- the financial vehicles with a
          worldwide face value estimated in excess of $50 trillion -- are
          bracing themselves for the fallout from the Lehman Brothers
          bankruptcy and the takeover of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by the
          United States government. Three auctions to be held next week will
          determine the amount of settlement payments required to be made
          under credit default swaps with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Lehman
          Brothers as the reference entity.

          These auctions will be used to set values to be paid under thousands
          of agreements and are scheduled to take place on:

                     Freddie Mac                 October 6, 2008
                     Fannie Mae                  October 6, 2008
                     Lehman Brothers             October 10, 2008 (TBC)

    WHY: After these auctions, credit protection sellers are expected to be
         called upon to make payments that, in the aggregate, are
         extraordinary for the credit default swap market. Some estimate that
         the payments on Lehman's bonds alone will be $350 billion.

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“As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we’ve really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance.”

So, according to her, the media is abusing freedom of the press.

Right.

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Fears are mounting that many Wall Street banks and financial firms will refuse to participate in the US government’s $700bn bail-out package, leaving global markets and world economies in a perilous state for months to come.

‘There is a growing feeling that banks … might instead decide to tough it out,’ said Thomas Caldwell, chairman and CEO of Caldwell Financial, a $1bn-plus fund manager.

[..]

One of the least attractive elements is a section designed to curb executive pay at banks that participate in the bail-out package. These include limiting stock-related pay and banning ‘golden parachutes’ for executives.

‘I think this hodge-podge of regulations and rules will be enough to put many [chief executives] off participating,’ Caldwell said.

If you had any doubt they were just robber barons…

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Ministers are considering spending up to £12 billion on a database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, has already been given up to £1 billion to finance the first stage of the project.