News

Indian teen and her brother fight off Muslim militants in Kashmir

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Story from the BBC. (H/T Shalini)

Excerpt:

Three militants stormed into Rukhsana Kauser’s home in a remote village in Jammu region on Monday and started beating her parents in front of her.

Ms Kauser, 18, and her brother turned on the gunmen, killing one and injuring two more. Police praised their courage.

One of the militants wanted to marry Ms Kauser against her will, police said.

The militants escaped and are now being sought by police who are using their blood trails as clues.

[…]Ms Kauser said she grabbed one of the militants by the hair and banged his head against the wall. When he fell down she hit him with an axe, before snatching his rifle.

“I fired endlessly. The militant commander got 12 shots on his body.”

This is why I am a huge proponent of concealed carry permits for women. India needs to loosen up restrictions on firearm ownership by law-abiding citizens, while simultaneously increasing the penalties for committing crimes involving a firearm. That should level the playing field.

Here is my previous story on the perils of public transportation for women.

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Humor

Friday night funny: celebrities, racist bird, jail break, aggressive birds

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The video of the week from Hot Air. (H/T ECM)

I’ll tell you right now, I almost never watch movies and I have no television. I hate celebrities. I hate Hollywood. The last movies I saw in the theaters were Expelled (twice), Amazing Grace, Fireproof, and Bella.

This bird is a waaaaaaacist!

This is one is also really funny.

From Ace of Spades. (H/T ECM)

I like birds.

Priorities of Obama supporters

Story from the New York Times. (H/T Stop the ACLU via ECM)

Excerpt:

In the middle of two wars and an economic meltdown, the highest-ranking idea was to legalize marijuana, an idea nearly twice as popular as repealing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy. Legalizing online poker topped the technology ideas, twice as popular as nationwide wi-fi. Revoking the Church of Scientology’s tax-exempt status garnered three times more votes than raising funding for childhood cancer.

Is socialism a mental disorder?

Cockatiels escape cage

These guys are smarter than my bird!

Bird vs. Cat

What a crazy beast! This is the strangest thing ever.

Bird vs. Dog

My bird does chase me, but only to bite my toes and for head scratches.

Cockatiel wants head scratch

My Dad is obsessed with making our bird do this trick.

I miss him

ECM sends this fun poster from I Hate the Media.

bush-miss-me-yet

I remember what it was like to have over 2 trillion in tax cuts and a 4.8% unemployment rate. He was a fair President. I give him a B-.

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News

New study finds that the problems of boys are unrecognized and untreated

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Story here in the Ottawa Citizen.

Excerpt:

More men than women are prime ministers and brain surgeons, making it easy to think boys have it made, says the study by psychology professor Judith Kleinfeld. She says we forget that men are also more likely than women to be broke, homeless and illiterate.

[…]”The difficulties of boys, however, which span far more areas, have been generally ignored. It is boys who are performing at strikingly lower levels in literacy,” she writes in the journal Gender Issues. It is boys who are more likely to quit school early, to be in special education, to have behaviour problems and be suspended or expelled.

Boys are far more likely to skip their homework, arrive at school without books or pencils and cause a disturbance that gets them kicked out of class. Boys are more likely to commit suicide or to be arrested.

“Policy attention has focused on the supposed underachievement of females in mathematics and science but these gender gaps are small,” Kleinfeld writes in her study. “In contrast, substantial gender gaps are occurring in reading and writing, which place males at a serious disadvantage in the employment market and in college.”

I blogged before about one of the causes of this problem – the dearth of male teachers in the schools.

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