Peter "Just Loves Flying"

Calling someone ‘fatty’ a hate crime, say UK MPs via @independent_ie.

British MPs have suggested that calling someone “fatty” or “obese” should be considered a hate crime on a par with racism or homophobia.

Generations of children have traded banter about body weight in the schoolyard and Enid Blyton even named one of her characters “Fatty” in her ‘Five Find-Outers’ series.

Under the Equalities Act 2010, it is illegal to harass, victimise or discriminate against anyone on the basis of a number of “protected” characteristics, such as race, gender, age, sexual orientation or disability.

Catholic Church goes to war with Obama over birth control via @independent_ie.

THE Roman Catholic Church in the US has mounted a huge legal assault against President Barack Obama and his health reforms which require most American employers to buy contraception for their staff.

Dozens of the church’s largest archdioceses, universities and other affiliated groups sued the Obama administration this week, in one of the largest religious lawsuits in US history. They argue that the government is violating the religious freedom of bosses whose faith forbids them from using or approving of birth control…

Tzipi Livni quits Knesset, says Israel’s leaders put country at existential risk – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni resigned from the Knesset on Tuesday, warning in her resignation address that Israel’s leaders are putting the country’s existence at risk by choosing to ignore the mounting impatience on the part of the international community.

Facebook and Google Turned Into Government Spies? The Dangerous New Law Before Congress (CISPA) | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to pass a reprehensible cyber-security bill this week that seeks to protect online companies—giant social media firms to data-sharing networks controlling utilities—from cyber attack. It is reprehensible because, as Democratic San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren said this week, it gives the federal government too much access to the private lives of every Internet user. Or as Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul also bluntly put it, it turns Facebook and Google into “government spies.”

Autism linked to older fathers | Irish Examiner.