But we already helped free them from their democratically elected leader Mohamed Morsi, how can they get more free than that?Congrats!!!!
You just found new brown peoples to freedomise!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34102656
Can we have a "It's not all bad news" thread?
sometimes all we have to do is draw a line in the sand........But we already helped free them from their democratically elected leader Mohamed Morsi, how can they get more free than that?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34110397
*edit*
Dammit sniped by Eric over in the "psychotic god botherer" thread.
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Bill Gates to move on from defeating malaria to gun nuts and Chuck Norris:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/26/the-nra-pissed-off-the-wrong-nerd-genius.html
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/26/the-nra-pissed-off-the-wrong-nerd-genius.html
Pretty minor in the big picture (and certainly self-aggrandizing), but this made my daughter a happy camper -
1.) Recover injured turtle from road, take turtle to local university turtle rescue, donate $$$ to turtle rescue
2.) Turtle rescue glues shell back together and nurses this little guy back to health
3.) Go get turtle and release him back to a pond full of delicious minnows and hot turtle bishes
4.) Much fanfare and cheering from daughter
5.) Profit
(and yes, that is an eastern river cooter...not shitting you - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_river_cooter)
1.) Recover injured turtle from road, take turtle to local university turtle rescue, donate $$$ to turtle rescue
2.) Turtle rescue glues shell back together and nurses this little guy back to health
3.) Go get turtle and release him back to a pond full of delicious minnows and hot turtle bishes
4.) Much fanfare and cheering from daughter
5.) Profit
(and yes, that is an eastern river cooter...not shitting you - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_river_cooter)
Iceland and Germany's citizens are showing fake American Christians and xenophobic European nations how it's done:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/31/_10_000_icelanders_offer_to_house_syrian_refugees.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/02/europe/europe-migrants-welcome/index.html
Edit: Also real charity from sports fans, a foreign idea in America. Can you imagine the criminals at the NFL doing this:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/03/437275528/professional-soccer-sets-welcoming-tone-for-refugees-in-germany
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/31/_10_000_icelanders_offer_to_house_syrian_refugees.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/02/europe/europe-migrants-welcome/index.html
Edit: Also real charity from sports fans, a foreign idea in America. Can you imagine the criminals at the NFL doing this:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/03/437275528/professional-soccer-sets-welcoming-tone-for-refugees-in-germany
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http://www.npr.org/2015/09/17/441196546/is-there-a-war-on-police-the-statistics-say-no
Reality check from a veteran police officer/law professor:
Reality check from a veteran police officer/law professor:
In 2014, the year of the Ferguson protests and increased media attention on police misconduct, 51 officers were killed nationwide. That was a jump from the 27 killed in 2013 and many took it as a sign of greater danger for police.
Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and an assistant law professor at the University of South Carolina, calls that interpretation "nonsense."
"It's misleading to compare one year to another year," he says.
Stoughton has been collecting and analyzing these data going back decades. He says 2014 looked bad in comparison with 2013 mainly because 2013 was so good.
"2013 was the safest year for police officers, ever," he says. "The safest year in recorded history."
In fact, in the larger scheme of things, 2014 looks pretty normal. The number of murders of police was about the same as 2012, and actually a lot lower than 2011.
The long-term trend is even more encouraging: On average, only about half as many police are murdered every year now, as compared with the 1970s. Stoughton says some of that improvement is probably due to better training, better gear and radically improved trauma care for cops who are shot.
But he says the numbers suggest officers are also facing fewer attacks: The number of assaults on police has also fallen, though not as sharply.
While I agree with that, I'd be very curious to find out if data supports the zeitgeist's opinion that police violence is on the rise, especially in a "war on minorities." I bet it's not, and it's largely a matter of media distribution, communication, and a rise in minority communities' ability to air grievances to a more receptive public.
Currently reading Pinker's "Better Angels" and expect to come across that info soon.
