Lindsay Lohan is searching for her inner peace, and may have found it in the Quran. Also, she&#8217;s developed a bizarre accent, which she&#8217;s given a name.
The 30-year-old actress,more famous now for her drug abuse and casually flashing her nude genitals at paparazzi than acting, recently deleted all the photos on her Instagram page and replaced them with a bio that reads simply, &#8220;Alaikum salam.&#8221; The phrase means &#8220;peace be unto you&#8221; in Arabic. 
This unexplained move, along with her reported study of the Quran and recent trip to the Middle East, has inspired speculation that the troubled starlet has converted to Islam. Though <a href="http://www.thestar.com.my/news/true-or-not/2017/01/18/lindsay-lohan-rumour-conversion/">The Star</a> says sources, including Mum Dina Lohan, deny it, saying she&#8217;s just taking a social media hiatus, Lohan&#8217;s mysterious stunt has made headlines and unsurprisingly stirred up a response online. 
Muslims took to Twitter to congratulate and welcome Lohan to their religion: 
 
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Lindsay Lohan deleted all her pictures after converts to Islam with the caption &#8216;Alaikum salam&#8217; on her instagram. May Allah bless you <a href="https://t.co/Yk04HjxJo6">pic.twitter.com/Yk04HjxJo6</a>
&#8212; goldilocks (@thepocahontas98) <a href="https://twitter.com/thepocahontas98/status/819873807124942850">January 13, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Lindsay Lohan is Muslim??? Wow subhanAllah, Allah really guides whom He wills. Welcome to Islam sis&#65039; <a href="https://twitter.com/lindsaylohan">@lindsaylohan</a> <a href="https://t.co/p1dA77T7la">pic.twitter.com/p1dA77T7la</a>
&#8212; &#8226; K H A D E G A &#8226; (@TheKhadegaMo) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheKhadegaMo/status/819678491721474049">January 12, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Isit true Lindsay Lohan may be converting to Islam? Alhamdulillah! :&#8217;) welcome to Islam &#65039; <a href="https://t.co/4g8V9ujSuW">pic.twitter.com/4g8V9ujSuW</a>
&#8212; Zarith Sofea (@Zarithsofea___) <a href="https://twitter.com/Zarithsofea___/status/819748172129976321">January 13, 2017</a></blockquote>
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im so happy that lindsay lohan found Islam. may Allah guide her and bless her &#65039;&#65039;
&#8212; Nurin Qistina (@_nurinqistina) <a href="https://twitter.com/_nurinqistina/status/820861307591094272">January 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The Instagram change came at the closing of Lohan&#8217;s vacation in the Middle East, namely Dubai, over the holidays. She spent the previous October visiting young Syrian refugees in Turkey and the rest of the year in London.
Lohan says her decision to remain in London was partly due to the backlash she&#8217;d received in the United States in 2015 after being photographed holding a copy of the Quran while in Brooklyn, New York. In an interview with the Turkish show Habe Turk last year, she said the book was given to her as a gift from a friend, and she brought it to New York because it helped her &#8220;find another spiritual meaning.&#8221;
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&#8220;They crucified me for it in America, they made me seem like Satan,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I was a bad person for holding that Quran and I was so happy to leave and go back to London after that. Because I felt so unsafe in my own country after this. And people were horrible to me.&#8221;
Lohan told E! News she was happy to not be living in the United States because Americans are &#8220;close-minded.&#8221; She has even developed a new accent to show off to the world how not-American she is: 
 
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LindsayLohan?src=hash">#LindsayLohan</a> has a new speaking accent/mannerism &#8211; and it is the most odd and fascinating thing!! Watch HERE! <a href="https://t.co/jOGRRXg2lG">https://t.co/jOGRRXg2lG</a> <a href="https://t.co/9beQWIspSQ">pic.twitter.com/9beQWIspSQ</a>
&#8212; Perez (@ThePerezHilton) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePerezHilton/status/793457357648912384">November 1, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Lohan joked about her incredibly bizarre new accent on Twitter with the hashtag #LILOHAN, later deleting it. She told Daily Mail UK she was developing an accent because of all the other &#8220;languages&#8221; besides for English that she was learning. 
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been learning different languages since I was a child,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m fluent in English and French, can understand Russian, and am learning Turkish, Italian, and Arabic.&#8221;
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Has Lindsay Lohan Converted To Islam? Here&#8217;s Why People Think So.

A reality TV star pulled a gun on three intruders who broke into her home over the weekend, and what she had to say to them after the incident went internet viral.
&#8220;Real Housewives of Atlanta&#8221; star Kenya Moore posted details of the incident to her Instagram page, which included a video warning to anyone else who might consider breaking into her home. 
&#8220;If you come over here, you come to my door, you can find out where I live please do, because if you come over here you gonna get a motherf***ing cap in your ass,&#8221; she warns in the first video clip. &#8220;No &#8216;who are you, what are you doing.&#8217; you are gonna get a motherf***ing cap in your ass. I will f***ing shoot, and I will ask questions later. Try me.&#8221;
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BOqnUTdD6vA/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">I&#8217;m pissed! 3 people knocked on my door a woman and 2 big grown men. They climbed the fence when they couldn&#8217;t get through my security gates. They got what they came for I stay sitting on ready. if any crazy motherfuckers want to F with me u deserve what&#8217;s behind these doors. #myhammersstayready #criminaltrespass #theytriedit</a>
A video posted by Kenya Moore (@thekenyamoore) on Dec 30, 2016 at 7:07pm PST
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BOqoBroDxOX/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">People are crazy AF!</a>
A video posted by Kenya Moore (@thekenyamoore) on Dec 30, 2016 at 7:13pm PST
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&#8220;I will be pulling a security footage and I will be getting a license plates and I will be prosecuting you for trespassing. You come over here, you gonna go to jail, and you might get an ass whipping on your way to getting shot,&#8221; she adds.
Moore followed up by posting a screenshots of security footage from her driveway and describing her intruders. 
&#8220;I have a right to feel safe in my home and to protect myself,&#8221; she wrote in a long post with screenshots of the intruders escaping her driveway, offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who helps her identify them. &#8220; I don&#8217;t care if I&#8217;m on TV. What if 3 strangers banged on your front door &#8230;2 of them being grown men wearing dark clothing knowing they could only get to you by jumping fences or trespassing onto other properties and mine? There are home invasions, robberies, rapist&#8230;What if your children or loved ones were threatened this way? Anyone who is bold enough to commit a crime, endanger themselves and others needs to be punished.&#8221;
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BOsFKpaD1Kq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">I have a right to feel safe in my home and to protect myself. I don&#8217;t care if I&#8217;m on TV. What if 3 strangers banged on your front door &#8230;2 of them being grown men wearing dark clothing knowing they could only get to you by jumping fences or trespassing onto other properties and mine? There are home invasions, robberies, rapist&#8230;What if your children or loved ones were threatened this way? Anyone who is bold enough to commit a crime, endanger themselves and others needs to be punished. Please help me identify these people. $1000 reward email mooremanor2016@gmail.com #savage #YouDontWantThisWork</a>
A photo posted by Kenya Moore (@thekenyamoore) on Dec 31, 2016 at 8:47am PST
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Moore says the intruders had showed up in a white car and climbed over her brick walls in an attempt to evade her security cameras. Two of them were male and one was female. 
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<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BOrnyA3jfP6/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$1000 REWARD if you can identify any of these 3 individuals of criminally trespassed on my property yesterday. These are the first screenshots but my security is pulling the footage from other cameras. They climbed over a wall in order to circumvent my security gates and wall being bricked. Please email: mooremanor2016@gmail.com. They were driving a white car The female was recording on her phone the entire time. They told someone! Turn them in anonymously and if it leads to their arrest you will get $1000 each It is never ok to violate anyone this way. It is not funny. Men showing up at your door is an immediate threat. Things could have ended badly and all 3 will be criminally prosecuted. #nottoday #receipts #mooremanor</a>
A photo posted by Kenya Moore (@thekenyamoore) on Dec 31, 2016 at 4:30am PST
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The 1993 Miss USA pageant winner and former Celebrity Apprentice guest had been living in her new home for several months since purchasing and renovating it in 2015, The Blaze reports. On her relationship with President-Elect Donald Trump during her time on the Apprentice, Moore said Trump had never grabbed her and &#8220;was very fair to me.&#8221;
Trump has vowed he would &#8220;totally&#8221; protect the 2nd Amendment and has received emphatic endorsement from the National Rifle Association, but given his back-and-forth positions on gun control in the past, nothing seems guaranteed until his time in office. 
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<div> </div>

These Intruders Broke Into A Reality TV Star’s Home. Here’s What She Said.

