Maz Kanata: New Golden Girl

Packing For the Holidays

Happy Ho-lidays

Merry Misogynist Christmas

The Power of Jesus

Scotland Plays Its Trump Card

GOP candidate Donald Trump has been stripped of honoraria in Scotland following his statements that Muslims should be prevented from entering the U.S.

A spokesperson for the Scottish government said: “Mr. Trump’s recent remarks have shown that he is no longer fit to be a business ambassador for Scotland and the first minister has decided his membership of the respected GlobalScot business network should be withdrawn with immediate effect.”

Meanwhile, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen revoked an honorary degree awarded to Trump in 2010 due to “statements that are wholly incompatible” with the university’s values.

Just a week after these embarrassments, Trump was dealt yet another loss at the hands of the Scottish Supreme Court.  Trump's attempt to prevent a wind farm being built within sight of his golf course was dismissed by five justices of Scotland's highest court.    Commenting on the decision, former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond branded Trump "three times a loser".

Sports Fans Fail Biology 101

Outraged internet users are incredibly confused that American Pharoah (a horse) had somehow been passed over by Sports Illustrated for "Sportsperson of the Year." Instead, the honor was awarded to tennis star Serena Williams-- a human. 

What is it about the non-human being that could possibly have kept the magazine's editors from bestowing the honor of "Sportsperson of the Year" on the animal?   Mmmm . . . hard to say.

The tweets poured in-- "I'm cancelling my subscription!" . . . "why have a reader's poll if you're going to ignore it?" . . . "I'm sickened about what you did to the horse industry" . . . "American Pharoah is the man!"

What this says about the readers of Sports Illustrated, I'll let you all decide.

Burundi Breakdown

The U.S. State Department is now warning Americans not to travel to Burundi as political violence there increases.  A travel warning issued on Sunday urges US citizens in the central African country to leave "as soon as it is feasible to do so".

On Friday, 87 people were killed after three military sites were attacked, Burundi's army said.  Witnesses said that some of those killed were shot execution-style with their arms tied round their backs.  According to reports,  bodies on the streets were almost a daily occurrence in Bujumbura, but the Friday count was the largest number of deaths in one night.

It all started earlier this year, when protests broke out in April after the ruling party announced President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek a third term in office.  The Burundi constitution limits the president to two terms-- but Nkurunziza claims that his first term (in which he was selected President after the end of the civil war by the parliament and not by a popular vote) doesn't count.  Although the country's constitutional court agreed with the President, many of the members of the court were harassed by Nkurunziza supporters and had fled the country prior to the vote.

An attempted coup by Army officers on May 13 failed to depose Nkurunziza, who then returned to Burundi and began purging his government and arresting opposition leaders.  Protests continued however, and over 100,000 people had fled the country by late May, triggering a humanitarian emergency.

Despite objections by the UN, AU, U.S., France, South Africa, Belgium and various other governments, Nkurunziza and the ruling party prevailed in parliamentary elections in June, but these were boycotted by the opposition. 

As If The Star Wars Prequels Weren't Bad Enough

Chicago City Council members approved MAD Architects' controversial design for the George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art just south of Soldier Field on the shore of Lake Michigan.  Yuck.  More details here.

We Need Action, Not Prayer

Wake Up Every Day To A Mass Shooting

We've had more mass shootings this year than we have had actual days! 

Update:  Don't believe me? Take it from a Texan-- details here.

More Faux Outrage

Alternative Starbucks Cups

World of Sports vs. The Real World

Clay Travis, a sports writer and analyst for Fox Sports is inexplicably still covering a story that is no longer connected to sports.   It seems that Travis has made it his goal to undermine the University of Missouri protesters (who he has publicly described as “idiots”)  by any narrative possible, and his bosses at FOX Sports have approved his use of their platform to carry out his own personal vendetta.

Travis calls the student protest a “charade” and an “absurd satire.”   He can’t seem to keep his narrative straight, alternating between calling the students “delicate flower children” but then portraying them as media-savvy professional activists, proactively stomping on the First Amendment.

