The Dutch high council of law recently made euthanasia in cases of dementia legal by refusing to prosecute a doctor who euthanized a patient for this reason. At the patient’s request obviously.
This is the News… THIS IS THE NEWWWWWWWS!
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Shit, should’ve posted this in the politics thread, now we’ve got the same discussion in two threads at once… ah well.
Fuck.
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Statuewatch:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52977088
Robert Milligan: Slave trader statue removed from outside London museum
A statue of noted slaveholder Robert Milligan has been removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands.
Sadiq Khan earlier announced a review of all of London’s statues and street names, saying any with links to slavery “should be taken down”.
On Sunday, anti-racism protesters in Bristol tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston.
Milligan’s monument was removed to “recognise the wishes of the community” said the Canal and River Trust.
There were cheers and clapping as the monument was lifted from its plinth using a crane.
The Museum of London Docklands said the statue of the prominent British slave trader, who owned two sugar plantations and 526 slaves in Jamaica, had “stood uncomfortably” outside its premises “for a long time”.
“The Museum of London recognises that the monument is part of the ongoing problematic regime of white-washing history, which disregards the pain of those who are still wrestling with the remnants of the crimes Milligan committed against humanity,” they added.
The Canal and River Trust said it had worked with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the museum and partners in Canary Wharf to have it removed.
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I mean, tell me that I’m wrong?
Well, you did fail to mention he’s white.
That would be implied in “rich and powerful”.
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rednecks shouting at you “WELL GOOD LUCK WHEN SOMEONE’S COMING TO YOUR HOUSE TO KILL YOU”
Any self-respecting redneck shouldn’t be calling the police, he should be defending himself with his own arsenal of guns.
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I think slogans like this can be useful and are needed to create a movement, but I do think that this one is initially a little misleading – because at first it sounds like a call to abolish the police altogether – even if there’s ultimately quite a sensible intention at the heart of it.
I agree. We should go with “Eat the Police”.
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Literally nobody says there should be no policing.
Eh, I’ve seen people on tumblr say this. They’re probably not very sane though.
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I agree. We should go with “Eat the Police”.
Compost the police
Eh, I’ve seen people on tumblr say this. They’re probably not very sane though.
I’d be willing to bet their actual position is more nuanced than the soundbite.
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Compost the police
Straight Outta Compost
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I’d be willing to bet their actual position is more nuanced than the soundbite.
Maybe, maybe not but ‘people on Tumblr’ is not really indicative of anything at all. A quick Google sees a woman on there who washed her hands for a week with a piece of cheese she thought was soap.
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Someone made a video response: https://www.facebook.com/chrislablee/videos/10163752414370123/?hc_location=ufi
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That video response was pretty class.
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Police Union Boss: ‘Stop Treating Us Like Animals and Thugs, and Start Treating Us With Some Respect’
Stop enabling Nazis with badges. How about that?
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Today the investigation into the murder of Swedish PM Olof Palme was dropped. It went on for 34 years. Listening to the prosecutors press conference and the statistics and conclusions regarding this investigation is very interesting. The prime suspect killed himself, and therefor they don’t see the need to go on.
Personally, I’m kinda glad they dropped it. I’ve been convinced that the shoddy handling of the investigation goes hand in hand with the fact that he was murdered by the police and SÄPO (~ swedish CIA). It’s not a prevailing theory generally. There is a man, called the SÄPO-man, that has been investigated somewhat thoroughly but everyone and anyone has been a part of this clusterfuck. PKK, South Africa, Kurds, SÄPO, and so on ad nauseum. Either way, it’s been an absolute waste of tax payer money for at least ten years. Glad it’s over.
Some interesting stats from the press conference:
90.000 people appear as persons of interest in the investigation.
another 40.000 people also appear by name.
10.000 people have been interrogated.
134 people have admitted to the murder.
29 of those have admitted it to the cops.
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I just listened to an interesting discussion on the high proportion of BAME people that have died of Covid in the UK. Some have speculated on a genetic issue, which the left tend to automatically recoil from but in places is valid. Different conditions can affect people differently based on genetics.
However the deeper analysis shows that’s almost certainly not the case. This is because the UK has a demographic quirk that can rule it out. The large South Asian population can be broken down to people of Indian origin and those of Pakistani/Bangladeshi. Those two groups have very different economic profiles. Those of Indian origin outperform white people academically and have a similar socio-economic profile while the Pakistani/Bangladeshi population have a lower one more in common with the Afro-Caribbean population.
