Shocked families yesterday told of their disgust after children were handed explicit novelty chocolates at a school Mother’s Day function.

Packets of chocolates shaped like penises, breasts and buttocks – as well as others depicting couples having sex – were passed out in see-through bags at a P&C function held at Woodberry Public School in the Hunter Valley last Friday.

Cassandra Lacey, who has two sons at the school, said she was horrified to be handed a bag of the treats as she walked through the door.

“As soon as I opened mine, my son said, ‘Ah, Mum’ and I had to do a double-take,” Ms Lacey said.

Every single chocolate was to do with sex. This was in the school hall, on the school grounds and in school time

It is believed the chocolates were left over from last year’s P&C Mother’s Day fundraiser, held as an adults-only girls’ night at a local venue.

P&C spokeswoman and school council president Jenny Gray said she was not at Friday’s function but intended to meet principal Josie Bailey today to discuss the issue.

“All I can tell you is that it has come to my attention and yes, I have spoken to the principal and we’ll be having a meeting on Monday,” Ms Gray said. She insisted the issue would not be “swept under the carpet”.

A Department of Education and Communities spokesman said the school’s administration was not aware beforehand of the explicit nature of the handouts.

“The school says that the ‘gifts’ were prepared by parents, for parents, and the school had no knowledge of them until some of the mothers complained,” he said.

He added that Ms Bailey had apologised to parents.

Parents also had no idea before the event – which even grandmothers were invited to attend – that saucy confectionery would be distributed.

“Mums, grandmas, aunties! You’re invited to our Mother’s Day afternoon tea,” an entry on the school’s Facebook page read last Wednesday.

“Come have afternoon tea with your child/ren, $2.50. Tea/coffee/scones and a present!”

Another woman who attended Friday’s function said she watched on, “absolutely disgusted”, as children were given the chocolates.

“My nine-year-old grandson gave this zip-lock bag to me, put it in my lap and said to me, ‘You’ve got a willy in there Nanny’,” she said.

“Then I had a three-year-old sit down next to me and she said, ‘Hey, what’s this?’ She had this brown chocolate shaped like a penis and was about to eat the top off it.

“I told her she had better go and talk to her mother.”

The busty glamour girl, who has been linked with Man City bad boy Mario Balotelli, was seen nabbing thousands of pounds of freebies, infuriating viewers with her choice of “career”.

Some even said Holly, who appeared on the programme with other “rinsers”, deserves “to get cancer”, while web trolls besieged the mum with cruel insults about her “ugly” looks.

Even celebs tweeted their shock at Holly and her pals’ behaviour.

Corrie’s Michelle Keegan revealed her disgust at the mistress of manipulation’s antics, writing that she felt “sick” and blasting Holly for not finding a job to “buy your own f****** bag”.

And her Street co-star Brooke Vincent described the behaviour as “degrading to any woman”.

Rugby star Ben Foden admitted: “Some women are brutal, some men are muppets”.

Meanwhile, viewers of the Sex, Lies And Rinsing Guys, which aired on Tuesday, flooded Twitter with comments expressing their disgust.

Brett Gardner said: “You put the female race to shame. Your (sic) the sort of person who deserves cancer.” And Thomas Ketley added: “Do you have no shame? People like you make the world worse.”

Holly, real name Jeannette Worthington, hit back, claiming it was “only a TV show” and said she had a proper job in real life.

Source. The hymalayin times

Big Love

A plan that would tax adult entertainment clubs that serve sell alcohol was approved by the Illinois Senate Public Health Committee Wednesday, the State Journal-Register reports. Revenues from the tax would benefit rape crisis centers around the state, based on a motion filed in Springfield in February.

“If you’re going to sell sex and alcohol, then bad things sometimes happen,” Olympia Fields Democrat Toi Hutchinson, who filed the first motion to tax strip clubs, told the Quincy Journal, adding that she has nothing against strip clubs and topless bars. “I’m hopeful they’ll work with me to take some of the stink off their name.”

The Senate Committee approved a revised plan that gives club owners two options: either a $3 fee per customer, or a fixed amount based on revenue that would charge roughly $5,000, $15,000 or $25,000, according to CBS St. Louis.