Among these various juvenile and ill-informed assertions, Travis seems primarily angry that students would demand accountability from a public University President for things that happen at the University:

"Why Wolfe? Because presumably it is now the university president's job to make sure that no one ever says anything offensive to anyone on campus via spoken or written word, or poop hate symbols."

In fact, Travis seems to give Wolfe a free pass, since he wasn't a racist himself:

Enter President Wolfe, an aloof middle-aged white man who is the perfect villain for a campus crusade against racism. Even if, you know, he isn't racist or involved in any of the actions on campus that people are protesting.

While no rational person would think it was Wolfe’s job to personally ensure that the campus was safe for students of all races, Wolfe was ultimately responsible for setting campus policy and making sure it was carried out.  Under his watch,  students experienced numerous instances of non-concern and inaction in response to many documented occurrences of racism. In fact, Wolfe told a bunch of African-American students that systematic (he probably meant “systemic”) oppression was all in their heads:  "It's— systematic oppression is because you don't believe that you have the equal opportunity for success."

More incredibly, Travis questions whether any of the most recent incidents even occurred:

"What if there's actually zero basis for the strike in the first place? What if these alleged incidents never happened and the media just accepted them without asking any questions at all? The entire protest is based on three things, none of which have been independently verified, a poop-swastika, an off-campus racial slur, and an on campus racial slur.

While it may be fair to examine the credibility of Mizzou's student body president Payton Head (after he recanted his claims that the KKK were present on campus), are we to seriously believe that all of the people (including at least one professor) encountering racism at Mizzou are lying?  Even after the university released photos of the swastika, Clay Travis moved the goalposts by saying that the evidence (which he originally claimed didn't exist) is not enough, since we don't know the mental state of the perpetrator.

This isn’t just about a poop swastika, or about the most recent three incidents.  Yet Travis dismisses all the experiences of all the African-American students as lies because he’s incapable of seeing beyond those three things, true or not.

Clay Travis originally rose to fame in the sports world when he went on a 50-day "pudding strike" because he couldn't get NFL Sunday Ticket in the Virgin Islands (an effort which ultimately failed, btw).  He has spent the last ten years of his career ranting and raving about sports on the internet (albeit somewhat successfully, if not controversially). This guy needs to take a deep breath and step away from the keyboard.  I've read a bit of his sports coverage, a lot of which is blowhard nonsense-- a fair bit of it tinged with right-wing arrogance, which should come as no surprise.   But racism in the real world is a lot more complicated than the sports world.

Terrorism Rocks Paris: The Latest

Terrorist attacks have swept through Paris tonight, with over 120 killed and 200 seriously injured.   It has been difficult to find a comprehensive timeline/account of the separate attacks, but putting together disparate reports from the BBC, the Mirror, the Telegraph (all U.K.), MSNBC, the New York Times and the Irish Times, we have the following:

9pm: In the 10th arrondissement, customers at the Carillon bar and restaurant (on rue Alibert) heard what they assumed were the sounds of firecrackers. Witnesses said a man then appeared and began firing at patrons before heading across the street to the Petit Cambodge restaurant and shooting at patrons there. 14 people reportedly were killed; 11 seriously wounded

Minutes later, a shooting was reported at the nearby Canal St Martin. Reports said a car was left riddled with bullets and a motorbike abandoned on the ground.

Within the hour, gun shots were also fired at La Casa Nostra pizzeria on rue de la Fontaine au Roi (near the Place de la Republique square in the 10th arrondissement).  at least 4 were killed.

In the 11th arrondissement, two gunman opened fire on diners at La Belle Equipe cafe on Rue de Charonne, resulting in at least 18 people killed and 14 injured.  "It lasted at least three minutes," one witness said. "Then they got back in their car and headed towards Charonne station."

Sometime between 9:30-9:50 pm:  Two explosions were heard near the Stade de France, where Francois Hollande was watching France play Germany in an international football match.  Hollande was rushed to safety, and amazingly, the match continued to its conclusion.  French police later confirmed two suicide attacks took place outside two stadium gates and one bombing near a McDonald's.  Spectators were unaware of the full extent of the incident until they exited the stadium at the conclusion of the match.  At least four people were believed to have died in these attacks.

