• A new study shows that children with contact lenses feel better about their looks than kids who wear glasses. • Horrible news: over 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year. Officials say that many of these deaths were tied to domestic abuse. • Proposition 8 is back in court. The court's decision is due within 90 days, so here's hoping that the 18,000 same-sex couples wed in California are not forced to give up their rights. • Four years after being honorably discharged, Lisa Pagan, mother of two, was recalled for duty. She reported with her children, and is now waiting to hear whether her appeal - on the grounds that she must stay in the country to take care of her kids - will be approved or not. • According to a study from the University of Warwick, modern women are ill-equipped to deal with motherhood because of their newfound geographical mobility. • New strains of drug-resistant gonorrhea have been detected in the US, UK and Australia. • The kidnapping trial of Kumari Fulbright, former beauty queen, has been pushed back until at least August. • Toward the end of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of children were kidnapped and put up for adoption. Years later, Spain is facing pressure to investigate the "lost children of the Franco regime." • The Belfast Rape Crisis Center is facing harsh criticism for its burlesque show fundraiser. Academic Fionola Meredith is among those opposing the show: "Forget post-feminism and irony - Northern Ireland remains an old-fashioned sexist's paradise where women's rights are very far down the political agenda." • More than 15,000 tapes of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's Christian talk show, the 'PTL Club', are up for auction. • Excerpts from Josef Fritzl's psychological examination have been released, and the details are terrifying. Fritzl claims that he "actually led a completely normal family life" and that he was a "good provider." • According to UN officials, the women's prison at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan, is probably the best in the country. The "humane" prison allows children to stay with their mothers, and offers classes for the prisoners in English and computer science. • British teachers worry that forward-facing strollers may be to blame for the recent decline in the linguistic abilities of many children. • Artist Christian Faur assembles amazing portraits entirely out of whole crayons. Check them out here. • A new study has found that sexual dysfunction among women may have more to do with the brain than with the body. • The world's first pink dolphin has been discovered living in an inland lake in Louisiana. • The Japanese have invented a new weight loss tool: expensive toe rings. • Women are less likely to go into debt and work harder for financial independence than men, according to a new study. • Mariachi classes are gaining young followers, as second and third generation Latinos reconnect with music of their grandparents. 14-year-old Maureen Sanchez has been taking Mariachi classes since she was five, and has already recorded three CDs and appeared on national radio and television. • A recent survey shows that women are more religious than men. Analysts speculate that this may be caused by - what else? - motherhood. • For the first time, researchers have established a link between estrogen and fat storage, which may explain why women store fat differently than men. • The New York Times has a short, but important, documentary following an 11-year-old girl on her last day of school before the Taliban closes it down. • 

[Image via Florida Times-Union[

Charming, right? And yeah, I realize it's not necessarily her replying to that response. But doesn't it seem like something someone with an oversupply of self-esteem combined with a total dearth of morals and a basic grasp of the penal code would write?

Kumari Fulbright Gets Saucy With Us! [Above the Law]
Related: 911 Recordings From Kidnap-Torture Released

• First, we made a New Year's resolution to be nicer to womanity.
  
• Then we agreed with Julie Burchill and told you how awesome bitches are.
  
• We also felt conflicted over the trainwreck that is the life of Britney Spears. Are we the cause, or the, well, cause?
  
• But you know what's totally not our fault? Kumari Fulbright, the law student (well, now probably former law student) who posed in a bikini for a gun calendar and kidnapped her boyfriend with three middle aged men.
  
• We also met her awesomely meth-y mugshot
  
• And her equally awesome Facebook profile!
  
• Obama won in Iowa, and boy, were we excited.
  
• Just like Scar Jo, the other Obama girl.
  
• So let's all celebrate with a few beers at Ellen Page's haunted whorehouse, because no one likes transparent sluts better than us.

Fulbright's phone is out of service and her apartment was unoccupied Wednesday, without any furniture. Efforts also were made to contact her through MySpace.com.

Activities:"My only job is looking cute!" Favorite Quotes: "Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't have enough money." — Kumari Fulbright "Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your hearbeat [sic], or will stay awake just to watch you sleep... wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you're just as pretty without makeup on, one who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have you. Find the guy that when he's with his friends, points to you and says...that's her." — One Wise Woman

Reflections On The Facebook Profile Of Kumari Fulbright [Above the law]

At left, beauty queen kidnapper Kumari Fulbright. At right, bedazzled fire-dancer and Failure To Appear suspect Tracy Gassel.

[Images via AP; The Smoking Gun]

The above photo of Fulbright is from a Great Guns calendar being sold on the website Subguns.com: the internet home for all your firearm needs (Kumari is Miss May). Even better, the calendar's covergirl appears to be America's Next Top Model Cycle 5 contestant and fellow Tucson native Jayla Rubinelli. (Who says former ANTM contestants never go anywhere?) Here's Jayla's cover shot. At least Tyra can take solace in the fact that Jayla is smiling with her eyes and probably not in jail right now for assault with a deadly weapon!



Pinup Girl Law Student Indicted in Kidnap [ABC News]
2 Brothers Sought In Abduction-Torture-Robbery Case [Arizona Daily Star]

Related: Subguns.com's Great Guns Calendar 2008 [Title2Media]
Earlier: Miss France Feels Heat; Miss USA Next James Frey?