RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/September 2015

September 2015
The Taliban have retaken Kunduz, Afghanistan despite coalition airstrikes. New U.S. government shutdown averted (for now): Stopgap measure approved by Republican-held Congress after House votes 277-151 for its passage. Mahmoud Abbas does not feel bound by the Oslo accords unless the world recognizes Palestine as an occupied state. The Palestinian flag was raised at the UN for the very first time, bringing strong condemnation from both Israel and the United States. The Oklahoma legislature agrees to comply with a court order to remove the Ten Commandments from the Capitol ground by October 12. Russia escalates its involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Faux News caught using footage from a 2010 video, to claim ISIL is sending terrorists in among the current refugees. Running water discovered on Mars. "The crazies have taken over the party" says, Republican member of the house of New York. [http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/pope-workers-have-human-right-refuse-gay-marriage-licenses Pope: Workers have a "human right" to conscientious objection. Unfortunately, this includes refusing to issue gay marriage licenses]. 20 scientists ask Obama to prosecute Global warming deniers using RICO laws. "Blood Moon Tetrad" has come and gone, Armageddon has disappointingly still not happened. Two words: "Ginger Extremist" Saudi Arabia protests the successor of the. Why you ask? Well it sounded too much like granting gay rights to them. French school forces Muslim and Jewish pupils to wear coloured disks, to avoid giving them food they can't eat due to their beliefs. Some nuts claim the discs are bad because they shouldn't be accommodated at all. The pro-independence lists in Catalonia, Spain (for now), win an absolute majority of the seats, but only 48% of the votes. Anita's Law: offline version Remembering the Delano grape strike. Update on earlier story: suspension lifted for one South Carolina abortion clinic; other one still in trouble. French vegans congratulate themselves for stealing a Roma man's dog. Dalai Lama finds his foot in his mouth Fukushima: 0 deaths from the accident, insignificant cancer risk to even the most heavily-exposed workers ... 1600 deaths from suicide, hasty ICU and nursing home relocations or stress caused by the evacuation. Let's give Nigel Farage due credit: he just publicly called David Cameron "piggy in the middle". Agent Orange is leaving the building. [https://blog.ap.org/announcements/an-addition-to-ap-stylebook-entry-on-global-warming The Associated Press will no longer use the term "climate change skeptics", in favour of "climate change doubters" or "those who reject mainstream climate science". Though they also don't want to use "denialist" to refer to them either.] Help a Teenage Atheist Kicked Out of Her Mormon Home; donation link. How Internet advertising actually works, or doesn't. Scammers scamming scammers at literally every level. Four atheist bloggers murdered so far this year in Bangladesh and others are frightened. Donald Trump vows to boycott Fox News. 41% of Americans want a wall along the Canadian border. Somewhere, Scott Walker smiles. Abbott's out and Turnbull's in ... so now Australian far-right extremists are completely at a loss for who to vote for! Also, the right-wing multimillionaire is apparently a "far-left prick". Best healthcare in the world indeed. A new report reiterates the alarming frequency of late or incorrect diagnoses in the USA. Israel will allow more exports from Gaza. Israeli police can now use snipers against stone-throwing teenagers. Former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli bought the rights to an anti-parasite drug and raised the price 5000%, then taunted people about it on Twitter (P.S. it's perfectly legal). Update A drug for TB has also jumped 2000%. "Obama nominates openly gay man to lead Army". "Alabama Supreme Court Won’t Recognize Adoption by Lesbian Mother". Nearly 1 in 4 female undergrads face sexual assault And 1 more down, 15 left. Scott Walker is out. Volkswagen admits to using software to cheat on EPA emission standards tests. Japan loosens their military's pacifist stance. Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, a Saudi boy arrested when he was 17, will be decapitated and crucified. US army turning blind eye to Afghan military's child rape, because "culture". Ok, are we sure we backed the right side in that war? Update US general says he expects child abuser to be reported. The Afghan president won't tolerate child sex abuse either. Richard Dawkins... "weighs in" on the Ahmed Mohamed clock troubles. So it turns out Black Mirror was a documentary. (Story.) The average sentencing time for drug offenders has increased while the average sentencing time for other criminal offenses have decreased. The social democratic mayor of in Eastern Germany blames the Syrian refugee crisis on Israel. His party's youth wing is not amused (links in German). Here's another link in English A reminder that the Reform Party Conservative Party of Canada doesn't really like Data, Facts, Science, the Environment, Reality etc.. etc.. A new chair has been selected to lead a powerful independent panel of experts for the United Nations Human Rights Council, and he hails from a country well known for its history of human rights... Saudi Arabia? Ben Carson says that a Muslim being President would go against the US Constitution. A black, religious man says that a Muslim being President goes against the Constitution. Then again, Christian fundamentalists are renowned for their hypocrisy. South Africa 32-34 Japan. Arguably the greatest Rugby Union upset of all time. Not content on having been sent to jail over not doing her job, Kim Davis is again wasting the time of the courts by removing her name and the county from marriage forms issued by her office. Donald Trump faces strong criticism (again) after hemming and hawing over an Islamophobic question that hits upon the Birtherism movement. Alabama will require students to learn about evolution, climate change. DENIALIST TEARS Copyright owners must now consider Fair Use in online take downs. Unfortunately, the practical effect of the ruling probably won't be huge, although the judgement did crib from the Organization for Transformative Works' position on fanfic. More people die from air pollution than Malaria and HIV/Aids. The Archbishop of Canterbury considers