• Orobator was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling heroin and returned to Britain to serve her sentence of life in prison in Britain a few weeks ago. She was originally facing a firing squad but was spared after she mysteriously became pregnant while in an all-women's prison. Her child is due next month. • Almost 4,000 women in England were forced to give birth outside of maternity wards last year. The number of women who gave birth in other hospital wards, hallways, waiting rooms, or in hospital parking lots increased by about 500 since 2007 and Conservatives are blaming hospital overcrowding and overextended midwives. • The Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations will sue Judge J. William Callahan, for forcing Raneen Albaghdady to remove her head scarf in June, saying "no hats in the courtroom." A lawyer for the council says, "This judge targeted a Muslim woman's religious attire, but he could just as easily have demanded the removal of a Sikh turban, a Jewish yarmulke or a Catholic nun's habit." Callahan's spokesman says he would have left her keep the scarf on if she had told him it had religious significance to her. • Sad irony? A 16-year-old blind and deaf dog belonging to Robin Starr, the CEO of the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, died after he was left in a hot car for four hours. Starr's husband put the "Louie" in the car as she was getting ready because she often took him to work, but he forgot to tell Starr. By the time she realized Louie was in the car it was too late and he died of kidney failure. • NCSU's Women's Center and other campus advocacy groups were not able to stop a showing of the film based on Tucker Max's book I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell or an appearance by Max taking place tonight on the campus. The groups say the film contains sexist and racist phrases and promotes rape culture. Though they couldn't shut down the event they'll be protesting, "everything about Tucker Max and what he stands for." • Canadian researchers say visiting grandparents may prevent toddlers from forming negative stereotypes about old people. "We've been able to show really early on that kids, when they're just starting to talk, have established beliefs about older people," said one researcher. "We're seeing what we could call ageism by about age three." • Florida's appeals court will review the state's ban on adoptions by homosexuals. In 2008 a Miami-Dade County judge ruled that a law banning Martin Gill and his partner from adopting two young boys is unconstitutional, but state attorneys say the judge was legislating from the bench and the decision should be make by lawmakers. • A Sydney, Australia couple is being sued by Roseville College for $20,000 in unpaid tuition, but the parents say they shouldn't have to pay because the school failed to stop bullying which led one of their four daughters hurting herself. The parents say teachers were aware that their daughter was being harassed in 7th and 8th grade but did nothing and the girl's adviser told her to "simply ignore the bullies." After more bullying, the girl cut herself several times with a razor. • Ronald Douglas McGowan of Southern California will stand trial for the rapes of four women, including one who prosecutors say bit off part of his tongue in self-defense during an attack in her apartment. He was arrested in the emergency room where he went for treatment. His tongue couldn't' be reattached. • Researchers have found that Runaway Intervention Program, a program in which nurses help sexually exploited runaway girls reconnect to family, school, and healthcare effectively reduces trauma. "Remarkably, by six and 12 months into the program, the girls had improved so much that in most areas they were indistinguishable from girls in school who had never been abused," said a researcher. • In a revised edition of her biography, Veronica Lario says she wants a divorce from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has been involved in several sex scandals, because "I cannot condemn myself to be his wetnurse and I cannot stop him from making himself ridiculous before the world." •

Jindal's commission is intended "to propose programs, policies, incentives and curriculum regarding marriage and family by collecting and analyzing data on the social and personal effects of marriage and child-bearing within the state of Louisiana." Which sounds like it could be okay, I guess, until you look, as Bilerico's Steve Ralls did, at who is sitting on the Commission.

Among those who have been appointed by Jindal to serve on the Commission are Tony Perkins (who hails from Baton Rouge), the president of the anti-gay advocacy group known as The Family Research Council . . . Gene Mills, executive director of the far-right Louisiana Family Forum . . . Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund . . . and numerous members of the clergy. All, Jindal has said, "have significant academic and/or professional expertise" on issues of marriage and family.

And each has a long history of spouting anti-gay rhetoric, too.

Jindal, as Ralls notes, already rolled back a previous executive order banning discrimination against state employees and contractors based on sexual orientation, so he's not exactly gay-friendly. With the new focus by the conservative movement on the supposed damage that will be done to children by merely seeing two people of the same sex in love, you can expect Jindal's commission to push for legislation or policy to limit gay adoption and push an anti-same-sex marriage agenda, which he's probably make a cornerstone of his 2012 campaign. But, you know, maybe he's just trying to stave off another Hurricane Katrina by driving out teh gheyz as John McCain's buddy John Hagee suggested?

Ah, discrimination! The true Real American value.

Jindal's Latest Attack on Louisiana's Families [The Bilerico Project]

Related: Adoption Ban Targets Gay Couples, Critics Say [LA Times]
Some Hateful, Radical Ministers — White Evangelicals — Are Acceptable [Salon]

• Hank Williams Jr., who we started studiously ignoring after he murdered our national anthem during a Palin rally, has decided that he's not quite done with being part of a losing campaign and will challenge Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander in the primary for the 2010 race. [Politico]
• Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman today threw out Florida's 31-year-old law prohibiting LGBT Floridians from adopting children, noting that there was no scientific evidence to support the ban and Florida allows LGBT people to foster children. The state plans to appeal. [Wall Street Journal]
• Barack Obama is adopting, too, and not just a puppy — he's adopting current Defense Secretary Robert Gates for his own Administration. [ABC News]

• Obama also named David Orszag, currently head of the Congressional Budget Office, to head up his Office of Management and the Budget. He will be the first blogger to join the Administration. [The Hill, Washington Post]
• One person who won't be part of the Administration is former CIA official John Brennan, who took himself out of the running for any Administration position after being pilloried on the blogosphere for stuff he wasn't a part of. [Washington Independent]
• If you were missing Sarah Palin, she's all over the news today, between receiving an award from Field and Stream, heading to Georgia to campaign for Saxby Chambliss and being laughed at by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. [Politico, New York Times, Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber is back on the teevees, too, hawking digital converter boxes. When will those two crazy kids ever get it together and admit they belong together... and out of my field of vision? [Wonkette]
• Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal hopes it's soon, so he can kick his Presidential campaign into high gear at last. Yeah, we're turning into that kind of political system. [LA Times]
• Not that this election is actually over yet, as Al Franken's just a little concerned that some officials are squirreling away valid ballots to keep Norm Coleman in office. You'd think it was a paranoid fantasy, but he's got video. [Politico]