The original motion would have levied a $5 per-customer tax, but club owners balked at the high figure, arguing that it could force smaller establishments out of business. Owners said the government shouldn’t risk turning out their large staffs that include dancers, bartenders, valet attendants and bouncers at a time when job insecurity is high.

Chicago club lobbyist and former lawmaker Al Ronan told the Chicago Tribune that “$5 is an absolute industry killer,” but that club owners were willing to work towards an “alternative plan.”

The measure, Senate Bill 3348, will next be considered by the full state Senate.

A nearly identical tax imposed in Texas in 2007 cleared a test of constitutionality in August after club owners challenged it as a violation of the First Amendment. Attorney James Ho called the ruling “a big win for victims of sexual assault.”

This isn’t the first time a Illinois has considered a tax on adult products and services. Former House Speaker Lee Daniels, (R-Elmhurst) proposed a tax on pornographic magazines to raise money for schools in 1997, according to the Pantagraph. But the measure went nowhere.

Source: Huffington Post

Larry Michael Bollinger, from Gaston, North Carolina, ‘did knowingly travel… from the United States to Haiti, and engage in illicit sexual conduct’ with two minors, according to a bill of indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on Tuesday.

Records show Bollinger was booked into the Mecklenburg County jail late Wednesday evening.

The alleged sexual acts occurred in 2009, between August 1 and November 18, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Behind bars: Gastonia pastor is in jail after being indicted on charges of having sex with two minors in Haiti.

Bollinger, a Lutheran pastor for 33 years, had been working as a coordinator with The Lazarus Project, a mostly Lutheran ministry that runs a vocational school and medical clinic in the Caribbean country.

Current coordinator of the Project, Rev. Ron Qualley, told the Charlotte Observer that Bolliger ‘was immediately removed from that position’ when the sexual accusations first came to light in 2009.

‘This is not anything we condone,’ he said.

But Rev. Qualley insisted Bollinger ‘did very good work’ during his time with the Project, which has been operating in Haiti for 16 years.

He said that while the accusations had come as a shock, the ministry had not been impacted and continued to do its work.

‘The people of Haiti depend on our good work,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to do the best we can.’

Bollinger and his wife had done volunteer work with the House of Mercy, a residential care facility in Belmont for individuals in the advanced stages of AIDS, according to the Charlotte Observer.

He is also believed to have been the pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Stanley in the past.

Source: MailOnline

Peter Davies, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection center, warned that younger children were accessing the web, meaning they could stumble across adult material.

He told MPs that an increasing number were sending sexually  explicit images of themselves to each other, in a practice known as ‘sexting’, and primary school pupils needed to be told of the risks involved.

His organization is distributing films to schools aimed at children between five and eight, to train them how to avoid online dangers.

It came as the NSPCC brought out a report warning that teenage girls are coming under increasing pressure to text and email sexually explicit pictures of themselves.

The charity said ‘sexting’ is believed to affect more than a third of under-18s. The Daily Mail is  campaigning for an automatic block on online porn, with adults having to ‘opt in’ if they wish to access sexual material.

Mr Davies, who is also the child protection spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, told the Commons education select committee: ‘Online abuse is just as harmful as offline abuse. In many ways the level of fear and the psychological pressure is greater.’

And he warned children were  using the internet at a much younger age, meaning they needed to be taught about the dangers from primary school.

‘The moment a child becomes the subject of the education system, that’s when you should start,’ he added. ‘We used to extend our education packages down to ten, they are now down to about eight.

‘We are realizing we may need to pitch them at ages below that because this is not something that kids do when they are at home in the sitting room under the natural surveillance of their family – the phone is in their pocket and with them all the time.

‘It’s never too early. Children start using the internet long before they enter the education system, so it should start the moment they come through the doors.’

Mr Davies also warned the type of child pornography online was getting worse. ‘The apparent ages of victims in images is getting lower and the level of severity of the images is getting worse,’ he said.

