• Indian women are breaking traditional gender roles by getting trained by the Building Association of India in electrical work, painting, carpentry and plumbing to help the women earn more as skilled laborers. • The Australian Crime and Prevention Award was presented to the Normaton Stingers today for their rule suspending rugby players from games if they are found to have committed an act of domestic violence. • With women making of 14% of people on active military duty and military gender lines getting blurred in Afghanistan and Iraq, the old debate of women's role in the military is being brought back up. • To mark the International Day for Rural Women, check out these images of the challenging daily activities of women from Katine, Uganda. • Cases of abuse of domestic workers in Kenya (where nearly everyone except the very poor hires a domestic worker) reveal the hidden troubles of the often underpaid workers. • On Friday the state Parliament of Victoria in Australia passed a bill with a 23-17 vote to decriminalize abortion. • An epidemiologist discusses his new book, The Fertility Diet, which recommends vegetable-sources of protein over red meat and a serving of whole-fat dairy to boost the chances of fertility. • A bitter British retiree paid off her £35 parking ticket to the "Hilter-ite" city of Gloucester with a jar full of 3,500 pennies. • A Halloween costume supplier family has teamed up with a witchcraft historian to create an online petition to get a posthumous pardon for the men and women who were accused of witchcraft before the 1735 Witchcraft Act put an end to witchcraft trials. • An 80-year-old woman in Massachusetts is expected to ride her hog again once she has recovered from injuries after crashing her motorcycle on October 7. • Plans to legalize abortion in Northern Ireland have been shelved due to the possibility of disrupting the country's fragile peace. • A study of Christian church members found that of those who sought help from their church in dealing with mental illness (either personal or a diagnosed in a family member) were told that the problem was spiritual in nature. • Comedian Mo'Nique has launched an online clothing range called Fat Gurl and has co-penned a YA novel, Beacon Hills High, about a F.A.T. (Fabulous and Thick) high school girl. • The Philadelphia Eagles and the New York eatery Habana Outpost have released "green" calendars featuring female pin-ups in eco-friendly clothing and benefit environmental groups. • An eastern Ugandan community has banned genital mutilation and the district chairman has submitted legislation to parliament to make the ban effective nationwide. •

• After last night's fellatio-esque interview of John McCain, reporters ask Jon Stewart if he's a real journalist and if he should've tried harder to ask a real question. No, and yes. [Comedy Central, Time, Rolling Stone]
  
• No one really cares, though, because Hillary might not actually stay in the race until August. [NY Times]
  
• And there is one economist who agrees with her gas tax plan, but only because this example of blatant electoral pandering is the method of blatant electoral pandering likely to do the least harm of all the harmful ways to blatantly pander to the electorate. [NY Times]
  
• Oh, and some New York Congressman got his mistress pregnant three years ago and has a secret love child and is a drunk driver. Even married Republicans lose when it comes to abstinence-only education. [NY Times]

• That pedophile Interpol was searching for? He was a store Santa from Jersey and found fucking little kids "euphoric." Gross. [Associated Press]
• And some people still buy that shit about Obama being a Muslim. [Wired]
• And some dude used to drug and rape women at his office parties, but the law firm he worked at didn't sack him for it or warn anyone even after 2 women got drugged and reported it. Dudes, don't lawyers know not to fuck with lawyers? [Boston Globe]
• Mark Penn is so dumb that he didn't know about proportional representation in the primaries when Hillary hired him, but she'll still have to pay him the $10 million or so she owes him. Asshole. [HuffPo]
• And, for my girl/fellow alum SarahMC, check out the disaster porn of a mega car crash in Allston right by the Shaws on Comm Ave. [Boston Globe]
• Speaking of disasters, Burma is still fucked. [NY Times]
• And the Prime Minister of Israel has likely been taking bribes from foreigners. [Washington Times]
• God I need a fucking drink.