Around 10 pm:  Four gunmen opened fire on cafes outside the Bataclan theater (Boulevard Voltaire, just south of the 10th arrondissement), then stormed the concert hall.  Between 60 and 100 people were initially held hostage.  Just before midnight, security forces closed in-- the attackers then threw explosives at the hostages.  The siege ended when three of the gunmen blew themselves up with suicide belts and the fourth was shot dead. a An official characterized the scene inside the theater as "carnage", with over 100 people reported killed.

During the theater attack (around 11pm), President Francois Hollande placed the whole of France under a state of emergency and announced that the country’s borders had been closed.

After 2 am local time, French police announced that they believed all of the attackers involved in the shootings and bombings in Paris were dead.  According to police sources, a total of eight terrorists have been killed: four killed inside the Bataclan theater, three outside the stadium and one shot near a restaurant  in the 10th arrondissement. There are conflicting reports on this last attacker-- with some saying that he blew himself up a short distance away from the Place de la Republique on Boulevard Voltaire   The second shooter seen at Rue de Charonne is unaccounted for.

Black Lies Matter

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson recently told Fox News:  “Lying, I believe, is a grave sin and there’s just no way that I would be sitting here lying . . .  like this.”  Well, a lot of folks have been looking into Carson's honestly and have good reason to doubt it.

Ben Carson, who was a junior at Detroit's Southwestern High school in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King was killed, told the Wall St. Journal last month that he sheltered some white students from attacks by fellow black student in the school's biology lab.   The problem is that his story couldn’t be confirmed in interviews with a half-dozen of Carson’s classmates or his high school physics teacher. The students all remembered the riot-- but none recalled hearing about white students hiding in the biology lab, and Carson couldn’t remember any names of those he sheltered.

Carson’s campaign manager, Barry Bennett, addressed the controversy by saying there was no evidence that any aspect of Mr. Carson’s biography wasn’t true.

Carson also claimed in his autobiography that he was recognized for his honesty in  incident in his Yale psychology class.  According to Carson, his professor told the students in the Perceptions 301 class that their final exam papers had been accidentally burned, requiring all 150 students to retake it.  When the students saw that the new exam was tougher, all the students but Carson walked out.  Carson recalled:  “The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture,”  The teacher allegedly told Carson that the exam burning incident was a hoax.  The professor told Carson that he wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class,  and handed him a $10 bill.

No photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student ever ran, according to the Yale Daily News archives, and Yale Librarian Claryn Spies has publicly stated there was no psychology course by that name or class number during any of Mr. Carson’s years at Yale.

Carson has also claimed  when living in poverty, he lashed out in anger and violence at others until a religious transformation at age 14.  Reporters conducting interviews in his former Detroit neighborhood have been unable to verify Carson’s stories of violence, including attempting to stab a boy in the stomach.  Nobody who knew Carson as a youth recalled any such trouble.  Most of Carson’s former friends and neighbors remember him much as he is today-- soft-spoken and studious.

Carson has also repeatedly asserted that he turned down a scholarship offer from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.   In fact, West Point does not offer scholarships-- attendance at the academy is free to those who are accepted.  Carson's spokesperson later revised that claim, saying that Carson was offered a “nomination” to West Point without ever having applied.

Carson has also claimed that, as a young doctor, he had a gun stuck in his ribs at a Popeye’s restaurant in Baltimore near Johns Hopkins University.  The Baltimore Police Department later said it couldn’t find a report matching the incident Carson described.

During the campaign, Carson has continually maintained that he “didn’t have an involvement” with Mannatech Inc., a marketing company that has been embroiled in controversy over deceptive trade practices.   From 2004 until early 2014 however, Carson made videos and spoke at numerous company events promoting Mannatech and its products.   Mannatech's website has recently been cleansed of any mention of the candidate and all videos featuring the GOP candidate have been removed.

You Go Girl!