And he told MPs that although sexting was a growing problem, only a ‘tiny’ proportion of incidents where it had ‘gone wrong’ were reported to police.

The NSPCC study of sexting was carried out by King’s College London, the Institute of Education and the London School of Economics.

It found after interviewing 35 teenagers at two London schools that girls as young as 11 were being asked to send ‘special photos’ to boys they knew.

In some cases, the girls had to write a name in black marker pen on a part of their body to show it was the ‘property’ of a certain boy. They also faced a ‘barrage’ of messages demanding intercourse or oral sex.

Professor Rosalind Gill, of King’s College, said: ‘Until now, e-safety campaigns have focused on preparing young people to face dangers posed by strangers online.

‘Our report suggests the focus needs to shift to include the much more complicated issue of peer-to-peer communication and the difficulties and isolation young people experience in negotiating this.’ 

Jon Brown, head of the sexual abuse program at the NSPCC, said: ‘What’s most striking about this research is many young people seem to accept this is part of life.

‘But it can be another layer of sexual abuse and, although most children will not be aware, it is illegal.’

Source: Mail Online

The bill, likely to pass, would teach city cabbies how to help prostitute passengers. From The New York Post:

The course — designed to help hacks ID prostitutes and tell them about available resources — would be mandatory for anyone applying for a TLC license, according to a bill expected to soon pass the City Council. Mayor Bloomberg said he would sign the bill, which requires the city to design and update the course regularly.

In December, the Committee on Women’s Issues and the Committee on Transportation introduced two bills targeting sex-trafficking. WNYC reported:

One bill proposes a $10,000 penalty for drivers who knowingly participate in sex trafficking and asks the Taxi and Limousine Commission to institute an education program on sex trafficking for all drivers. The other bill raises penalties for driving an unlicensed vehicle for hire.

What hasn’t yet been determined, however, is what happens when a cab driver gives a non ‘working girl’ some pamphlets on how to avoid hooking. Awkward!

In April, a father/son team was arrested for allegedly operating a brutal sex trafficking business in Manhattan–a “brothel on wheels”–in which they branded the prostitutes with tattoos.

Six livery cab drivers were also arrested in connection with the business. You can see a very sad photo of all of them in court here.

Source: Huffington Post

Powell looked off into a corner of the courtroom as the verdict was read. Anne Bremner, an attorney who represents Susan Powell’s family, smiled.

Trial: Steve Powell at the trial last week after the court was shown a slideshow of the pictures he took of his neighbor's children while they were bathing and dressing.

Authorities brought the voyeurism charges last year after searching Steve Powell’s home during their investigation into the disappearance of Susan Powell of Utah.

With the conviction on all 14 counts, Powell faces the possibility of up to five years in jail for each. His sentencing is scheduled for June 15.

Powell will also be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.

Prosecutors claim images used as a basis for the charges were found on a disc in his bedroom. Though they have said Susan Powell was the subject of many of Steve Powell’s photos, those images were not part of the case.

Instead, prosecutors focused on images of two young girls who lived next door to Steve Powell as he had hundreds of images of them bathing, getting dressed and going to the toilet.

Susan Powell’s family believes Steve Powell has information on her disappearance, and authorities say he has been uncooperative in the investigation.

Susan Powell’s husband, Josh, killed himself and the couple’s two young children earlier this year by taking a hatchet to his sons before blowing the house up.

Victim: Evidence relating to Susan Powell was not allowed to be used for the trial, though Powell was convicted on all counts of voyeurism anyway.

During closing arguments yesterday, Pierce County prosecutor Grant Blinn methodically showed photos of the young girls to the jury while saying that Powell captured the images from his bedroom window.

‘He was sitting there, lurking in the shadows, leering at the girls,’ Blinn said. ‘It is difficult to imagine a more obvious invasion of privacy.’

Jurors deliberated for three-and-a-half hours yesterday before they were dismissed, according to ABC.

They returned twice to the courtroom seeking information on two issues – the first was to learn whether the evidence found in boxes only belonged to Steve Powell and the second was to ask for the disc in which Powell allegedly taped himself viewing the images of the young girls.

