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Katashi_itto
Katashi_itto's Journal
Katashi_itto's Journal
July 21, 2014
(I'm sure George Zimmerman would love to get a job as neighborhood watch captain in Gaza City.)
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, indeed, complicated, complex, charged, overwhelming, tragic, confusing and other things that, to quote C&C Music factory, make you go hmmm.
Some people see the issue with an enviable clarity and simplicity, with views ranging from (a) Ayrabs won’t rest until they’ve killed all Jews to (b) all Jews/zionists/israelis won’t rest until they have killed all Palestinians.
But I, personally, like my world-view like my men: nuanced. So I look to the opinions and writing of people like the scholars Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé, Rashid, Khalidi, and the brother of George Zimmerman, Robert Zimmerman. Because, when it comes to restraint, non-violent conflict resolution, justice, trust-worthiness, and general decency, the Zimmerman’s are beyond reproach.
Brother George, of course, gets credit for murdering Trayvon Martin, but Robert Zimmerman’s racism and general disregard for human life deserves recognition. He once, for example, made an astute comparison between De’Marquise Elkins and Trayvon Martin because, both had Elkins fatally shot a white baby during a robbery attempt and… Trayvon was fatally shot… and… whatever… the point is they were both Black and had been photographed giving the finger, which is a pretty “#uncanny” and remarkable similarity.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/21/george-zimmermans-brother-stands-with-israel-guess-we-can-all-go-home/
George Zimmerman’s brother stands with Israel, guess we can all go home
(I'm sure George Zimmerman would love to get a job as neighborhood watch captain in Gaza City.)
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, indeed, complicated, complex, charged, overwhelming, tragic, confusing and other things that, to quote C&C Music factory, make you go hmmm.
Some people see the issue with an enviable clarity and simplicity, with views ranging from (a) Ayrabs won’t rest until they’ve killed all Jews to (b) all Jews/zionists/israelis won’t rest until they have killed all Palestinians.
But I, personally, like my world-view like my men: nuanced. So I look to the opinions and writing of people like the scholars Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappé, Rashid, Khalidi, and the brother of George Zimmerman, Robert Zimmerman. Because, when it comes to restraint, non-violent conflict resolution, justice, trust-worthiness, and general decency, the Zimmerman’s are beyond reproach.
Brother George, of course, gets credit for murdering Trayvon Martin, but Robert Zimmerman’s racism and general disregard for human life deserves recognition. He once, for example, made an astute comparison between De’Marquise Elkins and Trayvon Martin because, both had Elkins fatally shot a white baby during a robbery attempt and… Trayvon was fatally shot… and… whatever… the point is they were both Black and had been photographed giving the finger, which is a pretty “#uncanny” and remarkable similarity.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/21/george-zimmermans-brother-stands-with-israel-guess-we-can-all-go-home/
July 11, 2014
Appreciation Thread for NSA Apologists
Because lets face it it's hard coming up with all that Propaganda day in and day out.
So lets hear it for those plucky, unsung DUers helping forge our bold new society!!!
July 11, 2014
The Naval Lint Appreciation Thread
THE INCREDIBLE WORLD OF NAVEL FLUFF. Because we just don't appreciate it enough.
Some people gaze into their navel for inspiration: I look into mine and see navel fluff. Also known as navel lint, it is that fascinating fluffy substance that forms mysteriously in the belly buttons of special people.
http://www.feargod.net/fluff.html
July 6, 2014
Journalists at the British Broadcasting Corp. have been receiving instructions from the BBC Trust to stop inviting unqualified ‘experts’ on their shows in an effort to provide ‘editorial balance’ on contentious subjects.
According to The Telegraph, the BBC Trust released a report card on its efforts to curtail what it called giving “undue attention to marginal opinion,” on topics where the contrarian viewpoints have been widely dismissed.
“The Trust wishes to emphasize the importance of attempting to establish where the weight of scientific agreement may be found and make that clear to audiences,” the report states. “Science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given.”
In April the BBC was accused of misleading viewers about climate change and creating a ‘false balance’ by allowing unqualified skeptics to have too much air-time.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/04/bbc-staff-instructed-to-quit-giving-time-to-science-cranks-for-the-sake-of-editorial-balance/
BBC staff instructed to stop giving time to science cranks for the sake of editorial balance
Journalists at the British Broadcasting Corp. have been receiving instructions from the BBC Trust to stop inviting unqualified ‘experts’ on their shows in an effort to provide ‘editorial balance’ on contentious subjects.
According to The Telegraph, the BBC Trust released a report card on its efforts to curtail what it called giving “undue attention to marginal opinion,” on topics where the contrarian viewpoints have been widely dismissed.
