The politician told newspaper Aftonbladet that his trip in early January was sponsored by around ten different companies, including budget airline Norwegian.

Pressed by the newspaper on why he had accepted the paid trip, despite claims that he generally refused offers from the airline industry, Federley replied:

“Well, this was pretty much tied to my drag personality, Ursula. It’s not me as a member of parliament doing this; it’s more a case of me travelling as my drag personality,” he said.

Federley has not made any secret of his predilection for cross-dressing, recently arriving as Ursula at the Swedish Mr Gay competition.

Dismayed by the newspaper’s line of questioning, Federley dismissed what he felt was an insinuation that he had only taken on the job for the sake of a free holiday in the sun at a newly built four-star hotel.

“Sometimes I get asked if I want to do something extra that has nothing at all to do with my parliamentary work. If it doesn’t clash with the job, I’ll take on a commission. And like anybody else I’ll ask to be paid for it,” he writes on his personal website.

Federley explained that the purpose of the trip was to prepare travel tips for people intending to travel to the Spanish island’s annual drag queen carnival. The invitation had come from gay community website Hanky.se where the politician maintains a blog, the title of which translates as “The Other Side of Federley”.

Though apparently baffled by media interest in his extra-curricular activities, the MP was sure to maintain his keen business instinct.

“Maybe this will mean more publicity for Ursula, which in turn will lead to more work,” he writes.

Courtesy TheLocal.se: Sweden

Ian Stafford, the ex-mayor of a Lancashire village, was jailed for two years Photo: PA

A part-time handyman and gardener, he had been employed for years by some of his victims who trusted him with keys to their homes.

But while alone Stafford, a bachelor, would creep into their bedrooms, rifle through underwear draws and masturbate before replacing the knickers and also stealing some of the garments.

One suspicious homeowner who began to notice the thefts then planted hidden cameras – which captured one episode with Stafford in the bedroom naked from the waste down acting out his fantasy, the court was told.

The 14-minute DVD was passed to police and Stafford’s home searched where officers found stolen underwear which were marked with the women’s names on them, the court heard.

Stafford, of Sandycroft Place, Preesall, who resigned as mayor after being arrested, was jailed for two years after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to three counts of burglary with a further count taken into consideration.

The charges relate to the homes of four women in Poulton-le-Fylde and Stalmine in Lancashire.

After hobbling into court using a walking stick, past his victims in the public gallery, his jaw dropped as he was sent down by Judge Heather Lloyd, who told him his actions were ”bluntly revolting”.

”Your private desires or fantasies which should only be your concern became public when you decided to do what you did in the homes of those who trusted you,” she told him.

”To masturbate into a woman’s underwear and place it back in the draw, repeatedly, as seen in the DVD, as you have done in other homes is bluntly revolting and the impact on your victims is high.”

The court heard the victims were ”embarrassed, disgusted and shocked” to discover how the man they trusted was getting his ”sexual kicks”.

Courtesy Telegraph.co.uk: United Kingdom

Naked Circus related news:

Mayor Quits After Missing Undies Quiz

McCain clearly has plenty of support

McCain, the daughter of former presidential candidate John McCain, has more than 60,000 followers, meaning that when she posted the pic of her scantily covered body, the web was instantly abuzz.

As one may guess, the gossip that has been swirling about the pic is of the negative variety, prompting this response from Meghan: “So I took a fun picture not thinking anything about what I was wearing but apparently anything other than a pantsuit I am a slut,” she wrote, later adding “I can’t even tell you how hurt I am.”

She also threatened to quit Twitter for good because of the backlash she has received from the pic.

“Why I have been considering deleting my twitter account, what once was fun now just seems like a vessel for harassment,” she added.

Hmmm I wonder if I posted a similarly ronchy pic on my Twitter page if I would get a similar response?

Courtesy DBTechno.com

Nicolas Sarkozy, right, appears eager not to take actions that offend his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

She had suggested appointing Frédéric Mitterrand, a friend, as culture minister and the government’s support for him, despite his confession to having paid boys for sex, is partly a sign of Sarkozy’s eagerness not to offend his first lady.