Prosecutors claimed Powell was ‘naked, urinating and masturbating’.

Today they returned to the courtroom about 45 minutes into deliberations to ask whether all of the exhibits had been presented to them.

In total they deliberated for six-and-a-half-hours to reach a unanimous verdict.

Authorities say the files show the young girls in a bathroom as they bathed and used the toilet. The girls, identified in court only by their initials, were about eight and ten years old when the images were captured.

They testified they had no idea someone had taken photos of them in the bathroom.

Defense attorney Travis Currie argued there were too many uncertainties in the evidence to convict.

He questioned whether Steve Powell was the one who actually captured the images, noting others lived in the home. He also wondered whether the images were used for sexual gratification.

‘There are people who are nosy, who like to spy on their neighbors,’ Currie said.

When talking about the burden of ‘reasonable doubt’, Currie reached as high as he could into the air, towering over the jury to emphasize how high of a bar that standard is.

Among the images recovered from Steve Powell’s home were many of Susan Powell that appeared to have been filmed without her knowledge, investigators said.

There were also journals in which Steve Powell detailed his obsession with Susan Powell, they said.

Much of that evidence has been barred from the trial as unduly prejudicial against the defendant. Steve Powell is not charged with acts of voyeurism involving Susan Powell because authorities can’t prove she didn’t know about the filming.

See Also Creepy Father-In-Law’s Porn Trial Could Reveal Information Into Susan Powell’s Disappearance

Source: DailyMail

Democrats in Virginia are weighing up their options in the wake of a vote to block the appointment of the state’s first openly gay judge.

Senior Democrats expressed their dismay and outrage at the vote in the House of Delegates to reject a prominent local prosecutor, Tracy Thorne-Begland, for a vacancy on the Richmond circuit court. The decision instantly engulfed Virginia in the toxic fumes of the gay marriage debate sweeping the US, following public pronouncement of support for it last week.

Eva Russo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated Press The Rev. Robin H. Gorsline of People of Faith for Equality in Virginia showed support Tuesday for Tracy Thorne-Begland.

The vote followed a heated debate in which Republican delegates accused Thorne-Begland of having violated military rules by coming out as gay while serving in the navy 20 years ago.

Delegates voted 33 to 31 in favour of his appointment to the bench, but that fell short of the majority of 51 votes needed for ratification. Ten delegates abstained, and 26 stayed at home.

Jennifer McClellan, the Democratic delegate for the area of Richmond in which Thorne-Begland lives, said that his rejection was not the end of the struggle. “One day the LBGT community will be represented on the bench in Virginia, and that’s a fight worth having,” she said.

There is no immediate way that Tuesday’s vote can be reconsidered by the House of Delegates, which has now adjourned for the rest of the year. It would be possible to renominate Thorne-Begland for the post next January, when the assembly reconvenes, but that would be dependent on his own wishes, which he has not yet articulated. His only statement on the matter is that he is “looking forward to continuing to serve the citizens of the city of Richmond and the great commonwealth of Virginia”.

The block on the appointment of Thorne-Begland, 45, has thrown Virginia into the centre of the debate about the legal status of gay and lesbian Americans. Last week Barack Obama said that he supported same-sex marriage, making his unexpected intervention a day after North Carolina became the 31st state to place a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

McClellan said that Thorne-Begland had been the best candidate for the judgeship, a fact that was lost amid the House of Delegates debate, which she said had been marred by misinformation. Robert Marshall, who led the Republican opposition to the appointment, accused Thorne-Begland of having broken military rules when he appeared as a serving naval officer on the ABC TV show Nightline and came out as gay.

There was an outpouring of criticism of Virginia’s assembly following the vote. Thorne-Begland’s boss, Michael Herring, the attorney of Richmond commonwealth, made an impassioned speech in which he denounced the rejection as an embarrassment.

“I’ve known Tracy for years, he’s a good man, a good father, a good lawyer and he was a good navy pilot. He would have been an outstanding judge and for the life of me I can’t understand why folks voted against his nomination.”

