No jail time for triathlete who bound and savagely beat wife:

A jail sentence would be “counterproductive” for a Salmon Arm man and renowned Canadian triathlete who bound and savagely beat his wife repeatedly with a five-pound dumbbell while she begged him for mercy, a provincial court judge has ruled.

See, the point of a jail sentence in a case like this isn’t to be productive. It’s to be punishing. Doesn’t take a fancy law degree to understand that.

Up here in Canada it’s Thanksgiving weekend. Personally, I will be roasting a duck because the oven where I am isn’t big enough to accommodate a turkey. That’s just how flexible a cook I am. I’m not entirely sure how the beast will turn out, but I’m pretty confident the chocolate pumpkin tart will work just fine. It’s a Martha Stewart recipe – it can’t go wrong.

I have lots to be thankful for, and I will do my best to conduct myself accordingly.

Have a good one!

This almost sounds like a hoax: “Miracle” newborn survives fall through toilet onto train tracks.

In what has rightly been declared a “miracle,” a newborn baby girl has survived falling onto train tracks in India after being born in the train’s lavatory, the Telegraph reports. Pregnant Rinku Debi Ray was travelling with her husband and four-year-old to her parents’ home in Bihar, where she planned to deliver her second child, when she felt sharp stomach pains. She went to the washroom to alleviate them, and suddenly gave birth. The baby fell into the lavatory bowl and through the flap onto the tracks under the speeding train. Ray ran out of the lavatory and jumped from the carriage to find the child. Her husband, who pulled the emergency cord after seeing her jump, found her by the train track cradling the newborn girl in her arm. Mother and daughter are recovering from the ordeal in hospital.

You wouldn’t want to do that on purpose.

There isn’t much information on that story so far:

The infants were discovered Sunday while Calgary police were investigating the death of a 27-year-old woman at a home in the 200 block of Taracove Estates Drive N.E., police said in a release Thursday evening. The deaths are considered “suspicious in nature,” they said.

The death of Harsimrat Kahlon is not considered suspicious, police said, but further testing is being done to determine why the woman died.

Autopsies on the newborns have been completed, but the cause of their deaths has yet to be determined, police said. Further testing is being done and it could take weeks or even months.

Police are not disclosing the gender of the babies, their ages or how long they had been in the home. No further details about this case will be released until tests have been completed.

At a news conference in Calgary, Duty Insp. Rob Williams, who read the contents of the news release, reiterated that police will not provide further details, including whether Kahlon had given birth to the babies or was their caretaker.

Despite the lack of information, police said they’re confident this is not a case in which a killer is on the loose.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.

Taking the Pill apparently makes women like girlier men. Says so right here… I think.

Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman’s interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. Although the change occurs for just a few days each month, it may have been highly influential since use of the Pill began more than 40 years ago.

But I’m also not entirely indifferent to Johnny Depp or that new kid, Zac Efron. Right, then, scientists, another puzzle for you to solve.

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Rebecca wonders: So, what kind of drugs do you have to be taking to make you attracted to Tom Cruise?

We mean this. As a smart woman commented, it puts the “twit” in twitter.

The banality of twittery just out-twitted itself.

Yes, the tweet that gave even the virtual world pause came from one Penelope Trunk, 42-year-old chief executive of a blog called Brazen Careerist, where women can find advice about balancing work and family.

Trunk tweeted while in a board meeting late last month that she was having a miscarriage — and how great is that? Beats the abortion she was planning to have, which would have meant missing two days of work since she would have had to go all the way to Chicago. Apparently, there’s a waiting list in Wisconsin, where Trunk lives.

I need to find me a big old comfy rock to go hide under.

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Rebecca adds: But the important thing to remember is that women never take abortion lightly, and only have them when in dire straits, and after much consideration.

This episode is foul, but maybe it’s advancing a greater good if it promotes the awareness that some women do indeed treat abortion as analogous to a bikini wax: a bit of physical discomfort, sure, and sometimes it’s hard to get a convenient appointment, but hey, it’s part of full sexual liberation!