dissolving the Anglican Communion over irrecoverable differences in response to the schismatic, homophobic Ugandan churches opening missionaries in North America to take back the liberal wing. Engineering While Brown: Meet the 14yo kid arrested for bringing a home-made clock to school. (Original source, which isn't loading reliably.) All good things must come to an end, and Jade Helm is no exception. Not a single declaration of martial law to be seen. Church of Bacon membership trebles after offering free weddings, baptisms and funerals Oh dear, Jeremy Corbyn's new shadow health minister Heidi Alexander dogwhistles on homeopathy. JEZ JEZ WHAT ARE YOU DOING 1310: earliest known use of the word "fuck" in a legal document. Bernie Sanders speaking at Liberty University Burning Man founder: No no, we haven't priced everyone out except rich Silicon Valley folk &mdash; it's just that black folks don't like to camp as much as white folks! Tony Abbott ousted as party leader by Malcolm Turnbull. Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party opponents don't take his victory so well. While the media story is that this is a disaster for Labour, David Cameron goes off in an idiot panic, apparently not looking forward to Question Time. 50 spies confirm that senior officials in the USA's intelligence agencies have been modifying their reports about DAESH, downplaying its strength so as to make the government's strategy look more successful. A new study from the USMC shows that mixed units, those with women, under perform compared to all male units. The USN, on the other hand, are skeptical to these findings. Nearly half of the GOP voters would support a military coup. Joshua Goldberg the Terrorist Troll Pretended to Be ISIS, White Supremacist, and Jewish Lawyer arrested over Kansas City 9/11 anniversary plot. Also a Gamergater. Jeremy Corbyn wins by a landslide - the British Labour Party is led by a socialist for first time since 1983 A letter in which Charles Darwin confessed his disbelief in Christianity has gone up for auction. As to be expected, a Sikh man is assaulted before the anniversary of 9/11. A new study finds that video games do not cause sexist attitudes. Rick Perry throws in the towel. And then there were sixteen. South Carolina's Department of Health and Environmental Control cites violations at all three of state's abortion clinics, threatens to close two of them; clinics call findings politically motivated, say any violations don't rise to shutdown level. Meet Homo naledi - the newest branch on mankind's tree of life. Oh yeah, seems they buried their dead too. Religious tolerance concert turned away from Anglican Cathedral because the Islamic call to prayer is not Christian, despite the same concert having been performed there 8 years ago. The UN has voted to fly the Palestinian flag. Russia confirms that it has sent weapons to Syria. Israel fears that they will deploy ground forces next. Democrats propose a bill that would block the State Department from giving Bahrain weapons. Michigan State Tea Baggers try to avoid being sacked for having an affair by concocting rumour that the male one is gay. The plan eventually failed. Senate Democrats defeated Republican attempts to derail the Iran nuclear deal. Update: Nothing is really over. House Republicans voted to reject the deal. Bitcoin "stress testers" CoinWallet.eu were going to repeat their August network-spamming this month &mdash; but instead, they've done something cleverer: they've given away $48,000 in Bitcoin and are letting the greed of bitcoiners DDOS the network for them. Great job, everyone! A camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel closely linked to the country’s far-right Jobbik party has been filmed kicking two refugee children and tripping up a man at the border. Iranian cartoonist Atena Farghadani faces additional jailtime on her disproportionately long sentence due to an "illegitimate sexual relationship short of adultery" &mdash; or as we would call it, "shaking her lawyer's hand." How the Heritage Foundation navigates the frankly gibbering conspiracist views of some of its wealthy donors. "Christians urge parents to save their kids from ‘indoctrination’ with an ‘exodus’ from public schools" RIP National Geographic: privatized, 73% to be owned by Fox. In a stunning development news that surprises nobody, the filthy rich Gulf countries don't care about human rights or Syrian refugees. Meanwhile, President Obama has decided to take in 10,000 Syrian war refugees by 2016. Anti-virus tycoon John McAfee is running for president. A 14 year old boy, a Latino, is shot in the back in an apparent hate crime in Indiana. Kim Davis released from jail under the condition that she does not interfere with the issuance of marriage licenses. Her lawyer on whether she'll hold up her end of the bargain: "[You'll] find out in the near future." A homeopath meeting, in Germany, ends in embarrasment after delegates took hallucingenic drugs, leading to hospitalizations And now... the gun ISIS can't use! Because it's got a cross and a Bible quote on it. A law professor runs for President. Yeah. Like that's going to work. Cowardly Democratic presidential candidates remain respectful even as the race heats up. Trump gets the much coveted Sarah Palin endorsement. Palin also seeks a job in the Trump administration, gutting critical portions of government, because FREE MARKET. If Trump says it, it must be right. There is apparently no position too liberal for Trump supporters. Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary, on the refugee crisis: "the refugees are a "German problem, not a European problem", that"Europe must protect its Christian Roots", and we should blame the Ottoman Empire for his remarks. Turkey arrests two Vice journalists for assisting terrorists all because they reported on the PKK.  Coal ash has been known for a while to be more radioactive than nuclear energy. California, meanwhile, has passed a bill that will divest in coal. Two former teachers have been charged with running a toddler fight club at a New Jersey daycare. "Tenn. judge refuses to grant straight couple a divorce because … gay marriage". 4 times married Kim Davis sent to jail for contempt of court, marriages may now proceed in her absence. Update: Even the Westboro Baptist Church is against her. Oh, and so is the Donald. Israel strikes a Hamas base after shots were fired at a synagogue. Meanwhile, the UN says Gaza will be uninhabitable by 2020.