“She has great power and influence,” said Joëlle Garriaud-Maylam, a senator in Sarkozy’s centre-right party, referring to the Italian-born singer and former model. “It’s obvious she is defending Mitterrand. But it puts the president in a difficult situation. He is offending many of his supporters.”

L’affaire Mitterrand began when the nephew of the last Socialist president flew to the defence of Roman Polanski, the Polish film director, over child sex charges, only to face such accusations himself in connection with a memoir published in 2005.

Yesterday it emerged that he had also offered to help rehabilitate two teenage brothers convicted earlier this year of raping a 16-year-old girl on the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion. One was the son of his make-up artist when he worked as a television presenter. He may bitterly regret having written “I got into the habit of paying for boys” in his book, The Bad Life.

The reaction when passages were read out on television last week not only laid bare Bruni-Sarkozy’s clout in the court of “King Sarko”; it also highlighted the chasm between the French and the Anglo-Saxons.

Frédéric Mitterrand admitted paying Thai boys for sex in his book, The Bad Life

From Louis Althusser, the French Marxist philosopher who strangled his wife in 1980 but avoided prison, to Cesare Battisti, the Italian writer who was convicted in Italy on terrorism charges but who went on to become a literary star in Paris, the French have often applied different criteria to intellectuals and artists.

The public’s patience may be wearing thin, however, and there are signs that Sarkozy may end up paying dearly.

Already the scandal has prompted grumbling among his allies over Bruni-Sarkozy’s role and what had, until now, been regarded as a brilliant presidential strategy to undermine the Socialist opposition by offering top jobs to its heroes and to openly gay politicians or members of racial minorities.

The pursuit of diversity appeared to founder this year when Sarkozy sacked Rachida Dati, the first Arab minister and icon of diversity, after complaints of incompetence.

Appointing a Mitterrand to such a high-profile job was just as courageous for a president who had promised “rupture” with the bad old ways of the past. Mitterrand, 62, claimed he had asked Sarkozy if he thought the book would be “an obstacle”. The president had replied: “Not at all. I’ve read it. It’s a very good book.”

He may not think quite so highly of it today. According to a poll conducted last week his approval rating has dropped by five points to 41% in a month. The largest fall (16%) was among the over 65-year-olds, the conservative voters Sarkozy relied on to win power in 2007.

He hopes, no doubt, that the fuss will soon fade but this seems unlikely. Inaugurating an art exhibition in Bordeaux yesterday, Mitterrand was jeered by protesters with prams and posters saying, “Don’t touch our children.” Only a quarter of viewers found Mitterrand convincing as he responded with indignation and anger to a grilling by a female interviewer on television on Thursday about his activities in the brothels of Thailand.

When asked how he was sure he had never paid for sex with a minor, the minister prompted scepticism by replying that he could distinguish between a youth and a “40-year-old boxer”.

Calling for his resignation, Marine Le Pen, head of the far-right National Front, quoted a paragraph in which he wrote: “The abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire.”

The book was critically acclaimed in its day and Mitterrand, a gentle soul who often rides a scooter to work and has never hidden his homosexuality, was praised for his honesty.

It exploded in his face only because he had stirred anger by rushing to the defence of Polanski, who is fighting extradition from Switzerland to the United States, from where he fled after admitting a sex offence with a girl of 13 in 1977.

Mitterrand was not the only French minister to express outrage at the arrest of Polanski. Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister, said the director had committed nothing more than a “youthful error”. Various pillars of the cultural elite signed a petition calling for his release.

“Being an artist or intellectual is considered a privilege in France,” explained Christian Viviani, a French film professor, suggesting that prominent French artists and intellectuals believe their work allows them some moral leeway. Politicians seem more than happy to indulge that belief: Jack Lang, a culture minister appointed by President François Mitterrand, was one of the most outspoken supporters of Bertrand Cantat, a French rock star who bludgeoned his girlfriend, the actress Marie Trintignant, to death in a hotel room in Lithuania in 2003. He was released from jail in 2007 after serving only half his eight-year sentence.

Bruni-Sarkozy, for her part, managed to persuade her husband last year not to send Marina Petrella back to Italy where she is wanted on murder and terrorism charges.