History majors at George Washington University will no longer be required to take a course in American history in order to graduate, the school&#8217;s newspaper <a href="http://www.gwhatchet.com/2016/11/13/history-department-changes-major-requirements-to-draw-in-students/">reported</a>.
The Hatchet, GWU&#8217;s campus paper, says the new change in the major&#8217;s requirements is part of an attempt to &#8220;draw in&#8221; students who would otherwise not want to enroll at GWU because of the United States history requirement, and allow them to &#8220;tailor their academic plans to better reflect a globalizing world.&#8221;
Katrin Schultheiss, the GWU history department chair, says the faculty made the decision to change their history requirements due to &#8220;enrollment pressures.&#8221; Only 83 GWU students majored in history in 2016, compared with 153 in 2011. With the new changes, history students will be <a href="https://history.columbian.gwu.edu/program-requirements">required</a> to take at least one introductory history course, one introductory history seminar, eight to ten upper division history courses, and a thesis or capstone project; but none of those courses need to be specific to American history anymore.
Faculty say this could become a major revenue booster for the school; however, the College Fix <a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/30469/">noted</a> this speculation is misleading, as students can still choose to take courses outside of their major and thus provide the same revenue. 
Denver Brunsman, an associate professor of history and the director of undergraduate services for the history department at GWU, says eliminating the U.S. history requirement reflects changes in how historians are studying history now, to include documentation of the developing world instead of specifically the U.S. and Europe. 
&#8220;I think an important change in the history major has been to make our major actually reflect the field of history the way that historians study it now,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In the past &#8211; and I think our old standards reflected this &#8211; it was very common to have students take a class in American history, in European history and maybe, just maybe, something else, another part of the world.&#8221;
Schultheiss added this could give students more flexibility to choose the courses they enjoy and want to specialize in. But not all students are excited about this change. 
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&#8220;I think an important change in the history major has been to make our major actually reflect the field of history the way that historians study it now.&#8221;
Denver Brunsman, associate professor of history at GWU
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Jacob Chereskin, a fourth-year Middle East major at GWU, says eliminating the U.S. history requirement from the curriculum at a U.S. college will be counterproductive to how students will understand global affairs. 
&#8220;I think it is a very poor decision on the part of the GW administration, particularly since it is on the part of an institution which prides itself on equipping students with tools to be politically active and aware,&#8221; Chereskin told The Daily Wire. &#8220;If a student learning international affairs or political science is ignorant of US history, they won&#8217;t be able to make informed opinions on US policies at home and abroad.&#8221;
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George Washington University Won’t Require History Majors To Know US History

American History

George Washington University

WARNING: Due to the subject matter, the following piece contains strong language.
A contingent of gay teenagers who are displeased with President-Elect Donald Trump&#8217;s recent victory are protesting by selling &#8220;p***y pops&#8221; as part of a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. The vagina-shaped lollipops appear to reference Trump&#8217;s infamous &#8220;grab them by the p***sy&#8221; comment to Billy Bush&#8211;a statement used against the president-elect during the campaign. 
For just $3.99, an anonymous LGBT- affiliated high school couple will deliver &#8220;an edible, flesh-colored vulva on a stick&#8221; to the Trump Headquarters in New York City on your behalf. Some vulvae are colored with lighter skin shades, while others have darker skin shades, presumably to remain racially inclusive. 
In case your imagination didn&#8217;t serve an accurate image of what these sweets look like, here they are:
<img alt class="media-element file-default" data-fid="15313" data-media-element="1" height="400" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/pussies-392x400.jpg" width="392" />
The anonymous teens created a website called &#8220;<a href="http://sendtrumppussy.com/">Send Trump P***y</a>,&#8221; which offers a donate-link for their lollipop campaign, and outlines the reasons why they&#8217;ll be sending vagina lollipops to the president-elect.
Some of those reasons are that Trump is &#8220;wrong on pretty much every position,&#8221; that he is not a &#8220;decent human being,&#8221; that he is a &#8220;misogynistic pig&#8221; whose rhetoric oppresses &#8220;all the #NastyWomen,&#8221; and that he is &#8220;terrible at business.&#8221; Yup, this is coming from two young men whose business skills involve conning strangers of their money in order to allegedly support a baby-killing organization without so much as providing any evidence of their products to the public or even their names. Oh, and who literally can&#8217;t stand p***ies. 
&#8220;We&#8217;re on a mission <a href="http://sendtrumppussy.com/about/">to show Trump and America that we&#8217;re unsatisfied</a>, and our desire for an inclusive un-misogynistic America is unwavering, by sending him pussy-shaped lollipops,&#8221; the website reads.
Purchase options on the site include a &#8220;Buy Now!&#8221; link which sends website visitors directly to PayPal, while a &#8220;No thanks!&#8221; link sends visitors to another site called &#8220;<a href="https://senddickstodonald.com/">Send D**ks to Donald</a>.&#8221; Yup, that site works pretty much the same way the &#8220;Send Trump P***y&#8221; site works, just with penis pops instead of vagina pops, along with a printed message attached: &#8220;Eat a d**k, Donald Trump!&#8221;
Unlike the &#8220;d**k&#8221; site, the &#8220;p**y&#8221; site claims to forward 50% of its proceeds to Planned Parenthood and to what seems to be an attempt at feminism. 
In an <a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/30513/">email</a> to the College Fix, the high schoolers, who go by the names Jules and Gabe, say they are sending pops in the mold of vulvae &#8220;not only [to] show how strong these &#8216;anatomical features&#8217; are, but also to take back the power.&#8221;
&#8220;P***ies have always been referred to as weak, things that women should be embarrassed about, and things that men should have power over, but honestly, the opposite is true,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;They are one of the strongest anatomical features in humans [sic] bodies, and women should not only be proud of them, but we need to take control of them back.&#8221;
Yep, &#8220;we&#8221; as in two gender-normative homosexual men who neither own nor wish for female body parts. And yes, these young men are allegedly going to de-objectify women by placing replicas of their genitalia on sticks and sending them to the Trump headquarters. 
&#8220;That way,&#8221; they wrote in an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/send-trump-pussy_us_585db992e4b0eb5864867257">email</a> to the Huffington Post, &#8220;he will really understand how important [the campaign] is and so he and his administration see how many people really believe in women representing their reproductive rights.&#8221;
But hear this: for all the talk about bringing back the power to women, Jules and Gabe do not seem to value female parts as much as they value male parts. In fact, buying a d**k pop ($4.99) for Trump will cost you a dollar more than buying a p***y pop ($3.99)!
Now that&#8217;s a sellout, don&#8217;t you think? 
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pussies-392&#215;400

Gay Teenagers Raise Money For Planned Parenthood By Selling ‘P***y Pops’