Good Thinking

Parting Words From Clock Boy

Scary Witches

Darth Gowdy?

Are We Not Done With This Yet?

Bringing Out The Worst in America

Everybody's A Critic

Political Soul Mates

Openly Carrying Your Stupidity

Yet another story of stupid people freaking out about their gun rights and making the world a more dangerous place . . . . a man practicing his open carry right was robbed of the gun he was openly carrying.

William Coleman III was robbed of his Walter- brand P22 just after 2:00 a.m. October 4 in Gresham, Oregon by a young man who asked him for it — and flashed his own weapon as persuasion.

21-year-old Coleman was talking to his cousin place after purchasing the handgun earlier that day.  A young man walked up to him and asked him for a cigarette. The assailant then asked about the gun, pulled a gun from his own waistband and said “I like your gun. Give it to me.” Coleman handed over the gun and the man fled on foot.
 

The Photo That Shamed the World

This picture of three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi made global headlines and caused a dramatic upturn in international concern over the refugee crisis.

 

The picture has been credited with causing a surge in donations to charities helping migrants and refugees.  Brendan O'Neill wrote in The Spectator that: "The global spreading of this snapshot ... is justified as a way of raising awareness about the migrant crisis. Please. It's more like a snuff photo for progressives, dead-child porn, designed not to start a serious debate about migration in the 21st century but to elicit a self-satisfied feeling of sadness among Western observers."

Nick Logan of Global News argued that "Photojournalists sometimes capture images so powerful the public and policymakers can't ignore what the pictures show."

Another NY Post Classic

Donald Chump

. . . and Justice For All

Being An Asshole Must Be Genetic

The not-so-skilled media consultant

Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson’s brother Buckley Carlson made the news this week after he referred to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s spokesperson as a “self-righteous bitch” in an email.

Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson is a self-described "crisis communications media consultant", writer and political strategist.   It's not even certain that he even graduated from college-- according to his resume, Buckley was an "Aeronautical Science major from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University . . . he also "studied English at the University of Mississippi." 

Buckley's time in the white-hot limelight all started when de Blasio's spokesman Amy Spitalnick emailed Peter Fricke, an editor at the Daily Caller, requesting that they make a correction about a story in which they incorrectly stated that the Mayor didn't support Barack Obama's proposal for an $80 billion infrastructure investment in the federal transportation budget:

Peter -

Your story on Mayor de Blasio and the USCM is totally inaccurate. The mayors said $50B in flat funding was not enough, and cited the President’s $80B proposal as one that boosted funding to adequate levels.

The transcript is on nyc.gov.

Peter Fricke denied her request, replying:

Amy,

Based on what is in the transcript, I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment.  The mayor called Obama’s plan “an ideal reference point” and talked about “[following] the president’s vision,” but never said that $80 billion was “adequate.”

Indeed, his claim that “we’re going to push for the highest number attainable” clearly implies that the mayors would gladly accept an even higher figure. That impression is further reinforced by his response to the question about exact dollar amounts, where he said, “we’re all working on that together,” indicating that the task force has not endorsed any specific figure.

The Daily Caller editor grew even more steadfast in his refusal to make the correction, despite Spitalnick 's providing both a direct link to the video of the mayor, as well as an audio file of the Mayor's exact quote.  Fricke finally replied in the following manner:

We’re reviewing the video now, Amy. If you annoy me with another whiny email before then, I’m muting this thread, thanks.

Spitalnick then forwarded the entire thread (with comment) to Carlson (full name: Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, if you thought the name Buckley was too much):

Tucker – it’s pretty appalling that this is how your staff chose to respond to us requesting a basic correction (and providing a transcript that directly contradicts the original story).

To which Carlson Tucker replied:

Dear Amy,

Thanks for your email. You believe our story was inaccurate and have demanded a correction. Totally fair. We are going over the transcript now.

What Bedford complained about was your tone, which, I have to agree, was whiny and annoying, and I say that in the spirit of helpful correction rather than as a criticism. Outside of New York City, adults generally write polite, cheerful emails to one another, even when asking for corrections. Something to keep in mind the next time you communicate with people who don’t live on your island.