The public appears to have little sympathy for Polanski: in one poll more than 70% said the film maker should face justice. Many letter writers have also condemned his defenders, especially after reminders of the contents of Mitterrand’s book.

From André Gide’s accounts of sex with young boys in Algeria in the 1920s to Michel Houellebecq’s novels, the subject of sexual tourism has often stirred controversy in France and is decried by the government. Except, it seems, when a minister is involved.

It emerged that Sarkozy himself was co-ordinating the defence of “Frédo”, as he is known to friends, advising him to “defend his honour” before the French people.

The government’s decision to rally around Mitterrand seemed to be based partly on the idea that his private life was being intruded upon, even if he had invited such scrutiny with his book.

The right to a private life has long been regarded as sacred by French politicians. A compliant press has seldom dared to puncture the taboo but in an age of instant communication and internet competition the ramparts are crumbling.

The French press showed little appetite for the Mitterrand story until film of Le Pen reading extracts from the book on various internet websites made it impossible to ignore.

For the Establishment it is a frightening revolution. “Do we really want a totally transparent society?” asked Laurent Joffrin, editor of Libération, the left-wing newspaper. “Do we really want a society of inquisition?”

For Garriaud-Maylam, a more basic principle is at stake. “I feel that ministers should set a good example,” she said. “Unfortunately, that is not the case here — far from it.”

Rise of Bruni’ s left-leaning friends

The embattled French culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, is one of several left-leaning friends of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the first lady, to have been drafted into the service of Nicolas Sarkozy.

An informal “kitchen cabinet” of left-wing advisers around the French president includes Raphaël Enthoven, one of her former lovers, and Marin Karmitz, a film producer and former Maoist who works with Mitterrand as a “cultural adviser”.

Enthoven, a philosophy professor, is the father of Aurélien, Bruni-Sarkozy’s eight-year-old son. In spite of their separation the two have remained friends and talk on the telephone most days. He is a regular guest at the Sakozys’ dining table.

Bruni-Sarkozy’s ability to attract such figures to the camp of Sarkozy, who was once reviled by the Parisian elite as uncultured, is a result of fratricidal bickering in the moribund Socialist party. Enthoven has torn up his membership card in disgust.

Karmitz, who often joins the first couple for cocktails, likes to say: “It is not me that has changed. It’s the left.”

The French media have christened these champagne Socialist deserters la gauche Carla – a variation of the “caviar left”. They are united in their disenchantment with the Socialists, who are unlikely to return to power, and admiration for the dynamic Sarkozy.

Bruni-Sarkozy’s influence extends well beyond the choice of advisers and ministers. Sarkozy has also taken to reading books and has shed weight under a strict regime of dieting and exercise, which was blamed for an illness he suffered while jogging in the summer.

Courtesy Times: United Kingdom

The chicks just couldn't resist...

A close source also revealed to the National Enquirer that before he died of brain cancer at age 77 on August 25, Kennedy also revealed that he had planned to seduce Mary Jo Kopechne on the night she drowned. The source said:

“While dictating his memoirs into a tape recorder, Ted decided to tell the whole truth about his life – including his love life. He said that his first lover was an Irish nanny. She was about 19, and Ted was only 13.

When his mother found out, she sent the nanny back to Ireland. Rose made Ted pray on his knees for hours to ask forgiveness. But Ted recalled that even his sore knees couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

From that day on, he says he seduced as many women as he could, from maids and cooks at the family’s Hyannis Port compound to college friends that his sisters brought home.”

The source added that Kennedy even admitted to having planned to seduce Kopechne the night his car plunged off the road in Chappaquiddick.

“But his lawyers and friends begged him not to open that door. They said that even after his death, it would hurt his legacy and haunt the family.

He relented about Mary Jo, but went on to admit that he’d seduced the wives of some of his closest friends and even his brothers’ girlfriends.”

Ted had hoped his book would tell the truth about his life, but family members decided to hold off on including certain parts of the book out of respect to the family’s reputation. Even though it was removed from the book, it seems the revelations leaked out regardless.

Courtesy of The Cleveland Leader

Rather, a quintet of former workers at San Francisco’s Vixen Creations on Monday filed suit in the city’s Superior Court claiming they were stiffed … on overtime pay.