The LGBT civil rights group Lambda Legal said the Virginia action was part of a broader strategy across the nation to undermine fairness and impartiality within the judiciary. Eric Lesh, of the group’s fair courts project, said that up to now the focus had been on specific court rulings, such as the judgment of US district judge Vaughn Walker blocking California’s gay marriage ban, Proposition 8.

Walker became the target of sustained attacks from socially conservative groups after it was revealed that he was in a long-term gay relationship, though the appeals court later ruled that his personal circumstances had no bearing on his judicial involvement in the case. “There have been several cases of bullying of judges over rulings with which various interest groups did not agree,” Lesh said.

Much attention in the Virginia dispute is being paid to a socially conservative group called the Family Foundation that actively campaigned against Thorne-Begland ahead of the vote. The gay rights group Equality Virginia accused Family Foundation of peddling “fearmongering and shrill personal attacks”.

The Family Foundation hit back with a statement that charged liberals with resorting to “mean-spirited name-calling, misinformation and bullying. After losing election after election, you would think Virginia’s left would finally figure out that they are on the wrong side of these issues.”

Source: Guardian

But back in the 1970s Mick Jagger was counting the pennies even when it came to prostitutes, according to an American author.

The singer supposedly negotiated cheap deals with hookers whilst the Rolling Stones were touring around the world.

Jagger was ‘fixated on the bottom line’ and hated feeling like he was being ripped off – even when it came to paying for sex.

The claims are from U.S. author Debra Sharon Davis whose book ‘Backstage Pass VIP’ lays bare the secrets of some of the world’s most famous celebrities.

In an interview she said that even though in the 1970s the Rolling Stones were one of the most famous bands in the world, Jagger closely monitored how much they spent.

Davis said: ‘Jagger outlined what he was willing to pay as if he were negotiating the details of a world tour – micro-managing the transactions with call girls in Europe.

‘Equal to music Jagger loved negotiating. His greatest respect was for businessmen who made a lot of money,

‘For Jagger, a conservative, male chauvinist, it was how he defined manhood. Like almost all decisions, Jagger addressed the problem fiscally.’

Davis added that Jagger, 68, never really liked paying for sex and could never properly relax because he felt he was being overcharged.

She said: ‘The ultimate CEO. Jagger worried about lawsuits from strange women. He was fixated on the bottom line.’

Another example of his penny pinching supposedly came on the band’s 1982 European tour in Germnay

Davis said: ‘Jagger made a packed indoor stadium of rowdy kids wait nearly an hour (before he came out) while he calculated box office receipts because he remembered financial inaccuracies years before’.

Davis is not the first person to comment on Jagger’s sharp eye for business.

In his memoir Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards bemoans how his former friend turned into a cold-hearted businessman who became nearly impossible to work with.

Source: Mail Online

Cops are searching for Luerissie Ashley Ross, a 20-year-old stripper known as “Pocahontas,” after she allegedly lured two victims to her home in separate incidents, set them up to be robbed, and then had them shot.

During the most recent incident in February, one of the victims, Budrohoe Briscoe, was killed in Texas, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Ross has been charged with capital murder and aggravated robbery in that case.

Court documents obtained by KHOU allege that Ross befriended Briscoe and invited him to her Houston apartment.

Briscoe picked up his cousin at the airport on Feb. 17 and reportedly asked him to “come meet ‘Pocahontas’.” The pair arrived at 2 a.m. and the cousin stayed in the car while Briscoe walked up to the stripper’s courtyard. The cousin reportedly watched two men approach Briscoe and shoot him.

Briscoe died at the hospital days later, leaving behind seven children.

Officers connected Ross to the murder when one of Briscoe’s relatives told them that “Pocahontas” was a dancer at the Ice Cream Castle nightclub.

The ensuing investigation also reportedly revealed evidence that Ross pulled the same trick on Dec. 30, in the same apartment complex. She’s accused of meeting an unidentified man there to rob him. Her boyfriend, Kevin Johnson, allegedly shot the man, but he survived.

Ross, who has allegedly admitted to her crimes, has been free on bail since April 29. Cops haven’t been able to find her.

