#251  
Old 08-31-2016, 12:34 AM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

Yep. The US and other Western (and Eastern, like Russia and Turkey) powers keep using ethnic/religious minorities in the Middle East for their own purposes and then tossing them to the wolves.

It's also extremely suspicious than ISIS just gave Jarabulus to the Turks when the Kurds went through over 2 months of intense fighting to get Manbij.

Btw, the Kurds and the Syrian regime have a sort of love/hate relationship. Their are some areas under their joint control like Hasaka and Qamishli towns and they have been fighting there sometimes. But the regime has also been arming them against ISIS. They are united in their secularism and dislike of fundamentalist islamists and neither of them is happy with the Turkish invasion.
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  #252  
Old 08-31-2016, 06:17 PM
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This covers so many sub-threads I'll just put it here.

Trump rally emcee: Ban women voters who use ‘free contraception’ and we will ‘win every election’

Wow.
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  #253  
Old 08-31-2016, 09:16 PM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

From the sidebar:
Quote:
‘You cannot get your hands on a Trump piñata because they are sold out’
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  #254  
Old 09-01-2016, 09:19 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeP View Post
From the sidebar:
Quote:
‘You cannot get your hands on a Trump piñata because they are sold out’
And while we're on the subject, I only yesterday discovered that the president of Mexico is called Enrique Peña Nieto.

He agreed to a meeting with Trump. According to some sources the topic of who would pay for The Wall wasn't discussed, according to others, Peña Nieto rejected it. But he didn't make a good showing apparently. Trump meeting is public relations disaster for Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto | World news | The Guardian
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  #255  
Old 09-02-2016, 01:55 PM
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  #256  
Old 09-02-2016, 09:56 PM
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According to drone footage, Ken Ham’s ‘Ark Encounter’ is having some attendance problems – DeadState
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  #257  
Old 09-02-2016, 10:42 PM
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Such a shame.
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  #258  
Old 09-03-2016, 02:09 AM
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It'll pick up this winter during tourist season.

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  #259  
Old 09-03-2016, 03:03 AM
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That dog won't hunt and that boat won't float.
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  #260  
Old 09-08-2016, 08:53 PM
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This was from a newsletter from a spice import company, Penzey's Spices.

Quote:
Thanks so much for your overwhelmingly positive responses to our call for cooks to be a part of our Countdown to Thanksgiving400™ Catalog. A big part of our excitement for Thanksgiving400 is that it makes obvious that America is where it is today because of our tradition, set in motion over the summer of 1621 by the kindness of the Wampanoag people, of not just letting outsiders in, but of working to help newcomers succeed. It's pretty much why all of us are here, and without it there's no way we could have achieved our position of leadership in the world. Of course not all the responses to this message were positive. I read all responses, positive and negative, and I apologize for not having time to answer each one individually.

To those negative responses, what I can say is that yes, you can get opinions from Fox News and AM radio etc, but we can't get Spices from them. To do what we do, on the level we do it, we have to travel out into the real world and face it for the realities it holds. What you are watching and listening to are programs crafted to make you think the way they want you to think. Our job brings us face-to-face with reality, and our experience with the reality of the world has taught us that human goodness, and human kindness, have nothing to do with skin tone, orientation, or brand of religion. We know this. This is our experience. And we will continue to share it.

I am truly sorry if you can't continue to purchase spices from us because we share an experience at odds with the world view your programs encourage you to hold. For what it's worth, there's nothing we've found traveling the world that you can't also find in your own kitchen if you are willing to look. The lesson of cooking is when you care about people, and respect them for who they are, better futures get set in motion. Cooking really is the exact opposite of discrimination. One of the things I really like about Thanksgiving400 is that it takes place in 2021, after this election and the next one, at a point where our progressing demographics will have left us in a better place. Here's to more united times. Please know we will always be excited for your return.

Bill
Bill as in Bill Penzey.
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  #261  
Old 09-08-2016, 09:25 PM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

Man, Penzey's is really the best about that.

I unsubscribed from their newsletter in a Great Email Purge a while back, but look at this from their MLK Day letter last year.

Quote:
As much as we don't like to dwell on it too much, for many, the American experience has come with an unhealthy dose of inequality. How do people face injustice without just giving up or letting their anger get the best of them? From our time with the Motleys I think the answer to that question is love. If you have enough love in your life, you have a chance to continue on where others fade away and maybe even hold on long enough to play a part in change. The Motleys' love so clearly flows through their lives and their recipes.

And send your love to today's protesters. They need a bunch of it if they are to be successful—and it would be so good for all of us if they were successful.

