Political scientist Han Park says North Korea might release Laura Ling and Euna Lee if the US issues an official apology for their actions. • And US officials like Hillary Clinton seem to be changing their language accordingly, suggesting that Ling and Lee did in fact do something wrong and asking for "amnesty" rather than "release on humanitarian grounds." • Colleen Shipman will marry astronaut William Oefelein, undeterred by his ex and fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak, who drove 900 miles in 2007 to pepper-spray Shipman. • The "Amora sex academy" in Berlin includes 50 "interactive displays" such as the "Spank-o-meter" and a mannequin that lights up and screams when you find her G-spot. • The Blanden Memorial Art Museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa is holding an exhibition of art related to women's suffrage. Check it out on your way to see the butter Michael Jackson. • A study by Planned Parenthood, undertaken before and after off-label vaginal use of Mifeprex, shows that giving antibiotics to every patient regardless of ingestion method significantly reduces post-abortion infections. • In an Australian study, women 37 and older dealt with pregnancy just as well emotionally and physically as younger moms, but were more anxious about their baby's health. Maybe because of widespread rhetoric about the evils of "delaying" childbearing? • The author of a book called Boobs: A Guide to Your Girls warns women to cover up their cleavage at work, saying, "I don't think women are stupid I just don't think anyone knows the rules." O RLY? • Defense lawyers for evangelist Tony Alamo want the word "polygamy" excluded from his trial, despite the fact that he exchanged wedding vows with and gave rings to the underage girls he allegedly slept with. • Debbie Downer says playing in the sand gives kids diarrhea. • Good news for adulterous jetsetters and others too busy to sit down at a computer for their extramarital liaisons: cheating website AshleyMadison.com is now available on iPhone and Blackberry. • Despite a suit by female ski jumpers, women's ski jumping will not be included in the 2010 Olympics. • "The Good Witch of West Marin" has been banned from her local farmers' market for practicing "her skills as a counselor, herbalist and Wiccan healer" without a proper permit. • Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider has traveled unaccompanied to Saudi Arabia's border with Bahrain three times to protest a law that prohibits women from leaving the Kingdom unless they have permission from a male relative. • Is a spate of cat deaths in West Columbia, South Carolina the work of dogs, or another cat killer like Tyler Weinman? •

[Images via Let's Be Friends]

All images from Let's Be Friends, which BoingBoing calls the best blog ever. We could not agree more. [Boing Boing]

[Image via AP.]

A nine-month-old female Golden Snub-nosed monkey Mei Mei relaxes at the Yokohama zoological gardens Zoorasia, south of Tokyo. — AP

We simply made a casual and affectionate observation one night, and a charming association between a candidate and a toy we had when we were little. We wonder now if this might be a great opportunity to take this moment to really try and transcend still existing racial biases. We think that if we can do this together, maybe it will behoove us a nation and maybe we'll even begin to truly communicate with one another more tenderly, more real even.

A charge, then, to journalists: Please photograph every single person at the Republican National Convention sporting that shirt or carrying this doll. It's time that we know their faces so that we might shun these people. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New York Magazine]

(Click any picture to begin the gallery or enlarge image; if you're having trouble seeing all the pics or want to see them in an entire gallery form, click here.)