This is matched in the death rate from Covid-19. The Indian group does not have higher deaths but the Pakistani/Bangladeshi one does. Genetically though there is no discernible difference between them, they all come from the same place, it’s only economic.
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Urgh. I wrote a post that’s disappeared, about news items unrelated to the current crises:
For one thing, there’s a German guy in prison who is being investigated for the murder of Maddie McCann.
For the other, there’s the J.K.Rowling thing. For those who aren’t aware, she’s been accused of being transphobic, and she’s released a lengthy statement on her homepage now.
J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues
I do think her understanding of gender and biological sex is reductive and inaccurate, but I doubt she is transphobic or deserves to be hounded with hatred in the way that has obviously happened. It’s one of those things where the left eats itself instead of focusing on the actual opponents. It’s an interesting read, anyway, and highlights the complexities of the issue.
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I also think it’s a controversy that’s often used in a wilfully divisive way by people who don’t necessarily have the trans community’s best interests at heart, but that’s another issue.
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Oh, Rowling is a full on Transphobe, her post may be couched in reasonable language but her sources are a mix of cooked statistics and outright lies.
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I've been informed by several angry Twitter people that if I support folks tearing down statues of Christopher Columbus, I should also support the teardown of statues of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
As a Muslim, I say go right ahead & tear down every single statue of Mohammed.
— Rami Ismail (@tha_rami) June 11, 2020
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As a Muslim, I say go right ahead & tear down every single statue of Mohammed.
And burn all the portraits of him while you’re at it!!
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A couple of sources for debunking JK Rowling’s bullshit:
https://imgur.com/a/y7GdlGc – annotates every one of her claims
https://twitter.com/Carter_AndrewJ/status/1270787941275762689 – This is an incredibly long thread that goes and finds counterpoints to Rowlings erroneous and false claims, as well as evidence that the people she holds up as innocent of the claims made about them are false.
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I went to school with his brother, who grew up to be a conman…
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Seeing as COPS has been pulled maybe this would be a good replacement.
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Graham Linehan is probably waiting for the call from Newsnight any minute now.
The Linehan story really is quite tragic. I used to follow him on Twitter and his timeline was genuinely very informative and amusing on a wide range of subjects.
Then someone called him out on his transgender depiction on The IT Crowd and he responded super defensively and gradually became obsessed. He talks about nothing else when in truth whatever stance you take (and mine is the opposite of his) it’s a really minor niche thing in the world. If you want to be an ally of feminism there are over 500,000 cases of domestic abuse in the UK every year to look at and tackle.
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Graham Linehan is probably waiting for the call from Newsnight any minute now.
The Linehan story really is quite tragic. I used to follow him on Twitter and his timeline was genuinely very informative and amusing on a wide range of subjects.
Then someone called him out on his transgender depiction on The IT Crowd and he responded super defensively and gradually became obsessed. He talks about nothing else when in truth whatever stance you take (and mine is the opposite of his) it’s a really minor niche thing in the world. If you want to be an ally of feminism there are over 500,000 cases of domestic abuse in the UK every year to look at and tackle.
My favourite recent moment was when he was claiming that “Gender Critical” feminists got the work of repeal done in Ireland, and… well. Let’s just say that does not match reality.
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I used to follow Linehan on Twitter, one of those instances where he was retweeted so many times by other people I followed, it was pointless not to. But thankfully I bailed long before the TERF shit when he completely lost his mind over a negative review for a show he wasn’t even involved with (Jessica Hynes’ dire Up The Woman). Just went utterly demented over a review that not only wasn’t anything to do with him but was completely fair and even-handed.
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Is arguing about transgender people on Twitter his job now? His Wiki page has nothing he’s actually written for TV or whatever medium for 4 years.
I don’t suppose he saw much difference in lockdown. Done nothing of note for 4 years, continue, Twitter still online.
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Is arguing about transgender people on Twitter his job now?
If the last decade or two has proved nothing else: It’s that some rich scumbag somewhere will be willing to fund other, poorer gobshite scumbags to be loudly, actively obnoxious online.
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UK GDP fell by 20.4% in April, the largest fall since monthly records began in 1997, according to the Office for National Statistics.