“The Trust wishes to emphasize the importance of attempting to establish where the weight of scientific agreement may be found and make that clear to audiences,” the report states. “Science coverage does not simply lie in reflecting a wide range of views but depends on the varying degree of prominence such views should be given.”
In April the BBC was accused of misleading viewers about climate change and creating a ‘false balance’ by allowing unqualified skeptics to have too much air-time.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/07/04/bbc-staff-instructed-to-quit-giving-time-to-science-cranks-for-the-sake-of-editorial-balance/
July 2, 2014
?527
July 1, 2014 - Citing the newly-established precedent of corporate-religious exemption, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of JCPenney, upholding the company's right to sacrifice pure-hearted employees in order to assuage the Dread Lord Cthulhu, Bringer of Madness.
The Penney estate, devout cultists and owners of the multibillion-dollar chain of mid-range department stores, joined by CEO Mike Ullman, sued the government in 2012 when new federal employee protections made it illegal for them to hire virgin maidens for the sole purpose of spilling their blood on the Altar of the Cosmos, with the hope that such an offering will prolong the Great Old One's slumber in the sunken city of R'lyeh.
“We're not opposed to the practice of protecting and celebrating life set forth by your quaint, human Biblical standards,” said Ullman last week on Lou Dobbs Tonight. “But JCPenney is not that sort of company, for in his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. We see through the insignificance of your primitive ape society to the coming storm of insanity that is His rise.”
The case of Thurston v. JCPenney was decided 5-4, with the traditionally conservative justices forming the majority. Justice Kennedy, often the court's sole swing vote, was seen by reporters to be looking about warily and muttering to himself through much of the proceedings, as if hearing voices that weren't there.
- See more at: http://www.moonmontchronicle.com/supreme-court-rules-jcpenney-allowed-to-sacrifice-employees-to-appease-cthulhu.html#sthash.q8cV9ziU.dpuf
Supreme Court Rules JCPenney Allowed to Sacrifice Employees to Appease Cthulhu
?527
July 1, 2014 - Citing the newly-established precedent of corporate-religious exemption, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of JCPenney, upholding the company's right to sacrifice pure-hearted employees in order to assuage the Dread Lord Cthulhu, Bringer of Madness.
The Penney estate, devout cultists and owners of the multibillion-dollar chain of mid-range department stores, joined by CEO Mike Ullman, sued the government in 2012 when new federal employee protections made it illegal for them to hire virgin maidens for the sole purpose of spilling their blood on the Altar of the Cosmos, with the hope that such an offering will prolong the Great Old One's slumber in the sunken city of R'lyeh.
“We're not opposed to the practice of protecting and celebrating life set forth by your quaint, human Biblical standards,” said Ullman last week on Lou Dobbs Tonight. “But JCPenney is not that sort of company, for in his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. We see through the insignificance of your primitive ape society to the coming storm of insanity that is His rise.”
The case of Thurston v. JCPenney was decided 5-4, with the traditionally conservative justices forming the majority. Justice Kennedy, often the court's sole swing vote, was seen by reporters to be looking about warily and muttering to himself through much of the proceedings, as if hearing voices that weren't there.
- See more at: http://www.moonmontchronicle.com/supreme-court-rules-jcpenney-allowed-to-sacrifice-employees-to-appease-cthulhu.html#sthash.q8cV9ziU.dpuf
June 29, 2014
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican conceded Thursday that most Catholics reject its teachings on sex and contraception as intrusive and irrelevant and officials pledged not to "close our eyes to anything" when it opens a two-year debate on some of the thorniest issues facing the church.
Core church doctrine on the nature of marriage, sexuality, abortion and divorce isn't expected to change as a result of the debate that opens in October. But Pope Francis is well aware that the church has lost much of its relevance and credibility in today's secular world and he is seeking to redirect his ministers to offer families, and even gays in civil unions, a "new language" that is welcoming and responds to their needs.
The Vatican on Thursday issued the working document for the synod discussions, which in itself marked a sharp change from past practice: The Vatican sent out a 39-point questionnaire seeking input from ordinary Catholics around the world about their understanding of, and adherence to, the church's teaching on sexuality, homosexuality, contraception, marriage and divorce.
Thousands of ordinary Catholics, clergy and academics responded, providing the Vatican with an unprecedented compilation of grass-root data to guide the discussion. Usually, such working papers are compiled by bishops alone.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/new-vatican-document-seeks-greater-pastoral-openness-to-same-sex-families
Pope Signals Near Openness to Same Sex Families
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican conceded Thursday that most Catholics reject its teachings on sex and contraception as intrusive and irrelevant and officials pledged not to "close our eyes to anything" when it opens a two-year debate on some of the thorniest issues facing the church.