The FBI doesn't accurately track and doesn't care about the people the police kill - with no data you can't say either way - they only track felonious police deaths. We know for a fact that police officers do not have a more dangerous job than many other ordinary jobs which are also essential to our society and shouldn't demand special recognition any more than those other workers with much more dangerous jobs. They should be held to higher standards given all the power and trust they're given and there's certainly no excuse for the "thin blue line" culture were police criminals are protected like pedophile preists in the Catholic Church.
On a larger scale, there's no doubt the system is inherently tilted towards oppressing the poor, especially minorities.:
Ok...
Question was not about whether things are good/bad/unfair/perfect for minorities. It might be horrible in an objective sense. However, I'm wondering not about the existing state of things but the trend, especially vis-a-vis police violence in the face of a media narrative of police gone suddenly insanely racist and militarized. We can't look at John Oliver talking about real problems and use that to quantify a change, just like we can't dismiss global warming because it's really cold out.
If there's no data, there's no data. But I bet there's usable data aside from the FBI and police stats.
Violence in society writ large is way down over the years, even as we get more (rightfully) sensitized and each and every incident of violence raises a proportionally larger reaction in society.
As to the ever-favorite-"being-a-police-officer-isn't-that-dangerous" link, I don't really think it's relevant at all to the question of how police violence (as a whole, and/or with respect to minorities) is trending.
Question was not about whether things are good/bad/unfair/perfect for minorities. It might be horrible in an objective sense. However, I'm wondering not about the existing state of things but the trend, especially vis-a-vis police violence in the face of a media narrative of police gone suddenly insanely racist and militarized. We can't look at John Oliver talking about real problems and use that to quantify a change, just like we can't dismiss global warming because it's really cold out.
If there's no data, there's no data. But I bet there's usable data aside from the FBI and police stats.
Violence in society writ large is way down over the years, even as we get more (rightfully) sensitized and each and every incident of violence raises a proportionally larger reaction in society.
As to the ever-favorite-"being-a-police-officer-isn't-that-dangerous" link, I don't really think it's relevant at all to the question of how police violence (as a whole, and/or with respect to minorities) is trending.
I have posted this before but there's not enough years of data to draw conclusions:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
There's also strong evidence for increasing/escalating violence from police from militarization trends all while police violence has been going down for decades thanks to propaganda about a dangerous job. Looking forward to seeing this documentary SW posted in the Eff thread:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/sxsw-review-captivating-and-timely-peace-officer-is-a-must-watch-documentary-20150315
Edit 2: Also don't forget another issue which highlights the priority the system puts in the bottom line and revenue generation over more important goals like protecting the peace and public safety/health - ticket quotas - they're illegal, common, and another unacceptable part of the puzzle.
To continue on the JO videos:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
There's also strong evidence for increasing/escalating violence from police from militarization trends all while police violence has been going down for decades thanks to propaganda about a dangerous job. Looking forward to seeing this documentary SW posted in the Eff thread:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/sxsw-review-captivating-and-timely-peace-officer-is-a-must-watch-documentary-20150315
Edit 2: Also don't forget another issue which highlights the priority the system puts in the bottom line and revenue generation over more important goals like protecting the peace and public safety/health - ticket quotas - they're illegal, common, and another unacceptable part of the puzzle.
To continue on the JO videos:
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Finally an executive goes to jail like everyone else would:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34321181
See also VW, these companies definitively haven proven the libertarian narrative is complete fantasy - in the real world companies tend to do the wrong thing if they're not regulated. Move a third world shithole if you think it's such a good thing.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34321181
See also VW, these companies definitively haven proven the libertarian narrative is complete fantasy - in the real world companies tend to do the wrong thing if they're not regulated. Move a third world shithole if you think it's such a good thing.
For those who think that air pollution restrictions are a leftist power play:
12,000 deaths from 5 days of bad smog
Motorized fatties don't qualify as mountain bikers:
https://www.imba.com/news/eMTB-early-study-results
https://www.imba.com/news/eMTB-early-study-results
That's not what that study says. Indeed, it seems to point to the common sense conclusion that eMTBs are closer to regular mountain bikes than to dirt bikes in their impact on the terrain:
Actually they clearly state:
"IMBA’s current board-considered position paper on motorized/nonmotorized recreation states that eMTBs should be considered to be a form of motorized recreation and managed separately from traditional mountain bikes."