Source: Huffington Post

And what better way to dip a toe into the nudist lifestyle than by attending this year’s Nudist Clubhouse Nudist Expo 2012 on June 1 and 2 in Las Vegas.

At the expo, attendees will get a chance to speak to organizers and travel agents specializing in nudist retreats, cruises and other adventures.

To assist prospective nakationers, representatives from the American Association for Nude Recreation will be on hand throughout the expo.

While everyone has to cover up at the actual exhibit, they’re free to ditch the fabric at the planned barbecue and pool party in the evening, notes USA Today. And with tickets at just $65 a pop, who could resist?

To add the naturist experience, delegates attending the expo also have a designated hotel reserved for them where they’re free to wander in the nude. Not surprisingly, the name of the lucky hotel has not yet been revealed.

Looking for some possible nudist holiday destinations? Why not visit a nude beach near Will and Kate’s home in the U.K. or consider visiting one of the world’s finest nudest beaches.

Source: Huffington Post

The 17-member, Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted unanimously that the drug’s ability to prevent new HIV infections and provide HIV-positive people with access to medical care and social services outweighed the risks of false results.

The recommendations will now be considered by agency regulators as they determine whether the product, known as the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test, made by OraSure Technologies Inc, should be approved.

Ground-breaking: The HIV test which can be taken at home was approved by the Food and Administration Panel in the U.S.

Advocates said the in-home test would provide a new and potentially powerful strategy for attacking an HIV epidemic that has infected nearly 1.2 million people in the U.S. and increases by 50,000 new cases each year.

The company said it would expect the product to retail for less than $60, if approved and marketed over the next few months.

Panel members urged OraSure to undertake post-marketing studies to ensure that the test is available to under-served populations in a manner that would link those who use the kit to the healthcare services including confirmatory tests at professional settings.

A home version of the professionally administered OraQuick Advance test, the new product is an oral swab rapid test that produces results within 20 minutes.

The test should not be taken until 90 days after an individual last had engaged in activity that put them at risk.

FDA officials said the OraQuick In-Home test showed a high degree of effectiveness in detecting HIV infection.

Ending the stigma: An HIV-infected blood cell. Advocates urged the FDA panel to back the test by OraSure which is expected to market at around $60

But some research data suggested the test lacked sufficient sensitivity to avoid false negative results.

False negatives were of particular concern because they could lead HIV-positive individuals to take fewer precautions, raising the danger that they will engage in unprotected sex.

Some panel members argued for strongly worded labeling about false results and procedures to link those who telephone a company hotline with questions with healthcare professionals.

U.S. health officials told the panel that home-testing could help get needed healthcare to HIV-positive individuals earlier.

At present, only 62 per cent of those with HIV are linked to the healthcare services and just 28 per cent have access to drugs capable of suppressing the infection.

The panel heard overwhelmingly supportive public testimony from more than two-dozen witnesses including HIV activists, black community representatives and public health experts, some of whom received money and other assistance from OraSure.

The witnesses urged the panel to back the test as a means of eliminating HIV’s public stigma, a main barrier to testing, by making the home test just another item that can be purchased at a local pharmacy along with aspirin or condoms.

Whitney Engeran of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a LA-based group that provides care for nearly 170,000 HIV patients, said the potential ability to break down the stigma outweighed the product’s shortcomings.

Mr Engeran said: ‘The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good.’

One witness, who represented healthcare providers, urged the FDA to withhold approval until further study can raise the test’s accuracy to a level more in line with those administered in clinics and other professional settings.

Last week, another FDA panel recommended regulatory approval for Gilead Sciences Inc’s HIV drug, Truvada, as the first pill treatment for protecting uninfected individuals. 

Trading in OraSure’s shares was halted for the FDA meeting after closing on Monday at $9.10.

Source: MailOnline

In an email Sunday, Lexington Catholic president Steve Angelucci said, “As a Catholic high school, we uphold every teaching of the Catholic Church. The policies and procedures of our school reflect those teachings.”

When the couple tried to enter the school’s gymnasium, where the prom was held, they were turned away, so Wright said they held their own prom in the school’s parking lot.