The story took an unexpected turn after Tucker (for some unexplained reason) decided to blind CC his brother Buckley on the above email.  Buckley (predictably) clicked on "reply all" when responding to his brother-- which resulted in Amy Spitalnick getting the reply below:

Great response. Whiny little self-righteous bitch. “Appalling?”  And with such an ironic name, too…Spitalnick?  Ironic because you just know she has extreme dick-fright; no chance has this girl ever had a pearl necklace.  Spoogeneck?  I don’t think so.  More like LabiaFace.

Buckley Carlson

Being a misognyist himself, Tucker Carlson didn't see any problem with his brother's reply, portraying him as the victim:

It really affected [Buckley's] job and he had all kinds of problems as a result….For some reason it became, like, this big thing because, I guess, they don’t like my politics or something. I really don’t know, but it was an accident and he apologized for it and I don’t really see why it was a big news story.

Wanna Help California's Drought? Stop Drinking Bottled Water

California is in the middle of an epic drought -- but that hasn't stopped bottled water production in the state. Even as residents face mandatory cutbacks and fields lie fallow, companies continue pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of water every year into plastic bottles -- sometimes straight from a municipal water supply.

The Important Of Monitoring Police Activity

The Walter Scott shooting in Charleston, SC has heightened the need for everyday folk to be prepared to film the public activity of law enforcement if needed.  Earlier this week, PBS Newshour aired a piece about the important of citizens recording police brutality and how to do it properly so that the evidence will hold up in court:




The ACLU has also documented some simple steps to follow when recording police/public activity:

1. Maintain your right to record. Police do not have the right to take your phone if you’re not committing a crime, and they need a warrant to search it. In Sharp v. Baltimore City Police Department, the court ruled that the public has the right to videotape or photograph public police activity in public places.

2. Capture as much information as you can. The video out of North Charleston was powerful because it was a wide shot, said Bock. “The person who was taping that was far enough away to not get involved, but close enough to see what happened.”

3. Do not edit the video.  The Walter Scott video was released as one continuous shot, which makes the timing look more faithful and greatly adds credibility to the footage as well as the photographer.

4. Be respectful. You legally may not interfere with police procedure, and you should not be argumentative or aggressive, said Bock. Instead, she recommends, a civilian monitor should maintain a distance and remind the officer of their rights: “I’m a member of the public, I’m in a public space, you’re doing public work, and I’m just documenting what’s going on.”

5. Be mindful of other laws. Just because you have the right to record doesn’t mean you have the right to trespass or damage property in the process.

6. If you are stopped or detained, ask to leave. You cannot be detained without reasonable suspicion that you have committed, or are about to commit, a crime. If you ask to leave and are denied, this constitutes unlawful detention.

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As If We Needed More Evidence Bill O'Reilly Is A Liar

Throughout all the controversy over Bill O'Reilly's alleged journalistic experience, the Fox News pundit has steadfastly maintained that “everything I’ve said about my reportorial career — everything — is true.”  But now the cameraman who O’Reilly worked with in Buenos Aires after the end of the Falklands War has come forward to call out his bullshit.

O’Reilly has characterized his coverage of the riots in Buenos Aires after the end of the Falklands War as having “reported on the ground in [an] active war zone.”  In addition, he has claimed he rescued a CBS colleague who “got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete  . . . I dragged him off the street because he was bleeding from the ear and had hit his head on the concrete."

But Ignacio Medrano-Carbo, who worked with O’Reilly during the protests, has now revealed that he was neither injured nor in need of rescue.  “I never fell [down] nor was I bleeding out my ear at any time during my Buenos Aires assignment,” Medrano-Carbo said.  “I do not even recall Mr. O'Reilly being near me when I shot all that footage nor after I left the unrest at Plaza de Mayo that evening.”

O’Reilly has claimed he was working with CBS cameraman Roberto Moreno on the night of the Buenos Aires riots, but in reality, Moreno was a sound engineer at the time and did not even begin working as a cameraman until years later.