It's still their 2015 position:
International Mountain Bicycling AssociationWell, "a motor is a motor" is essentially what IMBA's position paper states. Nonetheless, we do not want to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that this technology couldn't become popular on public lands. Ultimately it will be up to land managers to decide strategies.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 1:22pm
- Bob StevensNo motorbikes on non-motorized bike trails. PERIOD!
Like · Reply · 20 · Yesterday at 1:22pm
International Mountain Bicycling AssociationThis is what IMBA's motorized/nonmotorized position paper states.
Like · Reply · 2 · Yesterday at 1:29pm
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A man who suffered a gunshot wound to his penis when a pistol he stuffed in his pants went off told police that he was shot by a "black guy (who) tried to rob him."
Donald Anthony Watson, a 43-year-old convicted felon, showed up at a local emergency room bleeding profusely from his genitals in the early morning of Sept. 6, according to the Argus Leader.
When police asked him how a bullet happened to strike him in the crotch, Watson — who is white — said he had been putting out the trash at a dumpster outside his apartment when the robber shot him during an attempted mugging.
In a city where fewer than one of 20 residents is black, Watson's account of an African American gunman staking out dumpsters after midnight to rob people might have given officers pause.
In any event, police went to the dumpster to corroborate his story, but they found no evidence of a shooting. They, however, did find a witness who had heard screaming coming from the apartment about 1 a.m.
A search warrant of the apartment yielded bullet fragments, blood and an empty gun case, but no gun.
Watson later admitted to officers that he had shot himself while examining a pistol he was considering buying, according to the Leader. He told them that as he placed it in his pocket, the gun discharged, wounding him. Apparently it did not come with a holster.
Watson reportedly would not say who the seller was or what happened to the gun.
He was arrested on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and other charges.
As one Facebook commenter noted, while Watson does not qualify for a Darwin Award by virtue of surviving the accident, he may not be adding his chromosomes to the gene pool.
Donald Anthony Watson, a 43-year-old convicted felon, showed up at a local emergency room bleeding profusely from his genitals in the early morning of Sept. 6, according to the Argus Leader.
When police asked him how a bullet happened to strike him in the crotch, Watson — who is white — said he had been putting out the trash at a dumpster outside his apartment when the robber shot him during an attempted mugging.
In a city where fewer than one of 20 residents is black, Watson's account of an African American gunman staking out dumpsters after midnight to rob people might have given officers pause.
In any event, police went to the dumpster to corroborate his story, but they found no evidence of a shooting. They, however, did find a witness who had heard screaming coming from the apartment about 1 a.m.
A search warrant of the apartment yielded bullet fragments, blood and an empty gun case, but no gun.
Watson later admitted to officers that he had shot himself while examining a pistol he was considering buying, according to the Leader. He told them that as he placed it in his pocket, the gun discharged, wounding him. Apparently it did not come with a holster.
Watson reportedly would not say who the seller was or what happened to the gun.
He was arrested on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and other charges.
As one Facebook commenter noted, while Watson does not qualify for a Darwin Award by virtue of surviving the accident, he may not be adding his chromosomes to the gene pool.
- The number of extremely poor people (defined as those earning less than $1 or $1.25 a day, depending on who's counting) rose inexorably until the middle of the 20th century, then roughly stabilised for a few decades. Since the 1990s, the number of poor has plummeted.
- In 1990, more than 12 million children died before the age of 5; this toll has since dropped by more than half.
- More kids than ever are becoming educated, especially girls. In the 1980s, only half of girls in developing countries completed elementary school; now, 80 per cent do.
As of today, anyone over 21 in Oregon can buy weed at the dispensaries. To the bong shed, bitches.
Prison debate team beats Harvard: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a38553/prisoners-beat-harvard-in-debate/
they would probably defeat all 24 candidates for president.
er....
Oh man. Who was that guy who got banned that had such a huge hard on for Charlie? Bightr?
No idea, but in my mind, Charlie and DirtMcGirk would frequently rent a convertible to go on booze and coke binges in Vegas together.