RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/December 2012

December 2012
Philip Coppens has died. There is a lot of material for an article here... Meet Germany's Mittens: the SPD candidate for chancellor. Teen doodles in class. Staff notice, call police. Police execute search warrant of teen's home and arrest teen. Place your bets on how long before we hear the words "video games."  'I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up,'. Too bad Hindus, such as the Indian victim, had nothing to do with 9/11. NB:It's also not nice to push Muslims onto train tracks either. Better late than never. World War II code-breaker, who possibly "shortened the war by 2 years", finally gets honour at age of 92. Science meets sweetness as stem cells restore a man's eyesight from the brink of blindness...with stem cells donated by his sister! D'aaawww! The Senate shows how "liberal" it actually is.  Scientology - a criminal organisation? NRA just keeps on digging... Indian gang rape victim is dead. MRAs, please go back to the grotesque corner from which you came. China makes it easier for grandparents to see their grandkids and harder to expose corruption online.

Aww, the Zuckerbergs don't wike their own pwivacy settings! Anti-gaming California Senator Leland Yee to the NRA: why are you so quick to agree with me now? Five. Four. Three. Two. One. The creator of Thunderbirds has gone. Mormon senator Mike Crapo arrested for DUI in Virginia despite assertions that he abstains from alcohol as per his religion. Sure, and Larry Craig was just using a "wide stance" in the airport lavatory. A bit rusty on the Christmas thing &mdash; the "Christmas is all about bum sex" angle is new to us. Wasn't it something about goodwill to all men? <vote poll=world6415 closed="yes">[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/nyregion/occupy-movement-was-investigated-by-fbi-counterterrorism-agents-records-show.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes Seriously, FBI? Counterterrorism?] <vote poll=world6414 closed="yes">Piers Morgan advocates gun control and calls a gun advocate "stupid" to his face: 31,000 Americans then show their favour for the Second Amendment over the First, by petitioning to have the British expatriate deported Update: We, the British people, petition & beg the Obama Administration to NOT send British Citizen Piers Morgan back to Britain. Damn, deleted already! <vote poll=world6413 closed="yes">Could you fucking well stop shooting people, America? Is that too much to ask? <vote poll=world6412 closed="yes">Andrew Wakefield wins lifetime award for quackery. <vote poll=world6411 closed="yes">Homo floresiensis, an Indonesian ancestor nicknamed "The Hobbit", has had its facial approximation completed. <vote poll=world6410 closed="yes">"Trojan horse" style test very successful at eliminating prostate cancer in mice. <vote poll=world6409 closed="yes">Mother's wish to have boy with cancer treated with alternative medicine is struck down in UK court. <vote poll=world6408 closed="yes">Meet America's new Secretary of State. <vote poll=world6407 closed="yes">We have been mocking Maya intelligence. <vote poll=world6406 closed="yes">The history of how the NRA and Scalia successfully changed the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to its current insane value. <vote poll=world6405 closed="yes">Italy demonstrates the right to machismo: Telling a man he has no balls is a finable offense. <vote poll=world6404 closed="yes">CNN/ORC Poll: A majority of Americans now think the Republican Party is too extreme. <vote poll=world6403 closed="yes">OMG! That poor baby! What? Oh, that's just Scott, he's a dick! <vote poll=world6402 closed="yes">Still making feigning credibility into an art form: intelligent design think tank's “institute” is a Shutterstock image. <vote poll=world6401 closed="yes">Anti-vaccination movement in Pakistan resorts to murder. <vote poll=world6400 closed="yes">Michigan's governor does the only possible decent thing. <vote poll=world6399 closed="yes">Remember that guy who tattooed Romney logo on his face? Well... <vote poll=world6398 closed="yes">Willkommen in Paragould, Arkansas. Sie möchten auf dem Bürgersteig gehen? Ihre Papiere, bitte. <vote