Core church doctrine on the nature of marriage, sexuality, abortion and divorce isn't expected to change as a result of the debate that opens in October. But Pope Francis is well aware that the church has lost much of its relevance and credibility in today's secular world and he is seeking to redirect his ministers to offer families, and even gays in civil unions, a "new language" that is welcoming and responds to their needs.
The Vatican on Thursday issued the working document for the synod discussions, which in itself marked a sharp change from past practice: The Vatican sent out a 39-point questionnaire seeking input from ordinary Catholics around the world about their understanding of, and adherence to, the church's teaching on sexuality, homosexuality, contraception, marriage and divorce.
Thousands of ordinary Catholics, clergy and academics responded, providing the Vatican with an unprecedented compilation of grass-root data to guide the discussion. Usually, such working papers are compiled by bishops alone.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/new-vatican-document-seeks-greater-pastoral-openness-to-same-sex-families
June 27, 2014
Louie Gohmert demands Obama stop ‘luring’ lice and scabies-ridden immigrant children
Republicans are just rabid animals.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Wednesday objected to President Barack Obama’s immigration policies because he said that they were “luring” diseased children to the United States.
Speaking at a House Judiciary hearing titled “An Administration Made Disaster: The South Texas Border Surge of Unaccompanied Alien Minors,” Gohmert accused President Obama of giving undocumented children a “free pass” to stay in the country.
“And what is occurring by this administration luring these children into America by the promise of a free pass once they get here, there are children that are suffering and being hurt, being lured here to their detriment,” the Texas Republican opined. “Now, if they get here successfully, that’s a different story.”
Gohmert said that he had visited a facility in Texas over the weekend where children were “lying on a concrete floor.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/26/louie-gohmert-demands-obama-stop-luring-lice-and-scabies-ridden-immigrant-children/
June 16, 2014
In January of 2001, a blue-ribbon Senate committee headed by Sens. Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH) released a report that would become famous for its prescient warning that “the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the US homeland to catastrophic attack.”
But what most people don’t remember is that the Hart-Rudman report also cautioned that “the United States finds itself on the brink of an unprecedented crisis of competence in government” that made such an attack more likely to succeed. Blaming a variety of factors for a “decay” in “the human resources of government,” the committee concluded that Americans’ “declining orientation toward government service” is “deeply troubling.”
In the new issue of The Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris and Haley Sweetland Edwards look at how Republicans have deepened that crisis by gutting congressional staff — the faceless research, oversight and policymaking apparatus that makes the government function. Conservatives, they write, have engineered a “debilitating brain drain” that has “been under way in Congress for the past 25 years.”
Glastris and Sweetland Edwards write:
In 1995, after winning a majority in the House for the first time in forty years, one of the first things the new Republican House leadership did was gut Congress’s workforce. They cut the “professional staff” (the lawyers, economists, and investigators who work for committees rather than individual members) by a third. They reduced the “legislative support staff” (the auditors, analysts, and subject-matter experts at the Government Accountability Office [GAO], the Congressional Research Service [CRS], and so on) by a third, too, and killed off the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) entirely….
http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/10/how-republicans-are-creating-a-crisis-of-competence-in-government/
How Republicans Are Creating a Crisis of Competence in Government
In January of 2001, a blue-ribbon Senate committee headed by Sens. Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH) released a report that would become famous for its prescient warning that “the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the US homeland to catastrophic attack.”
But what most people don’t remember is that the Hart-Rudman report also cautioned that “the United States finds itself on the brink of an unprecedented crisis of competence in government” that made such an attack more likely to succeed. Blaming a variety of factors for a “decay” in “the human resources of government,” the committee concluded that Americans’ “declining orientation toward government service” is “deeply troubling.”
In the new issue of The Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris and Haley Sweetland Edwards look at how Republicans have deepened that crisis by gutting congressional staff — the faceless research, oversight and policymaking apparatus that makes the government function. Conservatives, they write, have engineered a “debilitating brain drain” that has “been under way in Congress for the past 25 years.”
Glastris and Sweetland Edwards write:
In 1995, after winning a majority in the House for the first time in forty years, one of the first things the new Republican House leadership did was gut Congress’s workforce. They cut the “professional staff” (the lawyers, economists, and investigators who work for committees rather than individual members) by a third. They reduced the “legislative support staff” (the auditors, analysts, and subject-matter experts at the Government Accountability Office [GAO], the Congressional Research Service [CRS], and so on) by a third, too, and killed off the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) entirely….
http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/10/how-republicans-are-creating-a-crisis-of-competence-in-government/
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Number of posts: 10,175