Abortion

Donald Trump

LGBT

Liberalism

Planned Parenthood

Leftist billionaire George Soros is calling President-Elect Donald Trump a &#8220;would-be dictator&#8221; and a &#8220;con artist&#8221; whose recent win will help empower dictators all around the world and provoke a world-wide &#8220;crisis&#8221; on democracy. 
Yes, we&#8217;re talking about the same guy who thinks the United States should become &#8220;subordinated&#8221; to international bodies, was accused of widespread currency manipulation leading to a British financial crisis in 1997, and who said taking down former President George W. Bush in 2004 was the &#8220;central focus of my life.&#8221;
In a <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/open-society-needs-defending-by-george-soros-2016-12#comments">column</a> for Project Syndicate, Soros likens Trump&#8217;s victory to the rise of &#8220;fascist dictatorships&#8221; and &#8220;mafia states,&#8221; and said that together with the recent British and Italian rejections of the European Union, will lead to increased global income inequality. Because in Soros&#8217; world, countries like Britain and the U.S. should not be allowed to reach economic greatness. Their wealth should be redistributed and they should be penalized for their greatness in order to prevent revolts among poorer classes, he essentially argues.
Trump poses a major threat to Soros&#8217; world vision: he wants America to unapologetically rise again as a leading world power. 
Soros, a man sometimes known for his messianic self-image, prophesies that with Trump in office, &#8220;the US will be preoccupied with internal struggles in the near future, and targeted minorities will suffer. The US will be unable to protect and promote democracy in the rest of the world.&#8221;
&#8220;On the contrary, Trump will have greater affinity with dictators,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;That will allow some of them to reach an accommodation with the US, and others to carry on without interference. Trump will prefer making deals to defending principles. Unfortunately, that will be popular with his core constituency.&#8221;
Soros also expresses concerns about the potential decline of the EU under the influence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as the refugee crisis. 
Soros says by taking their fates into their own hands, movements like Brexit and the Trump populist vote are going to &#8220;destabilize democracy&#8221; because then the world order will not be &#8220;balanced&#8221; the way Soros wants it. He ends his letter by urging his readers to save the EU so that the EU can help prevent this.
Last month, Soros <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/307426-soros-pledges-10m-to-fight-trump-linked-rise-in-hate-crimes">pledged</a> $10 million to help fight the rise of hate crimes he says are caused by Trump&#8217;s &#8220;incendiary rhetoric.&#8221;
&#8220;We must do something to push back against what&#8217;s happening here,&#8221; he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/politics/george-soros-hate-crimes.html?mtrref=undefined&amp;_r=0">told</a> the New York Times, <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/10772/there-wave-pro-trump-violence-not-so-much-aaron-bandler">ignoring</a> that the majority of hate crimes at Trump rallies were committed not by, but against Trump supporters, and at least 17 of the hate crimes seemingly committed by Trump supporters were hoaxes by Trump opposers.
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Soros Calls Trump &#8216;Would-Be Dictator&#8217;

George Soros

United Nations

A high school principal in Connecticut is warning students to stop using the word &#8220;white&#8221; to cheer for their team colors during games, because it might come across as &#8220;racist.&#8221; 
East Hampton High&#8217;s Principal John Fidler posted a letter instructing students to use means other than their team chant to express team pride. 
&#8220;Given the current social climate across the country, our use of the &#8216;White&#8217; cheer is under suspension. Please show your pride in our town and our school through other means when cheering on our teams. Thank you for your consideration,&#8221; the letter reads. 
The Hampton High chant in question begins with the team color cheer: 
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When we say blue, you say white!
Blue, white!
Blue, white!
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Paul Smith, the school&#8217;s superintendent, <a href="http://eagnews.org/ct-school-bans-word-white-from-game-cheers-given-current-social-climate/">defended</a> Fidler&#8217;s statements by rationalizing that he thinks the &#8220;white&#8221; cheer is getting old.
&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of outgrown just being done in our gym and at pep rallies and there&#8217;s a time and a place where the cheer is appropriate and a time when it may appear insensitive,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In road games, we&#8217;re dressed in blue, and even though it&#8217;s still senior tradition to say white, white, white, over and over, I think the context is not understood by everybody.&#8221;
Smith added because of the timing of the high school&#8217;s games, possibly by coinciding with President-Elect Donald Trump&#8217;s win last month, allowing the word &#8220;white&#8221; in a cheer that will be chanted repeatedly is &#8220;insensitive.&#8221; 
Needless to say, students at Hampton High were disgruntled with the fact that they could no longer cheer their team because their cheer included mention of a color that by leftist social justice standards represents evil, also known as &#8220;white human people.&#8221; 
&#8220;When the seniors cheer all they say is white,&#8221; student Brandon Kochuk posted. &#8220;They don&#8217;t say white power or anything involving race they are just saying white.&#8221;
&#8220;This stuff has me outraged they are trying to take a simple chant that our school has done for years and years,&#8221; student Jordan Michnowicz posted to Facebook. &#8220;They are trying to make it about race.&#8221;
&#8220;Why should you change a chant or cheer that has been around for years and has no racial connotation just because a few people are too stupid to understand such simple context?&#8221; student Blake Friel posted to Facebook. &#8220;Why should the vast majority of people change the chants they know and love because of a few racist retards who can&#8217;t see anything past skin color? Those are the questions you should be asking.&#8221;
The decision to ban a high school cheer occurs around the time a Pennsylvania professor <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4066656/Pennsylvania-prof-fire-white-genocide-tweet.html">tweeted</a>, &#8220;All I want for Christmas is White Genocide,&#8221; setting off an inflammatory &#8220;White Genocide&#8221; hashtag trending on Twitter. 
<div class="media_embed"><a href="http://www.wfsb.com">WFSB 3 Connecticut</a></div>
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<div> </div>

This High School Principal Just Banned Students From Cheering For Team Color: White

Connecticut

High School

Racism

Women in the United States are increasingly using marijuana during pregnancy, a recent study finds. The numbers are still small, but the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) says this trend raises concerns because of evidence linking marijuana use in pregnant or breastfeeding women with low birth weights and interrupted brain development in children, among other problems. 
A <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MED_MARIJUANA_PREGNANCY?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2016-12-19-11-41-24">study</a> found almost 10 percent of marijuana users in the U.S. have used it for medical reasons, and 20 percent of those medical marijuana users live in states where medical marijuana is not legal. According to an annual drug survey, 3.85 percent of pregnant women reported recently using marijuana, compared with 2.37 percent in 2002. Marijuana usage among non-pregnant women also increased between those years, from about 6 percent to 9 percent, according to a surveys at Columbia University Medical Center.
Another drug survey from 2013-14 found about 30 million adults in the U.S. used marijuana, and only 6 percent said they only used it for medical reasons. Some women are choosing marijuana as a solution for morning sickness during pregnancy. 
Compared with alcohol, marijuana does not pose the highest risk for birth defects among fetuses. Marijuana is still less accessible or socially accepted than alcohol, and is thus used less frequently on average. However, the damage done to a child by taking the drug while pregnant could be severe. 
According to a Netherlands <a href="http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(15)00692-7/abstract">study</a>, marijuana usage among pregnant women is strongly associated with cortical thickness in their children, suggesting detrimental changes in their brains as a result of the inhaled drug.
One reason for this might be not the drug itself, but the way it is consumed through smoking, the study points out. 
&#8220;Compared with nonexposed children, we observed smaller global brain volumes in tobacco-exposed children, whereas this was not found in cannabis-exposed children,&#8221; the study says. &#8220;Additionally, compared with non-exposed control subjects, we observed thinner cortices throughout the brain in tobacco-exposed children, whereas in cannabis-exposed children, we observed thicker cortices but only in the frontal regions in both hemispheres.&#8221;
According to the survey data involved in the study, 74.1 percent of marijuana-exposed pregnant women also reported using tobacco during their pregnancies, suggesting the problem as one having to do primarily with drug inhalation. 
&#8220;This high degree of co-occurrence of cannabis and tobacco exposure makes it very difficult to conclude that the observed effects in the cannabis-exposed children are driven by cannabis exposure only,&#8221; the study adds. 
In a journal submission titled, <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2594400?resultClick=1">The Risks of Marijuana Use During Pregnancy</a>, NIDA director Dr. Nora Volkow urges physicians to use options other than marijuana to treat women with prenatal nausea.
&#8220;Although the evidence for the effects of marijuana on human prenatal development is limited at this point, research does suggest that there is cause for concern,&#8221; Volkow warns. &#8220;A recent review and meta-analysis found that infants of women who used marijuana during pregnancy were more likely to be anemic, have lower birth weight, and require placement in neonatal intensive care than infants of mothers who did not use marijuana. Studies have also shown links between prenatal marijuana exposure and impaired higher-order executive functions such as impulse control, visual memory, and attention during the school years.&#8221;
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<div>Top image (Getty Images): People explore various cannabis paraphernalia during the Denver 420 Rally, the world&#8217;s largest celebration of both the legalization of cannabis and cannabis culture, May 21, 2016 in Denver Coloroado. </div>