“I would understand and respect the school’s decision if they truly upheld church teachings,” Wright said Sunday night. “They didn’t forbid the entrance of all the couples who’ve had premarital sex and all the kids who planned to get drunk after the prom.”

Wright said Decker was “overwhelmed with all of the attention” and did not want to comment for this story. Decker later called and asked the story not be printed because she didn’t want to hurt the reputation of the high school.

Wright said the couple’s parking-lot prom was great.

“We had a wonderful night, and we were surrounded by true friends,” Wright said. “I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.”

Among the other students outside with them were Lexington Catholic senior Suzie Napier, who said she wrote a letter to school administrators expressing displeasure at their decision. Napier said 107 fellow students signed it.

“I think that it is unfair that Hope and Tiffany were not allowed to attend prom together,” Napier said. “I can understand why, but I don’t agree with it.”

“Universal love and acceptance,” she said, is a greater Catholic tradition than its stance on same-sex relationships.

Napier said the students played music from their parked cars at the outside prom and set up a table for refreshments.

“I definitely think this prom will be much more memorable than any prom the school hosted,” Napier said.

Megan Carter-Stone, a senior, also attended the outside prom.

“It was a wonderful time, and I think we got our point across,” Carter-Stone said. “At least I hope we did.”

Source

(Mizzima) – Of the estimated 240,000 people with AIDs and HIV in Burma, half are in urgent need of life-saving antiretroviral treatment (ART), say doctors. According to estimates in 2010, less than 30,000 of those infected were receiving the drugs.

A Rangoon medical worker takes a blood sample from a woman as part of an HIV test at a specialized clinic run almost entirely by those in the sex trade. The project now has programmes in 19 cities and employs 350 people. Photo: AFP

“We see patients crawling in, some lethargic and near death, some trying to drag themselves in,” Dr. Maria Guevara, medical co-ordinator at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which is the largest provider of ART in Burma, told The Guardian newspaper.

“We are having to say no to people we know will just get sicker and die,” she said.

The hope that more drugs would soon be available was dashed last November when the Global Fund announced the cancellation of the next grant-making round due to lack of funds, the article said. The board is due to meet on Thursday to discuss the institution’s future.

Doctors are rationing drugs, giving prescriptions only to the weakest patients, said The Guardian. Death rates among people who arrived in clinics too late were up to 25 per cent last year, said MSF.

Burma is the least developed country in Southeast Asia and receives only a fraction of the aid from which some of its neighbours benefit.

The Burmese Ministry of Health is woefully underfunded. Nearly 33 per cent of Burmese live below the poverty line and thousands are unlikely ever to be able to afford ART, which cost $30 a month, said MSF.

In August 2011, Mizzima reported that Health Minister Dr. Pe Thet Khin told Parliament that his department received about 43 per cent of its essential budget needs in the latest fiscal year.

The shortfall will cause a lack of medicine and services in government hospitals and clinics, he said. The minister said his agency needed 8 billion kyat per year, but received 3.5 billion kyat.

In a rare partnership between an adult entertainer and Silicon Valley, Olson (pictured above) has signed on to provide celebrity endorsement for Verified Call. In return, she gets a way to interact one-on-one with her fans in a secure fashion — and she also picks up some stock options in Verified Call.

With Verified Call, fans can place direct and anonymous voice-over-internet calls to Olson, without needing to know her phone number. Olson can charge for the call — her going rate is $8.99 a minute — and fans can pay directly with their phones or PayPal with a simple verification process. Olson simply embeds the Verified Call icon within her web site, BreeOlson.com (NSFW). Fans click on it, and enter their phone numbers. Within 15 seconds, Verified Call places a call to both the fan and Olson, who can indicate whether she wants to take calls or not. The system immediately bills the caller for a given number of minutes that the customer chooses, then the call goes through. The system can also schedule calls for later.

“I can post to Twitter and say I’m ready to take calls,” Olson said in an interview with VentureBeat. “It’s a new generation of simplicity for me. I’m an Apple fan and I like this clean design and an easy user interface. It’s very classy and easy for both parties.”