April was the first full month since lockdown was announced on 23 March.
The figure reflects record widespread falls in services, production and construction output.
I read news like this, and my reaction is … maybe we didn’t need that many goods and services anyway?
It’s like when you get a headline about an airline going bust, and sure it’s bad news for their employees, but everybody agrees that air travel is bad for the world in general so maybe we don’t actually need all those airlines?
We’re not going to get the better world at the end of this that people keep talking about unless we let the old world properly collapse first.
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A couple of sources for debunking JK Rowling’s bullshit:
Oh, I have no doubt that what she’s saying is mostly nonsense when it comes to her descriptions of how people come to be trans and so on. Like I said, her view of sex and gender is obviously quite reductive. (Read the shorter one of the fact-checking threads, and it does a good job.)
It’s also interesting that the thing that seems to be in the focus right now for her is the idea of men claiming to be women to get into toilets and abuse women there. I doubt that when it comes to sexual violence, that is something that actually happens in reality.
Nevertheless, I do think the abuse she receives is probably real, and really counter-productive. I am happy to argue against her point of view on sexuality all day, absolutely, but I do not think that she is the best target for a social media campaign including abuse.
Oh, and there’s another thing I found interesting – you’re more versed in current feminist discourse, Lorcan, maybe you can provide some context to this?
I’ve read all the arguments about femaleness not residing in the sexed body, and the assertions that biological women don’t have common experiences, and I find them, too, deeply misogynistic and regressive. It’s also clear that one of the objectives of denying the importance of sex is to erode what some seem to see as the cruelly segregationist idea of women having their own biological realities or – just as threatening – unifying realities that make them a cohesive political class. The hundreds of emails I’ve received in the last few days prove this erosion concerns many others just as much. It isn’t enough for women to be trans allies. Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.
So, it seems like she’s taking a biologist-reductive, anti-Butler-ist stance on gender and trying to combine that with a socialist-feminist view, which would be a brand of feminism that emphasises “natural” gender differences (and is thus automatically anti-trans, even if it pretends not to be). This is probably something that’s been going on for a while and part of a larger discourse, I assume?
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It’s also interesting that the thing that seems to be in the focus right now for her is the idea of men claiming to be women to get into toilets and abuse women there. I doubt that when it comes to sexual violence, that is something that actually happens in reality.
It does happen, but very rarely. The percentage of sex offenders in the cis woman population is far higher than in the trans/gender non-conforming one, and it’s not like a cis man who wants to sexually assault a woman in a bathroom or changing room particularly needs to claim he’s a woman to get in. He’ll just walk in.
Nevertheless, I do think the abuse she receives is probably real, and really counter-productive. I am happy to argue against her point of view on sexuality all day, absolutely, but I do not think that she is the best target for a social media campaign including abuse.
Yeah, she absolutely gets very angry pushback from trans people and allies and it’s not necessarily the best optics for her or her supporters to be able to gather a few hundred tweets of people saying “die in a fire, TERF”. But at the same time a lot of that is down to the sheer frustration of seeing how victimised trans/GNC people are in general, while Rowling is a billionaire who lives in a literal castle and can do literally anything else with her time. It’s the same energy that’s lead to the protests and riots in the US right now.
And I’ll take this opportunity to point out how the British tabloids have run with this story as utterly disgusting. On Thursday the Mail highlighted the section of her screed about her history as a victim of abuse, saying she was speaking out about that amidst harassment from trans activists – which is one hell of a way to characterise all of this. But then yesterday the Sun decided to publish an interview with her ex husband where he said he had no regrets and he’d hit her again. So we’ll chalk up one more crime for the Sun in making me feel bad for JK Rowling right in the middle of all this. And of course the media narrative is now all about Rowling’s history as a victim of abuse, never mind that she fucking started this by getting upset about inclusive language in an article about period poverty.
So, it seems like she’s taking a biologist-reductive, anti-Butler-ist stance on gender and trying to combine that with a socialist-feminist view, which would be a brand of feminism that emphasises “natural” gender differences (and is thus automatically anti-trans, even if it pretends not to be). This is probably something that’s been going on for a while and part of a larger discourse, I assume?