Study: Pregnant Ladies Increasingly Smoking Pot

Drugs

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has recently had to defend a certain class it offers as part of its African Cultural Studies program. It insists the class was &#8220;not designed to offend individuals or single out an ethnic group,&#8221; but students do not seem convinced.
The class is titled, &#8220;The Problem of Whiteness.&#8221;
As part of &#8220;The Problem of Whiteness,&#8221; students are taught &#8220;what it really means to be white,&#8221; as part of a method of understanding &#8220;whiteness&#8221; and how to &#8220;help dismantle&#8221; any feelings of superiority that might come with being white. Other course objectives include recognizing &#8220;what an ethical white identity entails,&#8221; and &#8220;what it means to be #woke,&#8221; according to Campus Reform&#8217;s Kassy Dillon. 
&#8220;The Problem of Whiteness&#8221; fulfills UW-Madison&#8217;s ethnic studies requirement for graduation. The class&#8217;s description begins with Richard Wright&#8217;s quote, &#8220;There is no Negro problem in the United States, There&#8217;s only a white problem,&#8221; and continues by bashing white Americans for either not seeing themselves as much of a problem or not taking enough initiative to be vocal about how much of a problem they are. 
&#8220;After all, since white supremacy was created by white people, is it not white folks who have the greatest responsibility to eradicate it?&#8221; the course <a href="http://african.wisc.edu/content/problem-whiteness">description</a> reads.
Aside from offering a course on white people, the university adds, it also offers courses on Asians, Hispanics, Europeans, and African-Americans. 
Of course there appears to be one major difference: <a href="http://african.wisc.edu/courses">courses</a> on the topics of other races and ethnic classes are focused more on their cultures and less on them being a &#8220;problem&#8221;&#8230; The course description attempts to justify the disparity between perceptions on race in its courses:
<blockquote>
Whereas disciplines such as Latino/a, African, and Asian American studies focus on race as experienced by non-whites, whiteness studies considers how race is experienced by white people. It explores how they consciously and unconsciously perpetuate institutional racism and how this not only devastates communities of color but also perpetuates the oppression of most white folks along the lines of class and gender. 
</blockquote>
In courses on topics of colored races, the focus is on their victimization, whereas in courses exploring whiteness, the focus is on how whites perpetuate the victimization of others, even without realizing it.
In a campus-wide statement Monday, the school defended &#8220;The Problem of Whiteness&#8221; as a course that will &#8220;benefit students who are interested in developing a deeper understanding of race issues,&#8221; and &#8220;challenge&#8230; racism of all kinds.&#8221; Except anti-white racism, of course. 
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<div> </div>

University of Wisconsin-Madison Offers &#8216;Problem of Whiteness&#8217; Class

Education

Political Correctness

Race

A recent Harvard study is telling people who want to overcome their emotional problems to get physical first. 
The <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02699931.2016.1168284">study</a>, conducted by Harvard psychology PhD candidate Emily E. Bernstein and Richard J. McNally, links aerobic exercise with mood regulation, showing physical activity can help people bounce back more easily from emotional lows and highs.
As part of the study, Bernstein conducted an experiment that involved playing a clip from the final scene of the 1979 film The Champ, which is known to make people cry: 

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About 80 study subjects were told to jog for 30 minutes before watching the film, while other participants waited around without exercising before the film. Immediately after watching the film, the study participants all filled out a survey which asked them how they are feeling. After being told to keep busy for 15 minutes again, they filled out another survey asking them how they are feeling. 
&#8220;Theoretically, a bout of physical activity could facilitate flexible coping by boosting a person&#8217;s regulatory ability, perhaps through increased self-efficacy or executive control,&#8221; Bernstein hypothesized, predicting an increased negative emotional reaction among those who hadn&#8217;t exercised before watching the film and an easier emotional recovery for those who had.
Sure enough, those who had exercised before watching the film seemed to bounce back to their stable emotional states more easily, even if they had initially felt worse about watching the film than those who hadn&#8217;t. 
&#8220;Similarly, participants who struggled to engage in goal-directed behaviours after the stressor, such as reporting difficulties concentrating or thinking about other things, also felt worse across time than those who did not have this issue,&#8221; the study reports. &#8220;However, those participants who had recently completed 30&#8197;minutes of moderate aerobic exercise were less affected by these initial perceived difficulties with emotion regulation as they reported less sadness at the end of the study than those who did not exercise.&#8221;
Other studies went so far as to explore the impact exercise can have on the brain. A <a href="http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-brain-improve-memory-thinking-skills-201404097110">study</a> conducted at the University of British Columbia found aerobic exercise positively impacts verbal memory and thinking skills by increasing the size of the brain&#8217;s hippocampus. Other positive effects of exercise are reduced risks of heart disease, stroke, and depression.
Dr. Scott McGinnis, a Harvard neurologist, says people who exercise tend to have larger volumes of the prefrontal cortex and medial temporal cortex, parts of the brain that control memory and thinking. 
&#8220;Even more exciting is the finding that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions,&#8221; McGinnis told the Harvard Health Letter. 
So before abandoning all responsibility this holiday break in pursuit of a fun, effortless time spent with family; consider adding an extra daily run to your vacation itinerary. You might be pleasantly surprised at how much more relaxed family time can be. 
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<div> </div>

Study: Exercise Can Save Your Brain

Amid the massive flop of the Democratic Party and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton&#8217;s election loss, social justice liberals are fretting over the dying campaign of &#8220;intersectionality&#8221; in America and what it might mean for their party politics. 
&#8220;At twenty I was a queer-closeted, fledgling and frightened feminist,&#8221; The Mary Sue&#8217;s Sarah Remy wrote of her post-election meltdown. &#8220;In my forties I am out, a champion of queer youth, an author of diverse and #ownvoices stories, and a publisher of LGBTQIA fiction. I am an intersectional feminist&#8230; My son suffers anxiety so severe on some days he finds it a struggle to go to school, and who on the night of the election slept restlessly and woke me up often to worry out loud over what a Trump presidency might mean.&#8221;
Remy describes herself as an intersectional feminist because she shares the identity of more than one category of people often championed as &#8220;victim&#8221; by social justice liberals. She is queer, which means she may or may not share the sexual preferences or gender identity of a woman; yet, she currently possesses functioning female genitalia, making her of the victim F gender class. That already places her in at least two &#8220;victim&#8221; categories.
For the typical queer trans-racial intersectional feminist like Remy, a Republican presidency could ultimately represent the epic failure of intersectional identity politics as we know it. And the Left is willing to do whatever it can to stop that from happening.
See, the Left depends on intersectional politics in order to survive. It will typically pitch intersectionality as some kind of bonding factor between identity groups promoting social categories such as race, gender, sexual orientation, and class, which all share similar sentiments of &#8220;oppression&#8221; and &#8220;disadvantage.&#8221; Once all of these groups have created a tight overlapping culture of wallowing self-victimization, they can place their aggregated weight on winning a specific political goal. 
The success of this unifying phenomenon relies heavily, ironically, on social division. Here&#8217;s why: without the stark division of humans into social groups solely based on demographic factors such as color and sexuality, identity politics would not exist. Without identity politics, intersectional politics would not be necessary; and without intersectional politics, the Left&#8217;s unifying tactic thus far fails. 
Liberals are already starting to realize that, as Elliott Hamilton <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/11219/liberals-are-starting-reject-leftist-identity-elliott-hamilton">points out</a>, which is why many of them are rejecting identity politics altogether. Using the victim narrative and promoting social division can only work in their favor for so long&#8230; until it works against them.
&#8220;Clearly, many Democrats understand that their current approach failed them not only in federal elections, but also in state elections,&#8221; Hamilton writes. &#8220;With the Republicans <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/18/republicans-build-on-their-dominance-in-state-legislatures.html">controlling 33 governorships and 32 state legislatures</a>, Republicans have not had this much control across the country for almost a century. The Democrats realize that in order to make the case that they care about all Americans and not a select few groups, identity politics have to either be grossly minimized in its electoral strategy or eliminated for good.&#8221;
It is not a coincidence that in college campuses like the University of California, where a growing representation of thousands of student groups exist focused on identity politics alone and intersectionality is the prime focus between them, the ugly partisan division is more glaring than ever. Social justice groups have become so focused on promoting their victimhood that they forget their most important mission: to stop alienating themselves. The principled thing for liberals to would be to abandon identity politics in the name of unity and their ever-promised equality. 
Follow Pardes Seleh on <a href="https://twitter.com/PardesSeleh">Twitter</a>.
<div> </div>

