RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/October 2013

October 2013
Dawkins: teaching religion is child abuse. Bring up the deckchairs and popcorn...this should be fun! "Gentlemen, which brings me to my next point: Don't smoke crack." Update: His goose is apparently cooked. (And getting rid of him may be a bit harder than we think.) One does not combine Liberty University with Gattaca. (Also, what was the point of this? Accusing Democrats of wanting liberal eugenics? Seems a likely Google search term for a nutbar like him.) Let's see the excuse for this one. Phew, what a scorcher: Earth sized 'lava world' discovered Scientists seeking dark matter: "We found nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!" Advice to an Oxford University Rugby club: Get 'free pussy' by spiking the woman's drink (also here) What the actual fuck: In order to drive the point home at a drug awareness event, police conducted a simulated "raid" on some kids with a K-9 unit. They had the kids pocket "drugs" for the dogs to sniff out to demonstrate how effective enforcement is. Guess who needed to go to hospital? (Don't be fooled by the article, this is in Indiana.) Ted Cruz demonstrates that it's quite possible for him to be an even bigger douchebag. Texas judge blocks new abortion restrictions. Now I am become Duffy, the destroyer of governments. (And how deep does the rabbit hole go?) Lou Reed is dead. Texans discover a Galaxy 30 billion light years away. Just wait for the Wikipedia conflicts by C-Decay supporters! Nuke, nuke, nuke, nuke Iran! So what harm can belief in an afterlife do? The Guardian's NSA reports are endangering national security, says politician with photo of secret listening base staff on his website. Germany threatens to cut off supply of the anaesthetic propofol to the USA if they use it for executions Everyone point and laugh at all of Europe's pig-ignorant racists (and the news media who pushed this manufactroversy to a climax): The mother of Greece's 'blond angel' is a Bulgarian Roma. Exoplanet news: new planet discovery takes its system's total to seven The ALF appears to still have no clue about how ecosystems work. Preggers? Congratulations but keep quiet about that joint you once smoked