Kinda. A person I know characterised it as “TERFs spend a lot of time arguing against things that nobody is saying”. So it’s worth noting that trans advocates and Third Wave Feminists tend not to talk about the common experience of women in quite the same way she’s talking here. And despite TERF claims, nobody says that trans women and cis women are identical or that realities of their physical sexual expression don’t matter. Rowling appears to be arguing against Intersectionality here, though she may not even realise it – I feel she’s taking the argument that trans women face misogyny as well as transphobia and conflating it to some gender essentialist idea that we’re trying to erase the material reality of womanhood. I saw one push back against this from a woman in Texas saying that she has more of a “shared female experience” with a trans friend who lives in the same city as her than she does with some writer living in a castle on the other side of the world.
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And despite TERF claims, nobody says that trans women and cis women are identical
As much as no-one might be saying this, I think this is the sticking point for a lot of people, especially older people. They think the trans community wants people to acknowledge that a trans woman is a woman in the sense that they think of a woman in the biological sex sense. And that’s a clear sticking point in a lot of people I’ve spoken to.
It’s what I was getting at earlier when I said I think we need a better vocabulary all round to describe this diverse spectrum of gender. Because as long as everything revolves around binary labels that one side thinks means one thing and one side thinks means another, you’re never going to get people to agree.
Without agreeing first what you’re even talking about when you talk about a man or a woman, I think you’re going to struggle to build that consensus because people will continue to talk at cross-purposes when these terms are used.
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It can be a weird conversation. Before I unfollowed Linehan I gave a fair hearing to one of the women in his threads advocating against self-identification.
She was saying that as a lesbian she was attracted to the female sex, not gender, which is reasonable enough. Then she continued that self identification meant a transgender woman she knew made it so she’d be compelled to date women who may be pre-op and have a penis. Which is complete nonsense, nobody is compelled to date anyone they don’t fancy. You can completely ignore them if you want.
If they are at all forcing that situation then that’s illegal for anyone.
Similarly to the ‘changing rooms’ argument a lot of the argument seems to be around scenarios that are unlikely to happen or incredibly rare. More than anything it seems an incredible waste of effort.
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And despite TERF claims, nobody says that trans women and cis women are identical
As much as no-one might be saying this, I think this is the sticking point for a lot of people, especially older people. They think the trans community wants people to acknowledge that a trans woman is a woman in the sense that they think of a woman in the biological sex sense. And that’s a clear sticking point in a lot of people I’ve spoken to.
It’s what I was getting at earlier when I said I think we need a better vocabulary all round to describe this diverse spectrum of gender. Because as long as everything revolves around binary labels that one side thinks means one thing and one side thinks means another, you’re never going to get people to agree.
Without agreeing first what you’re even talking about when you talk about a man or a woman, I think you’re going to struggle to build that consensus because people will continue to talk at cross-purposes when these terms are used.
It’s worth noting that to a large degree the debate is over and Transphobes lost. The UK is getting close to accepting Gender ID laws similar to Ireland’s, Scotland issued guidelines on gender this week that are trans-friendly. What’s happening is TERFs flexing what muscles they have, and it’s doing a good job of harassing trans people and making it harder for them to live, but it’s more on a social level, and has enough spill-over into other gender non-conforming people that it’s as much an own goal for them as anything else – non-feminine cis women have been attacked for using public bathrooms where some asshole thought they were trans far more often than anyone’s actually stopped a trans woman from using the bathroom she’s comfortable with. Which is still dangerous – I’ve heard stories from plenty of trans women who are increasingly afraid to go out for fear of being attacked – but it’s not the same kind of top-down thing as we’re seeing with Trump dismantling LGBT rights in the US.
And it’s backfiring on them in other ways – Mumsnet has lost a ton of sponsors because of the toxic dump their feminism forum has become. Linehan successfully got a grant for Mermaids suspended, but it was reinstated after investigation and in the meantime Harry Brewis raised £265,000 for them via a marathon livestream.
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It’s worth noting that to a large degree the debate is over and Transphobes lost.
What do you mean by this – are you talking in terms of legal recognition, or social acceptance? Because I feel like things are a lot further on with the former than the latter. I think there’s still a lot of misconception and misunderstanding out there that’s yet to be ironed out.
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Definitely the former.
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To get your bearings, Vancouver to Seattle is less than a 3 hour drive (just depends on the border).
Bellingham Wa. is the first possible stop along the way.Another Asian giant Murder Hornet found in Wash., miles from previous sightings
…found in Western Washington at a location farther south than previous sightings, officials said.