For fans, it’s a chance for an “intimate,” one-on-one conversation with a celebrity. For an entertainer like Olson, it’s a safe system where she doesn’t have to give out her phone number, and it’s more manageable than a computer webcam, where she would have to sit in front of her computer. With the phone, she could have a chat with a fan — and make money from it — while stuck in a traffic jam.

“I like it because I’ve been curious about who some of the fans are,” Olson said. “I can tweet when I want to take a call. Most of the webcams are huge chat rooms and the guys don’t really get to say anything. It’s one-sided. This is so personal.”

This Silicon Valley-meets-entertainer meme seems like it’s becoming more common. The adult industry has always been an early adopter of technology, from the VCR to DVDs to the internet. But recently even mainstream stars have gotten in on the Silicon Valley action. Ashton Kutcher, for example, has embraced technology and even invested in a wide variety of startups.

Vogner mentioned that uber angel investor Ron Conway is a star who should charge $500 per hour or more for his advice. Olson said, “I would pay $500 to talk to him! I love the tech scene.”

You can kind of think of Verified Call as a tool for 21st-century celebrity life management. Olson, who has given up porn to focus on a mainstream acting career, still has lots of fans and she likes the idea of using technology to stay in touch with them. (To be fair, her website still shows plenty of skin, and she’s continuing to make money on the 230 adult films she made during her career, and her work is all over the internet.) She has been on Twitter for five years and has a crazy-active channel on YouTube (officialbreeolson9) with videos like “Naked for Kony 2012,” which has more than 600,000 views.

Verified Call started with a focus on web-based conference calls. But the team evolved the system to focus on one-on-one conversations. And it built the technology to include individual accounts, promotion, billing, and scheduling.

Vogner (pictured on the left) met Olson at the AVN Awards, the Oscars of adult films, in Las Vegas earlier this year. Olson, who vaulted into broader celebrity fame after she had a relationship with actor Charlie Sheen, hosted the show and Verified Call showed up to target adult performers with its technology.

“After five minutes of talking, we both knew we wanted to work together,” Vogner said. “Bree has hundreds of thousands of conversations in her lifetime. To not be able to monetize that is a shame.”

The system isn’t just for porn stars, or retired ones. Lawyers, psychiatrists, and any other people who bill by the minute can adopt the system.

“Our first customers were attorneys because they are accustomed to charging for time,” Vogner said. “This is classy too because you won’t find a list of hundreds of people to call on our web site. This is a link that goes directly into Bree’s own page.”

At first, Olson will take calls for at least an hour a week. In that one hour, she could earn $539. Vogner says that if Verified Call can get a couple of hundred celebrity users, it will have a nice business that will generate a lot of its own publicity.

“There’s a gap in the market for professionals and entertainers who can monetize their interactions with customers and fans,” Vogner said. “For the fans, this is a lot better than getting an autograph.”

As an advisor for Verified Call, Olson is also providing help to help refine Verified Call’s features. She wants the company to add a bidding system where the highest-bidding caller wins out when lots of people want to talk to her at once. The billing is set up to prevent billing disputes; if Olson hangs up on the caller before the paid time limit is reached, the caller isn’t charged. But if the caller hangs up first, then the caller is charged. If weirdos call, Olson can hang up. And those callers can be banned from placing requests for call backs in the future. Webcam software and Skype don’t have such features such as the billing mechanisms.

Verified Call is self-funded and was founded by Vogner, a former vice president at Match.com and an early contributor at SFGate.com, in 2011. The company has six employees, not counting Olson. Rivals include traditional computer webcam services and My Phone Site. Olson didn’t like the video on webcams because “people don’t realize that us girls don’t look perfect all of the time.”

“This way, I can say I’m free and talk to respectful fans who are curious about talking to someone like me,” Olson said. “My adult entertainment fans have transitioned over with me on the mainstream side, with comedy roles. And I’m gaining a whole new set of fans. They are generally interested in my day-to-day life. I never thought people would be interested if I said was visiting San Francisco. They want to talk about anything.”

Source. Venturebeat.com