poll=world6397 closed="yes">Swedish teens riot over Instagram sex rumours. <vote poll=world6396 closed="yes">Bushmaster advertised a model of gun used in the Connecticut shootings as a way to get your "man-card" reissued. <vote poll=world6395 closed="yes">Has UKIP replaced the Liberal Democrats as Britain's third biggest party? <vote poll=world6394 closed="yes">Facebook page for the NRA now MIA <vote poll=world6393 closed="yes">Daniel Inouye, the first Japanese-American in Congress and the Senate's most senior member, has died aged 88. <vote poll=world6392 closed="yes">"Don't think for a second she doesn't know what she's doing." <vote poll=world6391 closed="yes">The NRA has nothing to say after the Connecticut massacre. Literally. <vote poll=world6390 closed="yes">Long-time conservative Joe Scarborough finally abandons his pro-gun stance after the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. <vote poll=world6389 closed="yes">Oh, those Russians! St. Petersburg fans demand all-white heterosexual team. <vote poll=world6388 closed="yes">US Marine proposes marriage at the White House. Why is this news? They're a gay couple. <vote poll=world6387 closed="yes">Culture of workshyness and families going three generations without jobs and living on benefits are all myths says study that looked at, you know, those things called "facts"

<vote poll=world6385 closed="yes">"Males go for most mates, females for best mates" experiment turns out to have been completely wrong. <vote poll=world6384 closed="yes">The Pope: World peace cannot be achieved when there's abortion and same-sex marriage. For reality, compare legality of same-sex marriage, legality of abortion and Global peace index. <vote poll=world6383 closed="yes">Forty-six American states have agreed to adopt new English instruction standards by 2014. The standards include a suggested reading list and a requirement that at least 70 percent of all texts be non-fiction. Will public school students bid farewell to Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird in favor of technical manuals like Recommended Levels of Insulation and Invasive Plant Inventory as this article suggests? A 183 page PDF of the new suggested reading list is here. <vote poll=world6380 closed="yes">12 dead in Connecticut primary school shooting. It never ends. UPDATE: 27, nearly double Columbine. Update II: Mother's guns, legally bought. <vote poll=world6382 closed="yes">High priest of a white witches' coven and one other man (who claims to be the victim of a conspiracy) jailed for "ritualistic" child sex abuse. <vote poll=world6381 closed="yes">A Southern Cal judge pulls a Todd Akin. <vote poll=world6379 closed="yes">Australian anti-vaccination organization, inappropriately named the "Australian Vaccination Network", ordered to change its misleading name. <vote poll=world6378 closed="yes">Obama to Colorado and Washington: "Toke up, dudes." <vote poll=world6377 closed="yes">More than six in ten U.S. residents blame the recent extreme weather on climate change. And now the bad news... <vote poll=world6376 closed="yes">Congratulations, Bush! <vote poll=world6375 closed="yes">6,000 year old Earth? We have cheese older than that! <vote poll=world6374 closed="yes">You'll never walk... alone. <vote poll=world6373 closed="yes">Hey idiots, stop waving your dicks at each other. <vote poll=world6372 closed="yes">A busy day for rockets, first North Korea and then Syria. Update: Go home satellite, you're drunk. <vote poll=world6371 closed="yes">I could have this on repeat for a full day and still think couldn't have happened to a bigger dick. BONUS witness says he was the dick <vote poll=world6370 closed="yes">For a company with a motto called "Don't Be Evil," this is a really shitty idea. <vote poll=world6369 closed="yes">Man in Santa suit stabbed to death, possibly for religious reasons. <vote poll=world6368 closed="yes">How to win at gay marriage elections <vote poll=world6367 closed="yes">Dammit, Britain... - Not quite what it seems <vote poll=world6366 closed="yes">|defcon|text|FRONTPAGE Michigan becomes a "Right-to-Work" (for Less!) state. <vote poll=world6365 closed="yes">lol Cayman Islands <vote poll=world6364 closed="yes">2011 UK Census produces