The specimen was collected in Bellingham, more than 15 miles from the next closest confirmed sighting last month near the town of Custer in Whatcom County.
A local resident found the insect – also known as a “murder hornet” – on their porch. The specimen was wiggling and the resident stepped on it, killing it.
Seriously, why am I still alive? Whoever has the nuclear command codes should drop a nuke now.
4 have been found in Washington State and B.C. recently.
The invasion has begun…
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Definitely the former.
That’s what I assumed.
It might seem like I’m playing devil’s advocate on some of this stuff but the truth is that it’s an area where I don’t feel fully informed, despite my opinions largely falling on the pro-trans side of the argument, and the questions are genuine rather than intended as provocative.
At the same time it’s also an area where I encounter quite a lot of regressive thinking from within my own family, and I’m often looking for ways to put across the other side of the argument to them but in a way that makes sense to them on their terms. Which isn’t always easy, especially when you don’t have all the information you need.
So I learn a lot from these conversations and they’re very helpful when it comes to responding to those views. I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m pushing back for the sake of it.
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And of course the day after I said that, Johnston announces the pulling back of trans rights. Of course.
I hadn’t seen this until you mentioned it.
Trans rights: government reported to be dropping gender self-identifying plans
According to the Sunday Times, about 100,000 responses to the public consultation were received with an overwhelming majority – about 70% – in favour of allowing people to self-identify as a man or a woman.
Officials were said to believe that the results had been “skewed” by an “avalanche” of responses generated by trans rights groups, although transgender people, including non-binary people, are estimated to make up about 1% of the UK population.
If only it had been a 52% majority that had been skewed by an avalanche of xenophobic responses, then they might have gone along with it.
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And this shit still goes on:
White Couple Calls Cops On Man Writing ‘Black Lives Matter’ On His Own Property
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Seriously, why am I still alive?
We will miss you, Sean. Who’s going to let us know what new comics are being released every week?! I’m just glad I got to visit Stanley Park and Gastown before the Endtimes…
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A pretty large group of people gathered around Grey’s Monument in Newcastle to “protect” it from a non-existent threat of being damaged.
I guess nobody ever taught them that Earl Grey presided over the government that abolished slavery in Great Britain. Nobody’s planning to tear his monument down
All stupidity matters!
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Queuing outside shops isn’t working. They might just as well let everybody in.
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That looks like Black Friday, but with masks.
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Most gigs I go to are less crowded than that, but for some reason it’s too dangerous for live music to start up again
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That looks like Black Friday, but with masks.
Usually on Black Friday it’s the retailers who are killing themselves.
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US supreme court rules employers cannot discriminate against LGBTQ+ workers
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A few days ago:
Alexander Bard, a swedish media personality weighed in on BLM.
He was quickly fired from TV4, where he was a judge on Talang (~Sweden’s got Talent).
He defended himself in an interview. And his defense was almost literally “I have a black friend.”
No need to wait for the statue on this one, I’d very much like to throw him in the sea as is.
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I found this article to be very enlightening regarding the need for me (and other privileged white people) to realize that this is a very much a white problem. We are not spectators, we are participants whether we realize it or not (and most of us do NOT); we all need to actively change our attitudes and points-of-view if we truly want to be anti-racist.
https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2020/06/white-people-this-is-our-problem
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A few days ago:
Alexander Bard, a swedish media personality weighed in on BLM.
He was quickly fired from TV4, where he was a judge on Talang (~Sweden’s got Talent).
He defended himself in an interview. And his defense was almost literally “I have a black friend.”
No need to wait for the statue on this one, I’d very much like to throw him in the sea as is.
Just a small update, or perhaps correction. He wasn’t fired by TV4.
The company or person that hold the license for the show Talang, meaning probably the same people who own the license for “[Nation]’s got talent”, demanded that TV4 sack him or they would withdraw their license to air the show.
So TV4 are not to be praised, and I will instead say they’re a bunch of scummy fucks only in it for the money.
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That format is jointly owned by Fremantle TV and Syco Entertainment. The latter is Simon Cowell’s own company so he would have had a say in demanding they sack him. Good on him for a change.
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That format is jointly owned by Fremantle TV and Syco Entertainment. The latter is Simon Cowell’s own company so he would have had a say in demanding they sack him. Good on him for a change.