Blonde girl in Dublin is actually related to her Roma parents after all. Nobody said institutional racism. (except for the family) Wiretap all the heads of state! And so begins the downfall of Stephen Harper. Want some popcorn? Update: The whole speech. Shit. Update II: David Frum apparently enjoys embezzling nearly $100,000. Canadian internauts, beware. Update: [http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/22/bells-move-to-track-customers-web-history-tv-viewing-sparks-probe-by-privacy-regulator/?__lsa=9f9a-43f3 Privacy commissioner to probe Bell's plans for tracking. Bell president claims "Our customers want to be tracked".] "We discover the "Law of Urination", which states animals empty their bladders over nearly constant duration of average 21 seconds ... despite a difference in bladder volume from 100 mL to 100 L." Perhaps not the best way to advance the cause of free speech. UPDATE: Turns out there's someone at Facebook with a shred of human decency. "People have got to know whether or not their Prime Minister is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got." Yellowstone plan for recovery of native trout, which are being forced out by imported trout, is Obama's War on Fish to Fox. To anyone in the scientific community who is apparently "confused" why women don't want to enter the field, now you have your explanation. [http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2013/10/18/21206026.html Worst. Neighbourhood. Ever.] In El Salvador if a woman miscarries it's assumed she deliberately induced an abortion or could have saved the baby. Women who didn't know they were pregnant or who couldn't have prevented a miscarriage face long prison terms.  Attorney Joseph DiBenedetto, speaking on Faux News: 14-year-old rape victim was asking for it. It's raining stupidity! A House Republican voted against raising the debt ceiling because he thought the bill was funding Joseph Kony. More U.S. politics. A House stenographer interrupts the budget vote to deliver a message about God and the Freemasons. Fox News tells us that's the Holy Ghost talking. Your daily dose of GOP insanity: a former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party calls for transgender people to be placed in concentration camps. It's time. The Senate will vote first, House of Representatives second - let's see how fractured the Republican caucus has become. Update: The farce has ended. Let's meet back on January 15. Addendum: Look at Montana, Arkansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Kentucky and West Virginia. Britain's Daily Heil is set to publish an Australian edition. With Rupert Murdoch and Fairfax dominating Australian media, it's not as if the country is short of right-wing news outlets. Boehner, it's over. Update: This is just embarassing. Get ready for the downgrade. Update II: The House GOP is really screwed now. First they stalled the Senate negotiations this morning; they then tried for another vote this evening in an attempt to, if passed (and the upper branch/Obama voted against) frame themselves as the true compromising ones of the impasse. Guess what just fucking happened. (John McCain: “Republicans have to understand we have lost this battle...we would not be able to win because we were demanding something that was not achievable.”) It seems that the Republicans have stepped even further into being the Party of No. A rules change allows only the majority leader to call for a vote to end the government shutdown. Update: China calls for a de-Americanized world economy. ( Because losing your highest consumer base is a good idea? No, because having your economy pinned to the whims of dysfunctional idiots is unsustainable!) You have to wonder if political parties have some sort of stopped clock chest, or something. (Seriously, this is as anti-telecom as you possibly can get in North America.) There's arguing for GM crops rationally; and then there's appeals to emotion Local body elections and referenda in New Zealand - voters reject fluoride scaremongering Quebec doctors warned that performing "virginity tests" is "outrageous, repugnant, irrelevant and unacceptable" UK government-funded, Orthodox-Jewish, girls's school doesn't like evolution so censors national exam papers. UK High Court to antivax mother: Your daughters will be given the MMR vaccine. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne to Harper goverment: Anything you can do, I can do better! Fucking no: Pro-gun group wants to make December 14th, 2013 "Guns Save Lives Day". Newtown, CT is not pleased. The laptops Edward Snowden took to Hong Kong and Moscow were decoys and all the files were on portable storage like thumbdrives. Goldman Sachs gets into shit again. *ding!* Your whacky conspiracy theory of the day is... The New Testament (and Jesus) is an ancient Roman psy-op against the Jews. (As covered in Roman Piso.) Update: I was about to post this in blogs (see also this) And I see someone beat me to the Richard Carrier blog Our VSP senses are tingling. Seriously, IR scholars are going to have a lot of fun figuring out who currently has power in Iran right now. D.C. Trucker protest is an abject failure. Vatican forgets to spellcheck, hilarity ensues. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/obamacare-website-glitches-linked-to-canadian-it-firm-1.1958948 Blame Canada! Blame Canada! They're not even a real country anyway!] [https://twitter.com/DougSaunders/status/388518224192487424 Irony (plural ironies): A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result. (Oxford Dictionary)] The only question is whether this will be applied sanely or as a thoughtcrime: Under proposed changes in the UK, persons " [engaging] in an act of a sexual nature that could pose a sexual risk to the public" will have their Internet access limited and their right to travel abroad revoked. It certainly helps that they're supporting the state legal weed law, but Seattle Police continue to win at PR. (In case you missed it: SPD's blotter post after I-502 passed) Libya's prime minister just got kidnapped. (FFS: "Tripoli Revolutionaries Control Room and the Committee for Fighting Crime.") and ... he's freed. More of the same from Russia. Michele Bachmann gets as close as you'd want an elected official to get to actually speaking in tongues while commenting on government policy. (Bonus round: check out John McCain being the voice of reason at the end of the article.) OECD nations look at numeracy and literacy rates, America humiliated again. The Anti-intellectuals must be pleased. Your tax dollars at work: NSA's new toy doesn't work. Meanwhile: NSA FOIA requests up by more than 10 fold since the snowden leaks. English Defence League founder Stephen Lennon leaves the group, identifying it as counter-productive and containing too many far-right elements. Disapproval rating for the GOP at 70%. Are we ready for the conservative equivalent of the 1968 DNC protests? Update: Thanks Chaffetz, you're helping the public sector! Because of this letter (dated five days before the government shutdown) from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to all members of Congress, it would seem that another unspoken reason for the shutdown (and the looming threat of default) is owed to the bishops' demand that birth control and abortion coverage be stripped from Obamacare no matter what the consequences. 100 House Republicans are now willing to pass a clean CR. (One of two things are happening: The Orange Overlord is willing to wait until this becomes up to 2/3 of the caucus, or this will be his last moments as Speaker. Either way, the party's crumbling.) Update: What Obama should be telling the GOP: If you keep this shit up, guess who's coming baaack? Several Arab League nations are working on an anti-blasphemy bill. If passed, "all forms of defamation, derision or denigration of religions and prophets will be considered crimes." But it also "gives every state the right to put on trial those who abuse and hold in contempt religions even if they are outside the country." First gay marriage = bestiality. Now gay marriage = incest!

Utopia/dystopia is just 87 years away - or something (Q. Should this go in clogs? A. No in Blogs!!) A burger joint gets free publicity, but they just missed International Blasphemy Day. Bonus: A Conservative Regular of NPR's Comments Section has an attack of Fatwa envy Yes, because a Jewish man who fought against the Nazis is "anti-British", Daily Mail? Do you want everyone to bring up your old skeletons? Update: How Marxist is this? Update #2:  The Daily Mail city editor says the Mail deserves an apology, not Miliband. With all of the commotion, apparently we all forgot to make sure Alex Jones was fed before midnight on Tuesday. Meanwhile in Finland... Shots fired near the US Capitol. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24347798 Murdering Nazi filth's granddaughter is... Nigerian.] NSA at work part #7,526: What specifically caused Lavabit to shut down. Radium wastewater... from fracking? Yet another flash crash for Bitcoin, this one after the Silk Road website is busted Update: Here's the link that pwned him. So much for calling yourself "Dread Pirate Roberts." Fingers crossed, waiting for Republicans to come up with arguments that this is a very large-scale DDoS attack instead of people actually wanting Obamacare. Update: Ever expected this to happen? Obama is using the GOP's own Business Roundtable against them. Update II: The Orange Overlord shows his hand. (And cut it with the "Dems aren't negotiating!" crap.) Paranoid Cold War-era, right-wing author dies. [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/02/us-usa-florida-airport-idUSBRE9901GG20131002 And this is why we pay for government... even transportation safety.] Veterans breach the National World War II Memorial, Republicans go on the defensive. Senator #4. Update: #5!