Everything You Need To Know About &#8216;Intersectionality&#8217;

The student president of Cornell University&#8217;s College Republicans was physically shoved and called a &#8220;racist b****&#8221; the day after the November 8 election, she told The Tab, Cornell&#8217;s conservative student paper. 
&#8220;I was actually assaulted on campus for being a Republican,&#8221; sophomore Olivia Corn said. &#8220;I had someone throw me to the ground and say: &#8216;F*** you, racist b****, you support a racist party.&#8217;&#8221;
Corn told The Tab leftist students on campus had become exceptionally emotional when her organization hosted former presidential candidate Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), telling her she was a &#8220;disgrace&#8221; to women. 
&#8220;I had people come up and scream in my face about it,&#8221; she said, adding she felt insulted to be called a fascist because &#8220;I am very far from the definition of a fascist. I am about as moderate of a Republican as you&#8217;re going to find- I am pro-choice, I am pro-gay marriage, I believe climate change exists.&#8221;
The Republican student organization was known for its criticism of Republican President-Elect Donald Trump, and had endorsed Gary Johnson for president; nonetheless, it received heat for simply not positioning itself on the hard left. 
&#8220;So that was very interesting to me that automatically people find those words and boxes to put you in when you&#8217;re on the conservative side,&#8221; Corn explained. 
Corn says she did not see her attacker&#8217;s face&#8211; as the incident happened when it was dark outside&#8211; but she thinks she knows who it was. She has since felt nervous walking around alone on campus.
&#8220;I now walk with an alarm at all times,&#8221; she said. &#8220;That&#8217;s pretty much my new normal. I don&#8217;t walk by myself after a certain time, once it gets dark. And that&#8217;s not something I should have to be concerned with. I&#8217;m a college student, I&#8217;m just trying to get good grades, get to law school, keep my head down &#8211; besides being the head of an organization.&#8221;
The CR leader reported the incident to school authorities and was offered counseling. Cornell media spokesperson John Carberry confirmed receiving her report. 
&#8220;On the afternoon of Nov. 10, a female student reported that a physical harassment incident occurred on campus the previous evening,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Cornell University Police began a criminal investigation, and assisted the student in filing a report with our Title IX coordinator and a Bias Incident Report with our Department of Inclusion and Workforce Diversity. The Cornell University Police investigation is ongoing.&#8221;
In his email statement to the student paper, Carberry invited students to contact Cornell&#8217;s police department if they had any information related to Corn&#8217;s attacker. 
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Cornell University Republican President Called ‘Racist B****’

Cornell University

A Texas professor is telling students saying the word &#8220;holiday&#8221; is not inclusive enough anymore. 
Featured in a <a href="http://www.twu.edu/news/11-21-16-festivus-for-the-rest-of-us.asp">letter</a> to the Texas Woman&#8217;s University community, TWU professor Mark Kessler explains how to plan an &#8220;all-inclusive&#8221; holiday party at the office&#8211; only without using the word &#8220;holiday&#8221; to name the party.
&#8220;&#8216;Holiday&#8217; connotes religious tradition and may not apply to all employees,&#8221; the statement instructs. &#8220;For educational institutions, a December gathering may instead be called an &#8216;end of semester&#8217; party. For a business office, an &#8216;end of (fiscal) year&#8217; party may be more appropriate.&#8221;
In order to include the non-Christian employees who might be at an office Christmas party, Kessler advises, the party should be stripped of any Christmas-related connotations as much as possible. 
&#8220;Avoid religious symbolism, such as Santa Claus, evergreen trees or a red nosed reindeer, which are associated with Christmas traditions, when sending out announcements or decorating for the party,&#8221; another instruction reads. &#8220;Excellent alternatives are snowflakes, snowmen or winter themes not directly associated with a particular holiday or religion.&#8221;
Additionally, TWU community members were advised to avoid playing Christmas carols or Christmas holiday music, and make sure the menu does not symbolize Christmas in any way, for example, by avoiding red and green sugar cookies. 
<div>Kessler, a professor of multicultural women&#8217;s and gender studies, says some of his research interests include &#8220;resistance among women political activists,&#8221; &#8220;sexuality in U.S. politics,&#8221; and &#8220;feminist legal geographies.&#8221;</div>
Another alternative to a Christmas-less Christmas party, Kessler says, would be to include traditions from all religions in the office party and make it a &#8220;multicultural&#8221; event featuring a variety of holidays from different faiths. If there are atheists or agnostics in the office, the party should feature &#8220;what their holidays or perspectives mean to them.&#8221;
In order to be &#8220;all-inclusive,&#8221; Kessler says, the holiday menu should be replaced with a menu that reflects the &#8220;dietary preferences&#8221; of all religions in the office, including kosher and halal. Fox News&#8217; Todd Starnes sums up his reaction to this perfectly:
<blockquote>
Just imagine the festive scene at TWU&#8217;s all-inclusive winter shindig. Instead of scarfing down Little Smokies and shrimp cocktail, guests would be stuffing their faces with gluten-free hummus and Gefilte fish. So if you are one of the unfortunate souls who received an invitation, you might want to drop by the Chick-fil-A drive-thru before the party.
</blockquote>
The co-educational public Texas college made <a href="http://www.wbap.com/2016/12/01/students-want-unt-texas-womans-university-to-become-sanctuary-campuses/">headlines</a> last month after holding a joint event calling for the school to be made a &#8220;sanctuary campus&#8221; in protest of Donald Trump&#8217;s November 8th win.
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<div> </div>

Crazy College Professor Thinks The Word ‘Holiday’ Isn’t Inclusive

Days after a California community college professor was caught on camera calling Donald Trump&#8217;s presidential win an &#8220;<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/11482/teachers-union-threatens-sue-student-posting-james-barrett">act of terrorism</a>&#8221; and calling his vice president Mike Pence &#8220;one of the most anti-gay humans in this country&#8221; among other inflammatory comments in middle of class, she fled the state, saying she received multiple death threats and angry letters.
&#8220;This has nothing to do with free speech. It&#8217;s a professor overstepping her profession,&#8221; Vincent Wetzel, a gay student who attended Olga Perez Stable Cox&#8217;s LGBT panels, said. &#8220;Of all the people who are supposed to provide an inclusive environment, it&#8217;s her. Now, I don&#8217;t feel comfortable.&#8221;
In total, over 1,000 angry emails, calls, and social media comments were received by Cox, Orange Coast College (OCC), and her union, <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cox-738156-students-class.html">according</a> to the OC Register. In the midst of the heated controversy, Professor Olga Perez Stable Cox&#8217;s supporters have also come out to defend her.
&#8220;I want to let Olga know this is her home,&#8221; Elias Altamirano, an OCC student who helped organize a rally Monday in support of her, said. &#8220;She doesn&#8217;t have to feel threatened.&#8221;
But Cox was doing more than just telling students in her human sexuality class that &#8220;we&#8217;re really back to being at civil war,&#8221; her students are saying. Two students, Tanner Webb and Noah Faerber, said she was asking students who had voted for Trump to stand up and identify themselves in class. 
Webb said he enjoyed Cox&#8217;s class and had first kept quiet to protect his grades but felt he should speak up after he saw her union&#8217;s comments against the student who videotaped her rant; the union stated, &#8220;This is an illegal action without the permission of the instructor. The student will be identified and may be facing legal action.&#8221; 
&#8220;She tried to get everyone who voted for Donald Trump to stand up and show the rest of the class who to watch out for and protect yourself from,&#8221; Webb told KCBS News. &#8220;Professor Cox&#8217;s anti-Trump rant was no open debate to engage students.&#8221;
The students said they did not want the student who videotaped Cox to feel like the only one who thought what Cox was doing was wrong. Faerber confirmed Webb&#8217;s account of what happened. 
But Rob Schneiderman, president of Cox&#8217;s teachers&#8217; union, said the student who was videotaping Cox was acting unethically because it made her look worse than she actually is. He added Cox had simply told students that &#8220;some&#8221; people are happy with the election results, and after one student stood up in approval, she &#8220;invited&#8221; others to also stand up if they agreed. 
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Meanwhile, a second video from Cox&#8217;s class surfaced with more of her political views, including her statements that Orange County is &#8220;one of the most conservative counties in the nation&#8221; and that living there is &#8220;scary when you know you are surrounded by so many people that are so hateful.&#8221;
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Cox encouraged her students to report to her or other OCC faculty members if they heard &#8220;anyone in the class&#8221; say things that were &#8220;racist, or in any way prejudiced, or treating you in an unfair way.&#8221;
Apparently her students are doing just that. 
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<div> </div>