There were a few petitions going around demanding Bard be fired from his job at TV4, and they may have reached the ears of Fremantle and Psycho. I wonder if he would’ve been fired if the tweet was in Swedish…
Bard is an absolute ass. You should see his #metoo tweets.
edited to correct: You shouldn’t.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53061476
India soldiers have been killed in a conflict with China
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Saying All Lives Matter is like:
Going to a Breast Cancer Awareness meeting and yelling “What about lung cancer or Colon Cancer?”
Wearing a t shirt that says “All Buildings Matter” on 9/11…
What else?
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Turning up for a Make A Wish Foundation event and saying “all kids matter”.
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Going to CERN’s antiproton decelerator and insisting that all matter matters.
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Going to a dedicated Urkel convention and insisting all Family Matters.
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Going to your alma mater and… oh I give up.
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Going to a vacuum and saying nothing matters.
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Finally, some good news from Greece:
As of Monday, authorities have also allowed brothels to reopen – albeit under strict new guidelines.
Visits are limited to 15 minutes per customer
Trying really hard not to make any comments about Greek men
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If they’ve been holding it in for 3 months then 15 minutes may be very ambitious.
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I hope the Greeks are wearing masks or do the brothels have holes in the walls.
Anyway, a post by Anders has reminded me that in 1847 the Choctaw nation, despite their own plight, sent $170 to Ireland to aid the victims of the famine. I came across this account of paying it forward during pandemic, there are others online:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/09/irish-native-american-coronavirus-historic-bond
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Danny Masterson has been charged with three counts of rape.
The scientologists are going to go apeshit about this. I mean, they’re 100% apeshit 100% of the time, but if you follow this courtcase the ensuing shitfest is likely going to go off the scale.
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Danny Masterson has been charged with three counts of rape.
The scientologists are going to go apeshit about this. I mean, they’re 100% apeshit 100% of the time, but if you follow this courtcase the ensuing shitfest is likely going to go off the scale.
Reading the blind gossip over the last few years, Scio did pressure and intimidate his victims before it went public a year or so ago. But something changed and they are not backing him like they did before. They may be cutting him loose.
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They may be cutting him loose.
That’s good although the best thing would undeniably be if they went down for obstructing justice.
No, the best thing would be if they were deemed a domestic or international terrorist organisation and all their assetd were seized and donated to charity.
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My conspiracy theory is that Scientology is partly a tax-shelter for celebrities where they can funnel their money in and receive tax-free assets as a gift. Supposedly Tom Cruises clearwater apartment is bought and paid for by the scientology church as a church residence which means its a tax-free purchase and a church asset, but appears to be used exclusively by Cruise and is his home for all intents and purposes.
Although it doesn’t quite stack up because Scientology achieved a tax-exempt status in 1993, and Cruise joined the Church a few years before. Travolta has been a member since 1975. But I’m sure there are commercial reasons for high-profile celebrities to stick with the Church and I’d bet they are tax related.
Also, what it probably means for Anders’ comment is that they probably do have a status as a charity. Seizing a charities assets isn’t what would happen in this case. Instead the assets are diverted into what is sometimes called a “cy-pres” scheme which is giving the assets to an organisation or cause that had a substantially similar purpose to the original charity. Scientology is probably incorporated and has subsidiaries in a ton of different ways so you could very well end up seizing the Church property and giving it all to the Sea Organisation of America or some other such rubbish.
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It’s not an easy solution legally, due to scale and jurisdiction, let alone tax-exempt statuses.
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It doesn’t matter if it’s ‘seen as what matters is it’s status as a registered charity.
Yup. It’s a thing in the US and UK that certain organisations get default charity status. Religions are there and also in the UK private schools. All those mega churches and televangelists pay no tax which is nice for them.
Neither to me are genuine charities, the schools especially are businesses with a profit motive. They do often do charitable work but then so do Coca-Cola and Microsoft.
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I’m not an investigator. I’m just saying that me and Arjan would be happiest if Sea Org was the first investigated and the investigators find that I am right, given the consequences that miscavage would face, which could prompt an investigation into him, which could find evidence of crimes unrelated to Sea Org, which could be pursued by the appropriate agencies.
Complete waste of time. Just throw them all in a pit and set fire to it.