religion statistics. Headline figures: Christianity down from 71% to 59%, No Religion up from 15% to 25% <vote poll=world6363 closed="yes">First Amendment upheld in North Carolina as court rules "Choose Life" specialty license plate unconstitutional. <vote poll=world6362 closed="yes">The Sky at Night will never be the same, Sir Patrick Moore has died. <vote poll=world6361 closed="yes">That disconcerting sensation of hoping the Daily Mail will win. <vote poll=world6360 closed="yes">"Berlusconi to stick dick back inside Italy" <vote poll=world6359 closed="yes">Ok, so that's Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor vs. Scalia, Thomas, Alito and (possibly - but remember Obamacare) Roberts. Anthony Kennedy, do you want to make history? <vote poll=world6358 closed="yes">Out of all the people you had to prank call, it had to be a nurse? <vote poll=world6357 closed="yes">Exhibit A why moral panics should never be the basis of major legislation: REAL ID Act + Defense of Marriage Act = no drivers license in your married name. <vote poll=world6356 closed="yes"> Mitch McConnell flip-flops, first requesting a vote then self-filibustering <vote poll=world6355 closed="yes">Assad may be mixing the components in chemical weapons. If so, those aren't the kinds of things that can be unmixed. <vote poll=world6354 closed="yes">Hold off on the Steve Jobs personality cult stuff for a bit: Apple is reversing its outsourcing policy. Prepare for the inevitable Friedman theatrics. <vote poll=world6353 closed="yes">Steve Scalise, soon-to-be head of the Republican Study Committee, will fire Derek Khanna, writer of the "controversial" copyright reform memo. <vote poll=world6352 closed="yes">The GOP begins trying to cut out the cancer that is the Tea Party, [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/05/huelskamp-charges-boehner-punished-him-and-others-for-conservative-votes/ removing a congressman from a committee. His district had been represented on the committee for the last 151 years].

<vote poll=world6350 closed="yes">Charity in New Zealand teaches dogs to drive cars. <vote poll=world6349 closed="yes">Gap in fossil record: Filled. <vote poll=world6348 closed="yes">Pope Benny 16 is the latest addition to Twitter, with almost half a million followers despite not posting anything yet. Expect to see @Pontifex tweeting "brb reassigning paedophiles lol #condomscauseAIDS" in the new year. <vote poll=world6347 closed="yes">Roger Ailes to Karl and Dick: Time for your punishment. <vote poll=world6346 closed="yes">"Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine." <vote poll=world6345 closed="yes">America and science, not working together. Particularily, homosexuality and psychiatry <vote poll=world6344 closed="yes">The Christian Union and the Church of England are still in the 1600s, but the Commonwealth and the Royal Family are more than happy to drag their arses into the 21st Century. <vote poll=world6343 closed="yes">Bristol University's Christian Union Bans Women From Speaking At Meetings - Unless they're part of a husband & wife team. UUCF's Twitter feed suggests "...but some of my best friends are black!" Update: The power of public opinion <vote poll=world6342 closed="yes">[http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/France+summon+Israeli+envoys+protest+settlement/7642649/story.html USA: Israel, what the fuck are you doing? Netanyahu: Doesn't matter, have settlements.] <vote poll=world6341 closed="yes">This does not bode well. <vote poll=world6340 closed="yes">A match made in wingnut heaven. <vote poll=world6339 closed="yes">Bullying, what bullying?: School encourages homophobic humiliation as student punishment. <vote poll=world6338 closed="yes">Come on Mitt maybe you can find a few companies to strip their assets from, you know, to pass the time? <vote poll=world6337 closed="yes">The Grand Canyon may not be the age it has previously been thought to be - 5-6m years old. No, it's not 6,000 years old either. It may be 70m years old instead. <vote poll=world6336 closed="yes">Catholic Church sets up exorcism hotline in Milan. "Hi, I'm under attack from priestly penises." <vote poll=world6335 closed="yes">Bobby Jindal's school voucher plan is ruled unconstitutional