The disgruntled five’s workaday routine wasn’t so titillating; the suit quotes their duties as “mixing silicone, pouring the silicone into molds, pulling the finalized products out of the molds, and making new molds for the products” — a job that paid between $10 and $13 an hour. Of course, the products they were hauling in and out of the molds included “The Bandit,” “The Outlaw,” and, of course, “The Goodfella” (“As close to a real cock as possible”).

The workers say they often spent well over eight hours a day shlepping Bandits and Goodfellas and whatnot in the company’s San Francisco factory — but they claim that when they glanced at their paychecks, they’d been given the shaft.

“If Plaintiffs … worked more than eight hours in a day, but not more than a total of forty in a week, they were not paid overtime,” claims the suit. “Therefore, Defendant willfully violated California law…”

So there you go. The plaintiffs want the money they say they’re due. And, no, there’s nothing in there about being willing to accept dildos in lieu of payment.

Courtesy San Francisco Weekly

Thomas was bringing inmates into his office and spanking them with a paddle

Herman Thomas was the Democratic party’s choice to be the first black federal judge in the south of the state before a series of lurid allegations were made against him. His lawyers say the charges are racially and politically motivated.

The charges, which Thomas denies, include sodomy, kidnapping and extortion. Prosecutors say 15 current and former male inmates will give evidence against him.

Thomas resigned as a circuit judge in 2007 after being accused of bringing inmates into his office and slapping them with a wooden paddle. He was later charged with the more serious offences. If convicted of sodomy and kidnapping, he faces at least 20 years in jail.

Thomas was first accused of offering inmates leniency in return for sex in 2001 but the case was dismissed.

The authorities began investigating him again after he changed a jail sentence in 2006 for his cousin even though the case was being handled by another judge. Other cases that Thomas had taken over from other judges without their approval then began to surface. Some inmates in those cases described being allowed out of prison for meetings with Thomas in his car or in his private office. Then came allegations of spankings and sex.

His lawyer, Robert Clark, describes the charges against Thomas as “a hi-tech lynching”. He added: “They don’t like uppity black folks, and that’s what they consider Herman.”

The civil rights group the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has also spoken in Thomas’s defence, claiming that race is behind the prosecution.

But Nicki Patterson, Alabama’s chief assistant district attorney, denies this. She said prison records backed up inmates’ claims about trips to Thomas’s office, and that other inmates had witnessed marks on their cellmates’ buttocks after the alleged spankings. There is evidence of one inmate’s seminal fluid on the Thomas’s office carpet, according to court papers.

The case has shocked Thomas’s friends and political allies. Bob Edington, a prominent local lawyer and former Democratic state senator, said: “I’ve always had the highest regard for him. The allegations were a complete surprise to me and everyone else who knew him.”

The trial is expected to last several weeks.

Courtesy Guardian.co.uk: United Kingdom

Such an oddly appropriate marriage between art and politics

The series of paintings will be completed during Sexpo, which will be held next weekend at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, and sold to visitors and collectors. Proceeds of the sales will be donated to charity.

“Even down under he’s a newsmaker,” says Pricasso, “widely influencing public opinion of South Africa worldwide.”

“As a fan of South Africa, and certainly a multiple visitor, I know that the majority of South Africans are opposite to what we read in the papers. The intention of this series of four paintings is not only to raise money for charity, but, importantly, to take a tongue-in-cheek position on a newsmaker who seems to grab headlines even when he has little to say.”

The Ignoramus series will be the latest installment of Pricasso’s collection of political works. Previously he has painted Tony Blair, George W Bush, DA leader Helen Zille and President Jacob Zuma.

Courtesy IOL.co.za: South Africa

UC Davis graduate student Kurt Vaughn, right, joins other minimally clothed students as they protest a plan to raise fees. The rally's goal was to get other students to join in a walkout Thursday, the first day of classes.

Professors at all 10 University of California campuses planned the walkout to express frustration with UC’s furlough program. They wanted to take some of their furloughs on teaching days, but the administration won’t allow that.

Now the walkout has grown to include students who are upset about a proposal to increase fees by more than 30 percent and non-teaching staff who are locked in labor negotiations. Across UC campuses on Thursday, union workers will picket, students will rally and professors will walk out.