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True story – I once had a truly terrible date and was struggling to get out of it. I told her I had remembered I had to do something at the office which I had regrettably told her earlier was close by so she volunteered to come with me.
She wasn’t really getting the picture so I told her I was a scientologist (which didn’t work either and she seemed pretty interested). Eventually I told her I didn’t think we were right for each other and she told me I needed to ask for guidance from my religion to better understand who I was.
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True story – I once had a truly terrible date and was struggling to get out of it. I told her I had remembered I had to do something at the office which I had regrettably told her earlier was close by so she volunteered to come with me. She wasn’t really getting the picture so I told her I was a scientologist (which didn’t work either and she seemed pretty interested). Eventually I told her I didn’t think we were right for each other and she told me I needed to ask for guidance from my religion to better understand who I was.
Ahahahahahaha hahahaah ah ahhahaha
Thanks Mr Communication-Is-Key, I very much needed to laugh a little.
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Well, in my defence the awkardness of bad first dates often means communication takes a back-seat to flight instincts.
Make no mistake, I’m not actually criticizing you, I’m just pulling yer leg.
I had a friend in Ireland who was going on a date with a guy she was a little bit sceptic of. She told me and a mate before going in that she would appreciate if either of us could call her about an hour in and pretend to be her dad so that she could use that as an excuse to get out of there if she needed it.
We decided my mate was going to do the pretending, and we even wrote a little script to use. A few seconds in to the call he tossed the script and went into improvising the rest of it. Imagine: Angry irish dad pretending that her dog has taken a shit in her grandmas wheelchair and that she needs to come home now. Damn if that wasn’t the funniest phone call I’ve ever overheard. Had to press a pillow to my face not to roar with laughter. No idea how she could stifle the laughter.
She totally used it as an excuse to get out too, apparently her suspicions were confirmed and the guy was a bit of a creep. She called into us and we had a few drinks and made a good evening out of it.
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Arjan, wrong thread.
This thread is about bad first dates now.
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It’s interesting how the police-critical movement has reached Germany, too. In a far more quiet way, of course (presumably because our police isn’t quite as bad), but there is a lot of discussion, especially when it comes to the police’s treatment of minorities. This is obviously a long overdue conversation pretty much everywhere, and it’s interesting how much strength there is behind this push for reform.
It does make me hopeful for other much-needed reforms.
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India soldiers have been killed in a conflict with China
Fuck. Let’s hope really strongly that this doesn’t escalate.
EDIT: Different unrelated thing that I wanted to mention: The German government has now released the Corona tracing app. I’ve installed it, as all good citizens should. And I did so without worry, because the developers (which include the public Robert Koch Institute and SAP) publicly released the code of the app for everyone to look at and even the Chaos Computer Club, a conglomerate of the nerdiest and most paranoid hackers you can find, said it checks out where data security is concerned. They really found a good way to build trust in releasing this app – not that this would stop the hardcore conspiracy theorists, but hey, you can never win them all.
Where are your guys’ countries in this?
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-launches-best-coronavirus-tracing-app/a-53825213
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India and China are continuing the discussions about disengagement which were ongoing during this latest incident.
Korea is restless too. N. Korea has blown up a joint liaison border office.
The attempts to develop a tracing app have been a shambles. SAGE has determined the test and trace scheme not fit for purpose. They outsourced some testing to groups outside the NHS who haven’t released figures. They’re still not testing adequately. The last I read they were abandoning the government app which would hold data in a centralised database for the model originally proposed by Apple and Google and are now blaming them for delays.
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India soldiers have been killed in a conflict with China
Fuck. Let’s hope really strongly that this doesn’t escalate.
EDIT: Different unrelated thing that I wanted to mention: The German government has now released the Corona tracing app. I’ve installed it, as all good citizens should. And I did so without worry, because the developers (which include the public Robert Koch Institute and SAP) publicly released the code of the app for everyone to look at and even the Chaos Computer Club, a conglomerate of the nerdiest and most paranoid hackers you can find, said it checks out where data security is concerned. They really found a good way to build trust in releasing this app – not that this would stop the hardcore conspiracy theorists, but hey, you can never win them all.
Where are your guys’ countries in this?
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-launches-best-coronavirus-tracing-app/a-53825213
What are we going to do tomorrow Gove?
Same we do every day Matt, fuck up the UK coronavirus response.
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