This Professor Asked Students Who Voted Trump To ‘Stand’ In Order To Call Them Out

A minority report finds three-year-olds can be tested to find out their likelihood of becoming criminals or welfare dependents later on in life, based on an assessment of intelligence, receptive language, and motor skills. 
The study, called &#8220;<a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-016-0005">Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden</a>,&#8221; was conducted by researchers from three different universities observing almost 1,000 people in Dunedin, New Zealand over the span of 35 years, and published in Nature Human Behaviour. The study&#8217;s subjects were observed beginning in 1972, from they were age three up until they were 38 years old.
Just one-fifth of the entire study sample were found responsible for 81% of criminal convictions, 66% of welfare benefits, and 75% of drug dependents of the whole group. That same one-fifth spent more than half of the nights spent in hospitals and smoked more than half of the cigarettes smoked by the whole group. 
These one-out-of-five individuals could have been detected decades in advance just by undergoing a 45-minute &#8220;brain health&#8221; test at the age of three. 
Led by psychology, behavior, psychiatry and neuroscience researcher Dr. Avshalom Caspi, the study claims by testing and finding who these children are, childhood intervention and prevention could be more effective and become a major societal boost. 
&#8220;Childhood risks, including poor brain health at three&#8201;years of age, predicted this segment with large effect sizes,&#8221; the study&#8217;s abstract states. &#8220;Early-years interventions that are effective for this population segment could yield very large returns on investment.&#8221;
Fatherless child-years were also taken into account as factors contributing to the test subjects&#8217; unfortunate destinies. Moreover, the twenty percent of test subjects accounting for the majority of societal burdens for the whole group also accounted for 82% of their children&#8217;s fatherless years. 
Critics argued perhaps later-year interventions might involve more advanced technology and thus yield better results; but Caspi says it is unlikely later-year interventions will be as effective as stepping in during a child&#8217;s most crucial years of brain development. 
The study emphasizes findings like this one should not be used to blame the study subjects; rather, to find a way to help the children who might be destined to lives of poverty and crime without intervention. The potential for misuse of this information was acknowledged as well, but Caspi says he is determined to search for the most accurate information and based on that, the most beneficial treatments available. 
&#8220;The purpose of this was not to use these data to complicate children&#8217;s lives any further,&#8221; Caspi said. &#8220;It&#8217;s to say these children &#8211; all children &#8211; need a lot of resources, and helping them could yield a remarkable return on investment when they grow up.&#8221;
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<div> </div>

MINORITY REPORT: Study Shows Which Children Will Be Criminals

Children

Crime

Parents in Australia are being urged to buy Barbies for their little boys this year&#8217;s Christmas in honor of &#8216;No Gender December.&#8217;
The annual campaign to break gender stereotypes was introduced by the Good Education Group, an education publisher backed by the United Nations, according to Yahoo Australia. 
&#8220;According to those behind the No Gender December campaign, the movement correlates with the perception that STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths) are fields dominated by men and avoided by women,&#8221; the publisher&#8217;s CEO, Chris Lester, said. 
Lester says encouraging little boys playing with dolls will help fight gender divisions which cause girls and boys to shy away from certain jobs later on in life just because of their gender. 
&#8220;According to the taxman, women make up over 70 per cent of the education and training sector, and almost 80 per cent of all health and social workers,&#8221; Mr Lester said, lamenting women &#8220;represent less than 12 per cent of the mining and construction industries, under a quarter of the manufacturing and transport sectors, and a tiny fraction of folks in IT.&#8221;
Perhaps guys might stop being so shy about breastfeeding and start growing breasts already. Because it&#8217;s about time they stopped seeing midwifery and nursing as an estrogen thing. 
Now, you might think this is sarcasm, but apparently Australia&#8217;s government doesn&#8217;t. 
Australian Federal Government body Workforce Gender Equality Agency is proposing a &#8220;bloke quota&#8221; be implemented to increase the number of men in nurturing roles such as nursing and teaching, which are often heavily dominated by females. 
The agency&#8217;s director, Libby Lyons, thinks the government should try to encourage men that their love for science and engineering over healthcare and teaching was culturally influenced, and that the government can rid this cultural job-designator by mandating more men take over female-dominated roles. 
&#8220;There&#8217;s no diversity of thought or innovation happening there in the classroom if we are solely relying on females, particularly in primary school,&#8221; she says. 
Hospitals and schools should follow suit of mining and rail industries that set quotas to hire more women to heavy labor roles, Lyons says. 
Similar campaigns to bring this philosophy to the playground are occurring in other parts of the world such as the United Kingdom, where children are being instructed to stop using gender binary language and start being taught <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/11553/take-look-pimary-school-pushing-genderqueer-pardes-seleh">&#8216;genderqueer&#8217;</a> content in class.
&#8220;It&#8217;s time to reject the idea that certain types of work are better suited to women or men. A person&#8217;s gender is not an indicator of their ability or interest in a particular area,&#8221; Lyons says, presumably thinking men secretly want the government to force them to nurse babies, and women secretly want the government to force them onto heavy labor to crack their ovaries, and they are too shamed by society to say so.
<blockquote>
&#8220;It&#8217;s time to reject the idea that certain types of work are better suited to women or men.&#8221;
Libby Lyons
</blockquote>
Because men and women choosing for themselves is not enough. People like Lyons and the government and the Australian Left know better. 
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<div> </div>

Guess What Parents Are Being Urged To Buy Their Kids For &#8216;No Gender December&#8217;