In recent years we seem to have developed a romanticized version of Martin Luther King's life, one where he came and had tea with elected officials who then gave his nobility a standing ovation and spontaneously removed all laws of discrimination from the books and sent him on his way with a little box of cookies. It did not happen that way.

Sadly, then as now, anyone working to advance equality all too often comes face to face with the very worst in human nature. For MLK Jr. Day 2015, if you get a chance, please read Dr. King's letter from Birmingham Jail. The letter is long, but it gives great insight to both his time and to why his life so very much deserves celebration.

And if you know anyone continuing his legacy by taking the protest against today's inequality to the streets, baking them a box of cookies really couldn't hurt.


Share your love and have a great weekend,
Bill
I just really, really like that company. And I am out of a few things.
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  #262  
Old 09-11-2016, 07:14 AM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

John Hinckley Jr. released from the nut house today!

In other news, new billboards!

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  #263  
Old 09-18-2016, 05:48 AM
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Arizona child sexual abuse law guts due process for parents and caregivers.

Changing your kid's diaper in Arizona is now child molestation.

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  #264  
Old 09-18-2016, 05:58 AM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

Given the rampant child sex trafficking of the republican party, combined with their self loathing laws, 1000 internets says at least one person on the Arizona supreme court is a sexual abuser.
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  #265  
Old 09-18-2016, 07:50 PM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

I'm pretty sure it's also illegal, at least in practical terms, to not change your baby's diaper. So for all intents and purposes, it's illegal to have a baby in Arizona now. And yet somehow it's illegal not to have a baby as well.

But I'm sure that, as long as you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about. The vagueness is necessary to make sure all the bad guys get caught.
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  #266  
Old 09-18-2016, 07:56 PM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

I call upon all parents of newborns in Arizona to turn themselves in. As many as possible, all at the same time.
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  #267  
Old 09-19-2016, 06:44 AM
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Default Re: News Miscellany

It's so sweet that conservatives think of the children's welfare so much. Always thinking of the children. Well, almost always, anyway!
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  #268  
Old 09-21-2016, 09:10 PM
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So I was doing some research into the border wall that actually exists already and stumbled across this Snopes page:

Mexico-Guatemala Border Wall : snopes.com

Interesting read, and my fave takeaway is this:

Quote:
Sadly though, these same walls will, and do, stop wildlife in their tracks, denying them the territory, resources and genetic exchange they need in order to survive and adapt in the arid environment of the borderlands.
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  #269  
Old 09-21-2016, 10:19 PM
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Barack Obama tells Israel it 'cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land’ | The Independent

Right after:

US agrees to give Israel $38bn in military aid despite tensions over Iran deal and West Bank settlements policy | The Independent

:meh:
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  #270  
Old 09-22-2016, 06:15 AM
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Donald Trump Proposes Nationwide Stop-And-Frisk Program at African-American Town Hall - The New Civil Rights Movement

Papers, Comrade.
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  #271  
Old 09-22-2016, 10:25 PM
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Some funny shit here:

New Yorkers reveal the things they fear the most ranking ISIS below list of 'terrors' | Daily Mail Online

Bedbugs. Sewer grate collapse. Breakdancing on the subway.
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  #272  
Old 09-23-2016, 06:16 AM
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I've an aversion to making new threads, (You can probably tell by the way I spam the shit out of this one.) and this might actually merit one. So if someone has an editorial they want to share on this, really, no butthurt here if they want to make a new thread.

Deconstructing America's unconscious racial bias - CBS News

My fave parts:
Quote:
In his test, subjects are shown a picture of a black or white male carrying either a gun or a harmless object, and must make a quick decision to shoot or not shoot.
Quote:
He told CBS News that he has tested the strategy of training subjects to not automatically look at a person’s face. “We found that it’s effective in reducing bias in shooting.”

In the lab, focusing on the object rather than the race reduces the mistaken shooting of unarmed blacks by as much as 45 percent.
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  #273  
Old 09-23-2016, 12:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann View Post
I've an aversion to making new threads, (You can probably tell by the way I spam the shit out of this one.)
I see you've met lisarea
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  #274  
Old 09-23-2016, 02:44 PM
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The Oculus founder always seemed a bit of a creep.

Palmer Luckey: The Facebook Near Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump's Meme Machine - The Daily Beast

Quote:
Nimble America says it’s dedicated to proving that “shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real,” according to the company’s introductory statement, and has taken credit for a billboard its founders say was posted outside of Pittsburgh with a cartoonishly large image of Clinton’s face alongside the words “Too Big to Jail.”
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  #275  
Old 09-23-2016, 07:41 PM
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Mel Brooks Jokingly Tried To Pull Down President Obama's Pants | Huffington Post
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