O'Reilly has also said he witnessed widespread casualties during the Buenos Aires riot.  Medrano-Carbo says this is also untrue. “I can confirm that no one I know of who worked with me in Buenos Aires during the Falkland War ever heard of any CBS crew member getting beat or hurt,” he says. “Nor did any demonstrators get killed that night at Plaza de Mayo.”

O'Reilly has responded to the allegation, saying he never worked with Medrano.   Medrano-Carbo quickly responded to O'Reilly's denials, saying "I don't know what to say... Ninety-nine percent of the footage in his report was mine.  How'd he get that footage, if I [wasn't] his cameraman?

Bummed Out About Lungfish

A Brazilian who needed to have a large eel-like fish removed from his bowels had to suffer the additional humiliation of his nurses laughing at him during the operation.

The unidentified man from Londrina somehow got a South American Lungfish stuck inside his anus and the removal was filmed.  Once inside, the lungfish decided to stay, necessitating his surgery at Hospital Universitário in Londrina.

The doctors were able to remove the foot-long fish, but at the expense of the patient's dignity.  The video was first posted on BestGore.com in December, but is starting to go viral after being posted on LiveLeak.com.  In the video, people can be heard laughing and gasping as the lungfish is finally pulled out from the patient's intestines. Many of the observers can be seen filming the procedure.

Having an eel stuck where the sun doesn't shine is strange enough, but, more bizarrely, this isn't an isolated event.

In April, 2013, a man in China's southeastern Guangdong province admitted himself to a local hospital after he reportedly got a live eel stuck inside him. The man inserted the 20-inch-long Asian swamp eel into his anus after seeing it done in a porn movie, and he had to endure all-night surgery to have it extracted.

In 2012, a New Zealand man had to have an eel removed from his posterior. In 2010, a Chinese man died after his friends allegedly inserted an eel into his rectum as a joke.

Boy Scouts: Secret Sex Abuse Files As Far Back As the 1920's

The sexual abuse of a 13-year-old boy scout by an adult volunteer was part of a "sordid history of child sexual abuse" within the Boy Scouts that has been documented internally by the organization for nearly a century.  This was just one of several stunning revelations made at the outset of an Oregon lawsuit this week.

The scout, now 20 years old, has sued the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) for punitive damages after being molested by a volunteer leader in 2007. He claims that the Scouts failed to educate, train and warn parents and adult volunteers about the dangers of sex abuse.

His attorney, Tim Hale, won the right to draw from more than 30 years of "perversion" files kept by the BSA-- but it turns out that the BSA actually kept hidden  almost 10,000 such files, detailing sexual abuse cases as far back as 1920.  "The Boy Scouts of America has a long and sordid history of child sexual abuse committed by Scout leaders . . . What has not been going on is [notification] to the public and [affected] parents," Tim Hale said in his opening statement.

Boy Scouts of America officials have tried to claim that the "perversion" files were created to keep children safe by maintaining a master list of people ineligible to volunteer with the Scouts.  But the organization will not admit any wrongdoing in keeping its investigations and case files a secret-- acknowledging only that it had made some mistakes in the way sex abuse allegations were handled in the past.

In 2012, the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the Scouts to make public a trove of files from 1965 to 1985. The records showed that more than one-third of abuse allegations never were reported to police and that even when authorities were told, little was done.  The 1965-85 documents came to light after a jury in 2010 imposed a nearly $20 million penalty against the Scouts in a molestation case in Portland, Oregon, that dated to the early 1980s.

Since then, plaintiffs' attorneys in several states, including Texas and Minnesota, have sought to publicize the more recent records through similar lawsuits.  But the BSA settled all those cases before they went to trial-- thus preventing public dissemination of the incriminating records.

The judge in the current Oregon case has already ruled that after the trial, the plaintiff's counsel and other interested parties can petition the court for the release of all the files.  Cross your fingers . . .