Australia

Gender

Students and faculty walked out in protest of a lecture by the American Enterprise Institute&#8217;s Charles Murray last week, accusing the social scientist of promoting &#8220;racism and classism&#8221; in his research. The walk-out, organized by Princeton&#8217;s Anthropology Department chair Carolyn Rouse, was supplemented with fliers passed out to every student at the start of the event, encouraging students to walk out with her. 
Rouse is known for her research on African American women and Sunni Islam and social justice activism. 
&#8220;Join us in a silent protest against the normalization of racism and classism in academia,&#8221; the flyer instructs. &#8220;We are choosing to walk out of today&#8217;s lecture after the speaker&#8217;s bio is read.&#8221; 
A video provided by one of the event&#8217;s attendees shows dozens of students and faculty members, who were sitting in the already-packed lecture hall, move toward the room&#8217;s exits as soon as Murray was introduced and walked up to the podium. Most of the protesters seemed to be older and female, and classic hippie hairstyles visibly stuck out among them, such as half-shaved heads and blue hair. A woman wearing a burka walked out with the protesters as well. 
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Students walk out in &#8220;silent protest&#8221; of <a href="https://twitter.com/charlesmurray">@charlesmurray</a> talk at Pton on Universal Basic Income. Shame, they could have learned something. <a href="https://t.co/kAF9ET57hK">pic.twitter.com/kAF9ET57hK</a>
&#8212; H Joshi (@RoundSqrCupola) <a href="https://twitter.com/RoundSqrCupola/status/807025101728268288">December 9, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
Murray, a self-described libertarian and a W.H. <a href="http://www.aei.org/scholar/charles-murray/">Brady Scholar</a> at AEI, is known for his work in welfare reform and promoting limited government intervention.
In the flyers, the protesters accuse Murray of promoting &#8220;pseudoscience&#8221; and accuse him of being an &#8220;armchair demagogue who argues that blacks and the poor are intellectually and morally inferior, as the cause of social inequality in America.&#8221;
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/charlesmurray">@charlesmurray</a> This flyer was handed out as people were walking in to the talk. One person stayed to ask Murray a question towards the end. <a href="https://t.co/wi67DHmf5g">pic.twitter.com/wi67DHmf5g</a>
&#8212; H Joshi (@RoundSqrCupola) <a href="https://twitter.com/RoundSqrCupola/status/807026824203091970">December 9, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
&#8220;Murray&#8217;s work is unworthy of our attention- and even our anger,&#8221; Rouse, who spent quite the effort meticulously organizing and marketing the demonstration, as well as gathering protesters, wrote in the letter. 
&#8220;It was clear that she hadn&#8217;t read his work,&#8221; an attendee commented. 
Murray seemed unfazed and even slightly amused by his protesters, making no complaints to The Daily Wire or other publications by their presence at his lecture. 
&#8220;Free attraction: Protesters,&#8221; he humorously tweeted Thursday afternoon. &#8220;I&#8217;d feel neglected without them.&#8221;
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Speaking at Aaron Burr Hall at Princeton in an hour (4:30). Y&#8217;all come. Free added attraction: Protesters. I&#8217;d feel neglected without them.
&#8212; Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) <a href="https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/806958263887601664">December 8, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
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<div> </div>

Look At The Flyer Leftist Students Handed Out To Protest Academic Charles Murray’s Talk

Primary school children at 120 British schools will now be instructed to stop using gender binary terms such as &#8220;boys,&#8221; &#8220;girls,&#8221; &#8220;ladies,&#8221; and &#8220;gents&#8221; to refer to others&#8217; sexes, and to start using gender-fluid terms like &#8220;cisgender,&#8221; &#8220;transgender,&#8221; &#8220;genderqueer,&#8221; &#8220;panromantic,&#8221; and &#8220;intersex.&#8221;
A guidebook sent to schools around Britain is telling teachers, parents, and students that by using gender binary language and enforcing the idea that there are differences between males and females, they are discriminating against transgender students in the classroom. The book, titled, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/tell-about-Gender-Diversity-professionals/dp/1785921053">Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity</a>,&#8221; gives a list of replacement terms which children can use to describe themselves and others.
It also describes in detail how a fictional 12-year-old &#8220;transitions&#8221; from female to male using hormone blockers to prevent the onset of puberty, and encourages children to &#8220;explore&#8221; the &#8220;different ways&#8221; of discussing gender at school and at home. In one of the book&#8217;s illustrations by artist Olly Pike, child readers are introduced to a &#8220;gender neutral&#8221; unicorn who has stars drawn in place of its genitals. 
Written by self-described &#8220;trans advocate&#8221; CJ Akinson, the book claims to be geared toward young children. The publishing company, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, <a href="http://www.jkp.com/uk/can-i-tell-you-about-gender-diversity-34569.html">boasts</a> the book as &#8220;the first book to explain medical transitioning for children aged seven and above.&#8221;
The book was distributed by <a href="http://www.educateandcelebrate.org/">Educate &amp; Celebrate</a>, an organization of trainers in the UK which travels to schools to teach children about gender diversity. Last year, the organization was awarded £2 million by the UK government to challenge &#8220;homophobia,&#8221; &#8220;biphobia,&#8221; and &#8220;transphobia&#8221; across UK primary schools.
Elly Barnes, founder of the organization, defends the book, claiming it is based on &#8220;facts&#8221; and should thus be required for all children to read. 
&#8220;Not everyone identifies as male or female &#8211; that is fact,&#8221; she says. 
British community leaders and politicians are criticizing the book as &#8220;damaging,&#8221; because it causes children to be confused. 
&#8220;I think it is damaging to children to introduce uncertainty into their minds,&#8221; former Tory Party chairman Lord Tebbit told the UK&#8217;s Daily Mail. 
&#8220;This is likely to sow more confusion than clarity,&#8221; Right Reverend Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester, said. 
Even the more progressive educators spoke out against the new measure requiring children to think in gender-fluid terms. 
&#8220;We have to respect the feelings of everybody, including teachers and parents who want traditional modes,&#8221; Sir Anthony Seldon, former Master of Wellington College, said. 
The book is to be released and distributed across the 120 British schools next month, and is expected to be bought by hundreds more head teachers. 
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<div> </div>

Take A Look At The Primary Schools Pushing ‘Genderqueer’ Teaching to Kindergarteners

Great Britain

Transgender

A sorority at Tufts University is deciding whether to approve membership for a genetically male student who identifies as female. Its female-identifying female members do not seem pleased with the proposal to do so, however. 
Tuft&#8217;s Alpha Omicron Pi first extended a membership to 19-year-old Harper Hopkins, a transgender student, but the sorority&#8217;s national office was reluctant to offer membership, saying it did not have a clear policy on admitting transgender members. Since the semester began, about 46 members of the sorority, including the president, have given up their memberships in protest of the international sorority&#8217;s delayed decision process.
Cosmopolitan Magazine also <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/a8262963/half-of-a-sorority-in-massachusetts-has-quit-to-protest-transgender-exclusion/">ran</a> the story, denouncing the sorority as &#8220;inherently transphobic.&#8221;
Hopkins had accepted the offer but quickly left, blaming the sorority for &#8220;oppressive policies and behavior&#8221; and &#8220;systematic inequality and structural violence.&#8221;
&#8220;A lot of my friends were already in the organization, so it felt like a natural thing to do,&#8221; Hopkins, who first asked to remain anonymous, told the Boston Globe. &#8220;Some people thought I was actually already a member.&#8221;
The international sorority later apologized for hesitating and approved Hopkins&#8217; membership, but its former members insisted on staying in protest mode. 
&#8220;It didn&#8217;t really seem fair,&#8221; Kristin Reeves, the former president, said. &#8220;By them saying we couldn&#8217;t give her a bid because they don&#8217;t have a policy? That&#8217;s basically them taking a stance and having an unofficial policy.&#8221;
But the sorority has vowed to do the best it can to make membership inclusive for students like Hopkins. 
&#8220;The chapter will continue to recruit members who embrace diversity, are passionate about social action, and are dedicated to maintaining their high standards of excellence,&#8221; a spokeswoman for the Alpha Omicron Pi International Fraternity wrote in an email to Heat Street. &#8220;Alpha Omicron Pi believes that all individuals are unique, with inherent worth and dignity, and should be treated with respect.&#8221;
Alpha Omicron Pi&#8217;s interim president, Amanda Wisti, said the sorority&#8217;s policy change on transgender students included changing the word &#8220;woman&#8221; to &#8220;female-identifying,&#8221; making sexual assault and diversity training mandatory for members, and making microaggression workshops mandatory for representatives of the international sorority. 
But Reeves is not satisfied with these changes which she sees as too little, too late. 
&#8220;I saw how slow and unwilling to change they are,&#8221; she said. &#8220;They talk about [making changes] a lot, but when it comes to actually making progress, it tends to fall on the individual chapters. It leaves the rest of the chapters as unprogressive as they want to be.&#8221;
Hopkins is now looking for a place to live outside of Maine because it &#8220;wasn&#8217;t the most friendly environment for LGBT people&#8211; as is often the case in conservative, rural parts of America.&#8221;
Tufts, Hopkins says, is one of the few places to be his true self, which is a woman&#8230; hiding behind a man&#8217;s body. 
&#8220;I&#8217;ve never felt that there was no one behind me,&#8221; Hopkins said. &#8220;There was always support there.&#8221;
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This Sorority Wants To Include &#8216;Female-Identifying&#8217; Men