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Andrea thinks that someone’s site stats were down and needed a sensation? Indeed, I clicked over to Brazen Careerist–only to find this as Trunk explained herself on the miscarriage tweet:

If you are new to my blog, and you’ve gotten this far, maybe you’ll like staying here for a while. Here’s a good page to begin on: About this blog.

I recently went to see Julie and Julia, and loved it. (Yes, this is related.) I loved it at least in part because Julie Child seemed to be a dignified, and yet fun, woman. (One of my favourite lines, brilliantly delivered by Meryl Streep is when Julia Child loudly declares “I am a very conventional woman!”) In our Oprah Winfrey age we are constantly crying about something, revealing all, expecting massive sympathy and discussion–or as in this case, being clueless and crass and making profit of one kind or another (not necessarily monetary) from it. Sad.

Sometimes, the cure is worse than the disease. I’m willing to look after myself and take vitamins and supplements, but this is just too much.

In the eternal quest for a fountain of youth, no elixir is beyond the realm of consideration. Thanks to a team of Austrian scientists, human sperm is being touted as the latest age-fighting agent. According to a researcher at Graz University, spermidine, a compound that is found in sperm, guards the cells in flies, worms, yeast, mice and even human blood against damage, thereby slowing the aging process. Worms treated with spermidine lived 15 per cent longer, while fruit flies given the compound outlasted their untreated counterparts by a margin of 30 per cent.

According to Richard Martineau (who is not in the habit of making stuff up), France’s Culture minister, Frédéric Mitterand (nephew of former president François) wrote a book in 2005 in which he confesses to – or rather, brags about – engaging in sex tourism. He paid for sex with underage boys. And bragged about it. And now he’s his country’s Culture minister. And of course he’s defending Roman Polanski.

Of course. He would be.

For those of you who don’t read French, Big Blue Wave did a good job translating the money quote, here.

We talked about it here. Here is an update:

The students’ society pro-life club Choose Life hosted an unadvertized closed club event with controversial pro-life advocate Jose Ruba, co-founder of the Canadian Centre for Bio-ethical Reform, in the Shatner building’s Lev Buhkman Room last night. Because the SSMU executive was unaware of the event, Ruba’s arrival brought on a degree of panic as the executives discussed their course of action.

This incident follows Choose Life’s decision to proceed with hosting Ruba’s pro-life presentation, “Echoes of the Holocaust,” despite a SSMU council motion last Thursday censuring the advertised event. Today’s lecture, which will present abortion parallel to the atrocities of the Holocaust, is scheduled to take place this evening from six to eight p.m. in Leacock 232.

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Tanya adds a morning after update: Jose Ruba attempted his presentation but…

 As the presentation got underway, about 20 protestors began shouting and singing children’s songs. They then crowded around the vacant podium (Mr. Ruba having absconded) and continued signing [sic] for the better part of an hour, at which point police arrived. Two protestors were taken, but many were left behind. When the police left, protestors resumed and disrupted the presentation (which had fitfully resumed) until the two hour mark, at which point event organizers were informed by campus officals that time had run out and the room had to be closed for the night. 

 

Ruba’s Facebook status this morning? “Jojo Ruba survived today. McGill’s reputation for higher learning, we’ll see.”

The Federal Trade Commission in the United States will require bloggers to disclose freebies:

PHILADELPHIA – The Federal Trade Commission will require bloggers to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.

I would be delighted to disclose that Starbucks had asked to me review their signature hot chocolate or their pumpkin spice latte. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink? Please?

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Rebecca adds: I would also be most diligent in disclosing if I were the recipient of, say, a Mac Book Air, or whatever they’re calling their newest and coolest release. Ditto excellent wines and Belgian chocolates.

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Tanya wonders:  Is this where we make our wish-lists?  I’m up for a Pentax K20D and the latest version of Photoshop.  Oh, and Lululemon yoga pants.