On the topic of the Bin Laden correspondence, Slate published Reflections of a Terrorist.
My first thought when I got to this?
Shit. We killed al-Qaida's conscience...In Somalia, Bin Laden cautioned against al-Shabab’s harsh and rigid interpretations of Islamic law. He counseled the group to grant “the benefit of doubt when it comes to dealing with crimes and applying Sharia,” so that the most extreme punishments could be avoided.
Arizona bans funding for Planned Parenthood
I want out of this state so bad.
Great. Just great. The Nazi-worshipping party of Greece, "Golden Dawn", is racking up 6-8% so far in the elections, they will definitely be part of the new parliament if a stable government is formed.
EDIT: To put it into perspective, these guys were getting around 0.2% in previous elections. My only hope is that this surge is almost exclusively a "protest" vote and that people who voted them didn't really think through WHO they were voting (though this is not terribly reassuring either) and will understand their mistake in the following days. Because seriously, this party is Nazis Inc. Remember American History X? They're that bad.
Last edited by Alexandros; 05-06-2012 at 05:53 PM.
Sarkozy defeated in French presidential race.
Thank god Le Pen didn't win, either.
China wants to name Dalai Lama's "successor".Silly China, Buddhism doesn't work that way!
Why do we live in a place that has that, and then this: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-announce...-marriage.html
Oh, what i really wanted to post in here was this: the increasing rate of plastic pollution in the oceans.
that's messed up ^^
Newly discovered Mayan calendar extends way past 2012.
Now that that bullshit has been dealt with, can we collectively smack all the people who buy in to Astrology now?
And just like that, stocks on Coast to Coast dropped 50 percent.
I wish, but our astrology is not derived from misconceptions about the Mayan calendar. So I'm not really sure what the finding about Mayans plotting dates past 2012—which isn't new, BTW: we've known for ages that they weren't stopping with 2012, even if the end-of-the-worlders kept their heads in the sand—has to do with astrology in the first place.
It was a joke. Does it ever get tiresome over thinking literally everything? "Hmm I want a sandwich, but the distance to the kitchen isn't equidistant to the bathroom, so it probably wouldn't be beneficial in the pursuit of alleviating my hunger."
Oh. It must be one of those modern jokes, where the comedy is meant to derive from mere implication, like those Seltzer-Friedberg movies.
The G8/NATO summit's start tomorrow in Chicago. Riots will ensue undoubtedly.
http://www.ustream.tv/timcast
Timcast is really good at covering Occupy stuff.
Nothing happening right now other than about 100 or so people marching and chanting "fuck the police". But stuff will heat up for sure over the next couple days.
G8 isn't in Chicago, anymore, thank God (only NATO is here). We've been on this crazy lockdown security alert thing downtown for a while and it's scaring the shit out of everybody because we don't know if parking or traffic will totally suck. I work in the North Loop so it's not likely to affect me much (other than fuck up a few of my real estate closings) but its still gonna be a huge pain in the ass.
Last edited by allegro; 05-15-2012 at 09:26 PM.
^true G8 is at Camp David now. But the protests will still be going down.
hardly our biggest problem.
http://www.chicagonato.org/secret-se...release-15.php
my husband is an air traffic controller, you wouldn't BELIEVE the shit they have to do (runway sweeps, F16 controls).
also, this city is SO ready for protests, it's ridiculous. a minor inconvenience compared to security and terrorist threats.
the real shit doesn't hit the fan until Sunday.
Last edited by allegro; 05-15-2012 at 09:37 PM.
Governor Brown signs law that makes gay history a required part of the school curriculum in California
See, Arizona? That's how you do it. It's called progression. You should try it sometime.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will spread. I'm not optimistic, but I'm hoping.
While I'm completely on the side of supporting this and agree that it's a necessary progressive push, I'm going to offer the perhaps downer opinion that this is a dangerous thing to encourage right now. A large part of the backing for Prop 8 (the anti gay marriage proposition) was being sold on the bullshit that "if they legalize gay marriage, then next thing you know they're going to be teaching our kids about homosexuality in school!" And this was in CA... a progressive state, and they sadly voted in favor of Prop 8.
It's a really divisive topic in this country. The very suggestion of this sort of thing in a red state would create some really hateful public discourse. A complete meltdown would ensue. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but I just don't think this country is ready for this yet... and I'm willing to bet that people (assholes) are going to start pointing to this law as the result of the "slippery slope" that starts with supporting gay rights.
Sure, but while we're at it, we might as well point out that if it hadn't been for the institution of the leap year, 2012 already came and went.
Last edited by Jinsai; 05-17-2012 at 01:51 AM.
Well, I follow the French Revolution calendar so it's only 221.
Holocaust denial signifies fringe left to you? You must be taking the piss... Name one leftist figure or movement that denies the holocaust...
I would argue "truthing" has more links to the right, they invariably come down to shadow government, nwo, big money being responsible, and anyone who knows anything about the anti semitism of the far right will recognise those silhouettes/ciphers
Just because someone is critical of bush and neocons does not mean they are left... The extreme right is critical of all non extreme right admins, does that make them left? Put very simply... If i dont think bush is right wing enough, does that mean i am left? Of course not
Out of interest, what do you define as left?
Last edited by Sutekh; 05-17-2012 at 09:52 AM.
NAACP endorses marriage equality
Awesome.
This guy's first-hand account of yesterday's big NATO rally in Millennium Park is AWESOME, notwithstanding his bad spelling and punctuation, I have a total crush on him*:
http://brucecameronelliott.blogspot....beab84bc8972f3
Last edited by allegro; 05-21-2012 at 11:12 PM. Reason: *mostly because he can identify a dwarf conifer, or a fake dwarf conifer