Hot off the Press: Bleeding out your eyes edition

The lead (or "lede" if you're a journalese snob) from the Toronto Star: "A Toronto judge has struck down Canada’s prostitution laws, saying provisions meant to protect women and residential neighbourhoods are endangering sex workers’ lives": http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/867332--prostitution-laws-struck-down?bn=1. I am nominating the below quote for Best Quote Ever:

...to his client, Terri-Jean Bedford, a dominatrix who was convicted in 1998 of keeping a common bawdy house, it was “emancipation day.”

“How am I going to celebrate? I’m going to spank some ass,” Bedford, cracking a riding whip, told reporters.

News Corp. is at it again, this time donating $1 million to the US Chamber of Commerce: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/news-corp-donates-1-million-to-anti-democrat-group/?hp.

A number of states have passed legislation allowing those with gun permits to carry loaded firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04guns.html?_r=1&ref=us. Alcohol and guns are obviously not a good combination; no one can drink and drive, so I'm unsure why you can drink and pack heat. But I agree with it as a personal protection issue. Of course, what does that say about the rise of moral and conservative values if people feel they need to carry a gun into a bar or restaurants?

Venice has enacted new regulations to limit street parking and prohibit the parking of RVs in beach lots, which will no doubt alter the lifestyles of the RV people, who live in their rickety old vehicles and migrate from parking lot to parking lot during the summer: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04rv.html?ref=us.

The Detroit Symphony is on strike: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/arts/music/04symphony.html?ref=us.

According to CRG columnist Todd Dorman, the Iowa Supreme Court and Home Depot have much in common: http://thegazette.com/2010/10/03/what-the-iowa-supreme-court-and-home-depot-have-in-common/. Well said, Dorman.

Germans were shocked last week at the excessively violent police reaction to groups protesting a massive rail station project in Stuttgart: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,720735,00.html.