Jennifer Pelham* kicks off her black Marc Jacobs pumps, slips out of her trim Theory blazer, and collapses on the couch. The 29-year-old corporate attorney for one of Manhattan’s top law firms has just clocked another 12-hour day, and though it’s over, she’s having a hard time shaking off her frustrations. (A partner had eviscerated the contract she’d drafted, then left before Pelham had a chance to explain herself.) Still distracted, Pelham orders dinner—sushi, as usual—then reaches for a plastic orange prescription bottle standing on the corner of her coffee table alongside a glass pipe and blue Bic lighter, just as the cleaning lady left them. She twists off the cap, pinches off a piece of the fragrant green bud inside, gingerly places it in the bowl of the pipe, and lights up. Over the next 30 minutes, she takes three deep drags, enough to drown out the noise whirring in her head.

WASHINGTON – The owner of adult stores in Alabama asked the Supreme Court on Monday to throw out a state ban on selling sex toys, calling it an unconstitutional intrusion into the bedroom.

If the court declines to take the case — as it did in 2005 — Alabama residents shopping for sexual novelties could soon have to look outside the state’s borders.

“A person should have the right to make their own decision to explore their sexual boundaries outside what some government official says is moral,” Sherri Williams said outside the Supreme Court before filing the appeal.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1090180191546

Americans do not have a fundamental right to sexual privacy, a 2-1 decision of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday.

The split panel upheld an Alabama law — nearly identical to one in Georgia — that made the sale of sex toys a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.

The decision extends an emerging division in the court over sexual rights, with Judges Stanley F. Birch Jr. and Rosemary Barkett leading opposing factions.

USERS, SELLERS OF TOYS SUE

Just after the law went into effect in 1998, a group of plaintiffs sued then-Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr., who is now an 11th Circuit judge. They claimed the new law violated a host of civil rights, including ones guaranteeing free expression, due process and safety from unreasonable government searches of homes.

The plaintiffs included six people who used sex devices — some on the advice of therapists as a means to combat depression and improve their marriages. One woman used a device because she suffers from a chronic disability that makes intercourse painful.

Two sellers of the sex devices, one who owns two “Pleasures” stores in the state and the other who conducts “Tupperware-style” parties to sell the products, also were plaintiffs.

A federal trial judge in 1999 found the law unconstitutional, but an 11th Circuit panel vacated the ruling, seeking a broader examination of how sexual laws had been enforced over time. After concluding that sexual privacy was “deeply rooted” in American legal tradition and practice, the trial judge again found the law unconstitutional.

DECISION BELONGS TO ALABAMA

But on a second review before the 11th Circuit, Birch repeated his argument from the Florida gay adoption case, writing that the U.S. high court did not address the issue of sexual privacy in Lawrence last year.

He also reiterated a point conservatives make in the culture wars throughout the country — that judges should not become embroiled in making social policy. Without a fundamental right at stake, Birch wrote, only the people of Alabama could decide “that a prohibition of sex toys is misguided, or ineffective, or just plain silly … .”

World Naked Bike Ride – Portland, OR

Alexandra Hai, first working female gondolier, but not licensed. A new woman got the certification.

After nine centuries of keeping women on dry land, Venice broke with tradition today by approving its first female gondolier.

Giorgia Boscolo, 23, a mother of two, came through a gruelling course, which included 400 hours of instruction, to enter an all-male club that has resisted admitting women. “I am immensely happy and proud, but today my day starts like every other, taking the children to school,” she said. “I’ve always loved gondolas and unlike my three sisters I preferred to row with my father instead of going out with my friends.”

She denied that she would not have the physical strength to manoeuvre ­gondolas, saying: “Childbirth is much more difficult.”

Want some hard numbers on this, check out this link

click for great documentary video (before arson)

foxnews link on arson
cnn link on arson

They’ve opened up again in a tent and are accepting donations.