According to a <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/07/younger-generations-stand-out-in-their-beliefs-about-organic-gm-foods/">Pew Research report</a> released yesterday, millennials in the United States are more likely than people of other age groups to be skeptical of genetically modified organisms and believe organic foods are better for their health and the environment.
61% of surveyed American adults younger than 30 years old said organic foods are better for health, compared with 57% of adults between 30 and 49 years old, and 45% of those over age 65. 48% of surveyed adults between ages 18 and 29 said GM foods are far worse for health than non-GM foods, compared with only 29% of adults over age 65 who think so. 
But these beliefs are not science-based, New York Magazine&#8217;s Jesse Singal <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/millennials-have-bad-views-on-gmos.html">points out</a>. Most of it is the result of fear-mongering and misleading headlines targeted at gullible, inexperienced consumers. 
The Genetic Literacy Project <a href="https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/11/13/10-studies-proving-gmos-are-harmful-not-if-science-matters/">debunks</a> several fears pushed by the organic foods industry to scare such consumers:
GMO toxins were found in maternal and fetal blood
So what, Layla Katiraee, a biotech scientist and PhD expert in molecular genetics from the University of Toronto says. Just because a toxin exists, it doesn&#8217;t indicate any sort of danger for your body. Humans lack receptors for certain proteins found in GMOs, so aside from potentially loitering in our blood in tiny traces, the toxin does not affect us negatively. 
DNA from GMOs can be transferred into your DNA if you eat them
That is a misinterpretation of a 2013 <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069805">study</a> which found that genes from the foods we eat can be detected floating around in our blood plasma. That does not mean the genes have integrated into our own DNA.
GMOs are linked to gluten disorders
This idea was based on a non-science research &#8220;study&#8221; by activist Jeffrey Smith based on the principle of correlation, not causation, and has received criticism from actual scientific institutions such as the Celiac Disease foundation. Katiraee notes that associating gluten allergies with GMO wheat consumption is absurd, simply based on the fact that GMO wheat has not been commercialized. 
Genetically modified corn was linked to rat tumors
As Jon Entine, senior fellow at the Center for Health and Risk Communication, <a href="https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-articles/republished-retracted-seralini-corn-rat-study-faces-harsh-criticism-from-scientists/">criticizes</a>, this claim was based on a study which was retracted after it was found the strain of rats used in the study was predisposed to tumors, and used a sample size way too small. Moreover, the study competes with other long-term feeding studies which prove the opposite and are ignored by the anti-GMO community.
Glyphosate causes breast cancer
This was also based on a study with multiple technical issues which found glyphosate has similar effects on breast cancer growth as estrogen does, but fails to take into account previous studies which found glyphosate might actually suppress cell proliferation instead of induce it. News headlines ran off with headlines stating glyphosate causes breast cancer, ignoring that that was not even the study&#8217;s findings. 
Katiraee further debunks more fears, concluding most of them are based on studies that are &#8220;either obviously flawed or are not scientific studies.&#8221;
So why are these anti-GMO beliefs so widely held among millennials?
Singal suggests: 
<blockquote>
It isn&#8217;t a mystery why: Young people are probably a lot more likely to identify as environmentalists and/or to go out of their way to explore healthy eating, and if you start hanging out with or talking to people with these interests, you&#8217;ll likely encounter a lot of loudly communicated social norms and expectations in opposition to genetically modified foods. That doesn&#8217;t mean that there are sound scientific reasons to shun GMOs, though.
</blockquote>
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<div> </div>

Are GMOs Bad? No, They’re Not.

GMOs

Millennials

Organic Food

Multiple reports seem to think so. 
&#8220;Food insecurity &#8211; the lack of reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food &#8211; is common at colleges and universities across the country, potentially undermining the educational success of untold thousands of students,&#8221; a college report from the nonprofit <a href="http://studentsagainsthunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Hunger_On_Campus.pdf">Students Against Hunger</a>, a project of the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA), says.
A survey was conducted of over 3,000 students at 34 colleges and universities across the United States, finding 48% of them experienced &#8216;food insecurity&#8217; over just the past 30 days. 22% of them experienced &#8220;very low levels of food security that qualify them as hungry.&#8221;
The report, published in October 2016, found 25% of community college students reported experiencing food insecurity, compared with 20% of four-year college students. 57% of black students reported experiencing food insecurity, compared with 40% of non-Hispanic white students. 56% of first-generation college students reported experiencing food insecurity, compared with 45% of students who had at least one parent who attended college. 
The principle investigator on the study, Temple University professor Sara Goldrick-Rab, said her team of researchers at the Wisconsin HOPE Lab conducted the largest study of food insecurity on college campuses to date, finding that one in five students surveyed were experiencing what was classified as hunger, and 13% were homeless. 
&#8220;At this point, we need to move beyond being surprised at the numbers and develop action plans,&#8221; Goldnick-Rab says. 
Many students are attending these institutes of higher education with hopes of living a better life and adding to their careers. However, it seems the more prestigious their pursued degrees, the higher their chances of starvation. 
A 2012 study by the <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/06/19/the-number-of-phds-on-food-stamps-triples/">Chronicle of Higher Education</a> found the number people with master&#8217;s degrees on food stamps nearly tripled, and the number of PhDs on food stamps more than tripled within the span of just over three years.
At Michigan State University, the on-campus food pantry serving starving students reported <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-hunger-crisis-americas-universities">more than half of its clients are graduate students</a>.
In a July 2016 study, the <a href="http://ucop.edu/global-food-initiative/best-practices/food-access-security/student-food-access-and-security-study.pdf">University of California</a> (UC) reported that out of 8,932 surveyed UC students across all ten UC campuses, 23% were classified as having &#8220;low&#8221; food security, while an additional 19% of them were classified as having &#8220;very low&#8221; food security as defined by the USDA.
Students have reportedly been skipping meals to pay for books and fees, or trying to find ways of not having to buy textbooks in order to pay for food. The same study reports 59% of 354 students at an Oregon public university are food insecure, 27% of 410 students at a Hawaiian public university are food insecure, and 39% of 1,086 New York City public colleges and universities are food insecure. 
That study comes on the heels of reports that college tuition has been skyrocketing in the meantime. <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16/why-college-costs-are-so-high-and-rising.html">Harvard&#8217;s</a> annual tuition and fees excluding room and board, for example, are 17 times higher than they were four decades ago. The average cost of tuition and fees at a four-year university in the United States this year was $31,231 for private schools and $9,139 for public schools.
&#8220;If you look at the long-term trend, [college tuition] has been rising almost six percent above the rate of inflation,&#8221; Ray Franke, a professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/16/why-college-costs-are-so-high-and-rising.html">said</a>. &#8220;That&#8217;s brought immense pressure from the media and general public, asking whether college is still worth it.&#8221;
Even students with paying jobs and financial aid are skipping meals to pay for other things, a survey from the College and University Food Bank Alliance (CUFBA) finds. Over half of students who reportedly experienced food insecurity during college also held paying jobs and financial aid, and many were enrolled in a meal plan, the CUFBA national survey found.
&#8220;Food insecurity is a problem even for students who are employed, who have a meal plan or are receiving financial aid,&#8221; CUFBA co-founder Clare Cady said. &#8220;The things that we assume would make them financially secure are not cutting it.&#8221;
While colleges and universities around the world are experiencing a rise in graduation rates, the United States seems to be falling behind. An 2014 <a href="http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/education/education-at-a-glance-2014_eag_highlights-2014-en#page33">OECD study </a>finds the U.S. ranks 19th out of 29 countries in terms of student graduation rates, compared with its 1995 ranking as the first among developed countries, with a 33% graduation rate.
This does not reflect a decrease in U.S. graduation rates, but a stagnation, which CNBC&#8217;s John W. Schoen suggests might indicate a growing reluctance among Americans to strive for the same level of education as their parents. 
&#8220;As a smaller share of Americans reach their parents&#8217; level of education, they can look forward to lower incomes than previous generations. And that means they&#8217;ll have less money to pay tuition for their children,&#8221; Schoen says. 
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