The Pentagon announced new rules last week easing the ban on women serving in combat. While conservatives like Rick Santorum are a little uneasy with the news, the announcement only formalizes military practices that were already taking place.

But Fox News contributor Liz Trotta’s commentary on the matter took the issue to a whole other level. She’s not really concerned about the “controversy” surrounding the Pentagon’s announcement. For Trotta, the issue is having “women once more, the feminist, going, wanting to be warriors and victims at the same time.” She cited a recent Pentagon report that violent sex crimes in the military have increased over the last 6 years and said women should “expect” it, decrying more levels of bureaucracy to support women who have been “raped too much“:

TROTTA: But while all of this is going on, just a few weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented on a new Pentagon report on sexual abuse in the military. I think they have actually discovered there is a difference between men and women. And the sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? These people are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it’s strictly been a question of pressure from the feminist.

And the feminists have also directed them, really, to spend a lot of money. They have sexual counselors all over the place, victims’ advocates, sexual response coordinators. … So, you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much.

Photo Credit: Tim Green

Despite the white beard, Charles Darwin isn’t Santa Claus, but like Christmas, Darwin Day comes once a year, and when it comes it brings good cheer. Across the country and around the world, at colleges and universities, schools and libraries, museums and churches, people assemble around February 12 to commemorate the life and work of the British naturalist. But it’s not just about Darwin: it’s about engaging in—and enjoying—public outreach about science, evolution, and the importance of evolution education.

<snip>

Knowledge about science and enthusiasm about science education sometimes seems to be in short supply. Nearly all scientists (97%) agreed with “humans and other living things have evolved over time” in a 2009 poll—but only 61% of the general public agreed. The general public was equally shaky about what scientists believed: only 60% believed that scientists generally agreed that humans have evolved over time. And is this level of ignorance about the science of evolution reflected in the educational system? You’d better believe it.

<snip>

And if you’re in the United States, one in every eight of public high school biology teachers in your country is presenting creationism as though it were scientifically credible, according to a national survey conducted in 2006, despite the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that it is anything but. And the same survey suggested that six out of ten of public high school biology teachers are not presenting evolution with the accuracy, breadth, and confidence that’s needed for their students to attain a basic level of scientific literacy.

With a steady drumbeat of ignorance of, skepticism about, and hostility toward evolution among the general public, Darwin Day comes as a welcome respite every year: it can be a relief to be among people who understand evolution, and appreciate that it—and not creationism—belongs in our schools. But for whatever reason you attend your local Darwin Day celebration, whether for the company or the talks or the films or the face-painting or the refreshments, you’re sure to have a splendid time. Oh, by the way: save me a slice of cake.

The first prize in the Contemporary Issues Stories category was won by Stephanie Sinclair of the US, on assignment for National Geographic magazine. Tahani (in pink), who married her husband Majed when she was 6 and he was 25, is posing for this portrait with former classmate Ghada, also a child bride, outside their mountain home in Hajjah, Yemen, 10 June 2010. Nearly half of all women in Yemen are married as children

Photograph: Stephanie Sinclair/VII Photo Agency

The second prize in Spot News Stories was won by Niclas Hammerstrom from Sweden, for the newspaper Aftonbladet in Utoya, Norway, in July, 2011. Anders Behring Breivik killed 69 people on 22 July on the small island of Utoya outside Oslo

Photograph: Niclas Hammerstrom/Aftonbladet

This image of the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan in April, 2011 by Yasuyoshi Chiba of Agence France-Presse won first prize in the People in the News Stories category. The photograph shows Chieko Matsukawa with her daughter's graduation certificate as she finds it in the debris in Higashimatsushima, in Miyagi prefecture

Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP

The second prize for People in the News Singles category was won by Tomasz Lazar of Poland, with this picture of an arrest of protesters during a demonstration against police tactics and income inequality in Harlem, New York City, 25 October 2011

Photograph: Tomasz Lazar/Reuters

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has an interesting new recruiting strategy for conservatives. “Conservatives are more simply more fun than liberals, and there is a reason for that,” he told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference this morning. “We’re always right.” Watch it:



Speaking in 2009 to CPAC, McConnell made the same argument, commenting, “Who wants to hang out with guys like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich when you can be with Rush Limbaugh?”

My plans for a rockin’ time out don’t generally include hanging out with my friends in conference rooms getting all self-congratulatory about our stances on policy, but to each his own. If McConnell wants to rebrand conservatism as America’s most entertaining ideological movement, he’s probably going to have to come up with a better reason people should believe him.

JC Penney CEO Ron Johnson spoke out this morning in defense of the company’s new partnership with Ellen DeGeneres. The conservative group One Million Moms has called for a boycott against the store for “jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon,” but both JC Penney and DeGeneres have defended the partnership. Johnson told CBS News that he sees no controversy because “Ellen represents the values of our company”:

JOHNSON: We stand squarely behind Ellen as our spokesperson and that’s a great thing, because she shares the same values that we do in our company. Our company was founded 110 years ago on The Golden Rule, which is about treating people fair and square, just like if you treated yourself. And we think Ellen represents the values of our company and the values that we share. [...]

As we thought about all the people in America today, we thought Ellen would be the perfect [spokes]person, because we all kind of trust her. She’s a very honest, straight-forward person with extraordinary values… It’s been unbelievably wonderful to work with someone who is so kind, so gracious, so funny, who just I think captures what America is about.