But how many?

More than 1,100 UC professors statewide have signed an online pledge to participate in the walkout – out of a faculty of about 19,400. That includes nearly 200 UC Davis professors out of roughly 2,000 faculty members.

About 1,000 UC Davis students – of the school’s 31,000 students – have joined a Facebook group supporting the student walkout, said student activist Sarah Raridon, 21.

On Tuesday, she encouraged UC Davis students to participate in the walkout. Raridon and about a dozen other students held a “naked rally” to protest UC President Mark Yudof’s recent proposal to raise fees.

The students – wearing underwear or bathing suits but holding signs across their midsections so they appeared nude – chanted, “Higher tuition, we can’t make it. Three more grand, we’ll get naked.”

One held a sign saying, “Don’t let the UC strip you of your right to public education. Walk out 9/24.”

“I hope it’s going to be huge,” Raridon said of Thursday’s walkout.

She said she already has e-mailed her professors telling them she won’t be in class Thursday because of the walkout, and asking them to send her their syllabuses.

UC Davis spokeswoman Claudia Morain said some professors who are walking out are e-mailing material to students or posting lecture notes online. Some may greet classes and dismiss them early, she said. Other courses will be taught by department chairs serving as substitutes.

Chancellor Linda Katehi is sending students a letter urging them all to attend class.

Rachel Wu, a sophomore, said she is planning to show up for the first day of classes.

“I’m scared that for some classes, if you don’t show up the first day, they drop you,” she said.

A group of philosophy graduate students eating pizza on the quad Tuesday said their professor will hold class off campus Thursday because he doesn’t want to cross a picket line but doesn’t want to skip class.

Campus administrators believe the walkout “is going to be small and that huge areas of the campus aren’t going to be affected at all,” Morain said.

Professional schools and science departments will probably see few impacts from the walkout, she said, while humanities and social science departments likely will have more participants.

For parents such as John Sulpizio, the whole thing is a frustration. The West Sacramento man said he is unemployed, so he can’t help his daughter with her UC Davis tuition. It went up 9 percent for this fall and could go up 15 percent next spring and 15 percent more next fall.

“Now we’re talking about something like a 41 percent increase in the cost of a UC education, and we’re hearing from professors that they’re not going to deliver the education because they think they ought to have their day off on a day when they should be in the classroom teaching,” Sulpizio said. “There is something frustrating and irritating about that.”

But many professors will be holding class as scheduled Thursday, including James Chalfant, a professor in the department of agricultural and resource economics.

“This is my favorite class, and I want to use the time,” he said.

Even though he’s not protesting, Chalfant said he shares his colleagues’ concerns about budget cuts and furloughs, and agreed that UC employees “need to say ‘help’ to anyone who is willing to listen.”

“It’s not about retaliating,” Chalfant said. “It’s about saying, ‘Please pay attention to what’s happening to UC.’ ”

Courtesy Sacbee.com

Coburn

Schwartz, a longtime conservative activist who has been with Oklahoma Republican for 15 years, first claimed that homosexuality is wrong because most 10-year-old boys have an innate hatred for it.

Then he began discoursing on the evils of pornography, echoing a friend who once told him that all porn was gay porn because it turned men “inwards.”

His conclusion: If you told 10-year-old boys that looking at naked pictures of women would make them gay, then they wouldn’t be buying Playboy.

“Pornography is a blight… It is a disaster. It is one of those silent diseases in our society that we haven’t been able to overcome very well. Now, I may be getting politically incorrect here. And it’s been a few years, but not that many, since I was closely associated with pre-adolescent boys, boys around 10 years of age. But it is my observation that boys of that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it.”

Schwartz told the crowd about Jim Johnson, a friend of his who turned an old hotel into a hospice for gay men dying of AIDS. “One of the things he said to me,” said Schwartz, “that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark… he said ‘All pornography is homosexual pornography, because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.”

There were murmurs and gasps from the crowd. “Now, think about that,” said Schwartz. “And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants! You know, that’s a good comment, it’s a good point, and it’s a good thing to teach young people.”

h/t Josh Marshall

Courtesy Politico.com

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