Chinese Officials Feast On Endangered Species

Chinese officials feasted on a critically endangered giant salamander and turned violent when journalists photographed the luxury banquet, which appeared to flout Beijing's austerity campaign.  The 28 diners included senior police officials from the southern city of Shenzhen. "In my territory, it is my treat," it quoted a man in the room as saying.

The giant salamander is believed by some Chinese to have anti-ageing properties, but there is no orthodox evidence to back the claim. The species is classed as "critically endangered" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of threatened species, which says the population has "declined catastrophically over the last 30 years".

The Global Times cited the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily, which said its journalists were beaten up when their identities were discovered by the diners.  One was kicked and slapped, another had his mobile phone forcibly taken, while the photographer was choked, beaten up and had his camera smashed.

A total of 14 police have been suspended and an investigation launched into the incident, according to reports.  One of the Shenzhen diners provided the salamander and said it had been captive-bred, according to reports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched a much-publicized austerity drive for the ruling classes, including a campaign for simple meals with the catchphrase “four dishes and one soup”.  The ruling Communist Party also says it is cracking down on the consumption of endangered species, including shark's fin.  China's legislature last April approved a law including prison sentences for people caught eating rare wild animals.

Taurus On The Loose

Making The Case For A Brain Transplant

Sarah Palin delivered a stunningly incoherent speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines this past weekend.   Here's an excerpt:

"Things must change for our government. Look at it. It isn’t too big to fail. It’s too big to succeed! It's too big to succeed, so we can afford no retreads or nothing will change with the same people and same policies that got us into the status quo. Another Latin word, status quo, and it stands for, ‘Man, the middle-class everyday Americans are really gettin’ taken for a ride.’ That's status quo, and GOP leaders, by the way, y'know the man can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then the man can't ride ya, America won't be taken for a ride, because so much is at stake and we can't afford politicians playing games like nothing more is at stake than, oh, maybe just the next standing of theirs in the next election."

Palin went on, referring to Obama as an "overgrown little boy" and saying that the political left "are the ones who really discriminate and divide on color and class and sex."   The New York Daily News tried to cut the ex-governor a break, reporting that Palin's teleprompter froze, forcing her to ad-lib some of her remarks.

Russia: Let's Keep Gays From Driving Cars!

Russia now plans to ban transgender people, as well as those who suffer from "disorders of sexual preference," from obtaining driver's licenses.  In a shocking development, the Russian government has now issued a legislative document which outlines the new requirements for anyone who operates a motor vehicle-- supposedly in an effort to cut down on the number of car accidents.

Most of the provisions refer to physical impairments (such as blindness, understandably).  But also included on the list of those banned from driving are those who "suffer from"  gender identity disorders,  "transsexualism”, and “dual-role transvestism”-- as well as “sadomasochism" and “exhibitionism."  There is no doubt among those outside Russia that one of the goals of the new legislation is to further restrict the rights of homosexuals within Russia.

Among those to decry the new regulations was Shawn Gaylord of Human Rights First, who noted that "banning people from driving based on their gender identity or expression is ridiculous and just another example of the Russian regime’s methodical rollback of basic human rights for its citizens.”  Even Russian psychiatric expert Mikhail Strakhov and Valery Evtushenko of the Russian Psychiatric Association were among those to also condemn the regulations. 

What Pisses Off An Islamic Terrorist

Je Suis Charlie

NYC Cops Hold New Yorkers Hostage In Beef With Mayor

It has been confirmed that New York City police are making regular NYC folk innocent bystanders in their illogical and immature beef with Mayor de Blasio. 

The New York Post reported, and city officials confirmed, that officers are essentially abandoning enforcement of low-level offenses. According to data for the week starting Dec. 22 (two days after two officers were shot and killed on a Brooklyn street) traffic citations had fallen by 94 percent over the same period last year.  Citations for public drinking and urination were down 94 percent, parking violations were down 92 percent, and drug arrests by the Organized Crime Control Bureau were down 84 percent.

The New York Times has thrown down the gauntlet, calling the NYC police force on the carpet for its despicable tactics.  If the NYC cops don't back down soon, this standoff could stretch out for weeks, if not months . . .