RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/July 2014

July 2014
Eric Cantor: "You can't fire me, I quit!" Uganda anti gay law declared unconstitutional illegally passed. Maybe there's hope yet in the world. A House bill to congratulate Pope Francis on his election and deeds to date, looks likely to flounder, because Republicans think he's too liberal. The UK government has decided to display its total ignorance of technology and/or reality and is recommending that online anonymity be abolished. Eric Cantor's ouster really did mean something. Ted Cruz, after all these months, is still tearing the GOP apart. (Pizza!)

What's a good way to lure voters? Appeal to their instinctive racism. Utah blogger fired over homophones This is going to be an eventful August. (US Torture Report talking points leaked) Update: The CIA: Oops. Pulling a Godwin out of gun control safety laws. What could possibly go wrong? State Senator Alan Hays wants to mandate the showing of Dinesh D'Souza's latest masterpiece in Florida history classes. Coming soon: Technological spirit body possession. Hobby Lobby : "We refuse to give you birth control, but and you're fired if you dare to have God gives you a baby" Alabama : EPA regulations are against God's Will. Update : Pray for the coal plants! Wikileaks leaks super-injunction issued by Australian court that forbids any statement that "reveals, implies, suggests or alleges" involvement in bribery amongst 17 current and former top politicians of Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. The order also forbids mentioning an affidavit of a high Australian UN diplomat. Assange says, this case "concerns the subsidiaries of the Australian central bank". Heroic doctor dies of ebola Nate Silver finally punts Roger Pielke Jr. from FiveThirtyEight. John "This impeachment talk is a Democrat-led false flag" Boehner, everyone. Even better, he's effectively calling Sarah Palin a Democrat. (Money money money money, Mahneh!) South Carolina panel "compromises" on evolution. Of course the NRA is all about responsibility instead of killing people. Just ignore the part where their general counsel and architect behind the deregulation of guns got away with murder. These are the "good guys with a gun"? Probably, flight tickets can soon again be advertised in the USA with prices excluding taxes and other costs. Who brought this in? Well, this dude. Happy birthday, NASA, and congratulations, Opportunity rover! Rand Paul tells the Urban League that he's a minority, due to his ideology. Hungary: led by a professional dumbass. Sarah Palin is going to have her own TV channel! And her web team will be run by former Onion employees. About that minefield Ginsberg warned about in her Burwell v. Hobby Lobby dissent... The Satanic Temple is seeking a faith exemption from state abortion "counselling" laws. (archive) We can now turn pedophiles into robosexuals. What could possibly go wrong? There is a campaign to free a Missouri man from rotting in prison over 20 years for Marihuana offenses. 21 similar cases exist nationwide. With Verizon tumbling perpetually from one press disaster to the next: Guess who's holding and buying shares of them? FISA court judges.

Remember the negative ads about The Affordable Care Act and the crapload of money that was spent on those ads? What could possibly go wrong? Human Rights activist John McCain condemns screwed up two-hour execution as torture. The US doesn't have a monopoly on crazy politicians Depending on the source, earth is either on the verge of its sixth mass extinction event, or the event has already started. One thing agreed upon, though, is that it is definitely anthropogenic. Unless, that is, you get your (*cough*) "news" from right-wing sources like Newsmax. Upon reading sentences like "Where human density is high, you get high rates of defaunation, high incidence of rodents, and thus high levels of pathogens, which increases the risks of disease transmission," their (*sneeze*) editorial board concluded in the title of their version of the story that "PERHAPS" the cause is anthropogenic. [http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/07/25/exclusive_freshman_congressman_mistakes_senior_government_officials_for_foreigners Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.) mistakes two senior officials, Nisha Biswal and Arun Kumar (respectively from the State Department and Commerce Department), for representatives of the Indian government. During a Congressional hearing.] I'm sorry, Young-Earthers, did you say something? I couldn't hear you over the sound of a seventy thousand year old human settlement being discovered. Out of control sex geckos in space. Update: Connection restored. Women and girls in and around Mosul are the targets of a deeply disturbing fatwa. Update: May be fake. Are the people who refuse to accept climate change ill-informed? Not necessarily, a new study shows. "The irony is that some of the states that have been the loudest in opposing EPA climate regulations have the most to gain in terms of actual economic interest." Guess the governor. Quakers running new Underground Railroad to help LGBT folk escape Uganda. What part in "Do not plagiarize under any fucking circumstances" don't you understand? There's no gentle way to ease you into this... Ben Stein in sexting scandal. U.S. airlines cancel all Israel flights for 24 hours after some rockets fall near Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport. At least one cancels them indefinitely. First the individual mandate, second the religious exemptions on birth control, and so begins another effort in the courts to dismantle Obamacare — this time to cut off any subsidies for the very needy red states that didn't sign up for the state exchanges. (Check please.) Update: One thing's for sure: This is way too politically dangerous for Roberts to toy around with. Last June was the hottest June on record, according to the NOAA. A new study published in Cognitive Science has found that young children exposed to religion may be less likely to be able to tell the difference between fantastic fiction and reality than their secular peers.

Nick Griffin, Chairman President of BNP. Born-again Christian is awarded €70,000 because he was fired for proselytizing at his job. The Supreme Court in Ireland found he had the right to babble on to everyone about Jeebus, because that's what his religion asks him to do. The next in Westboro Baptist Church's iron sights: ... [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/18/westboro-baptist-church-records-homophobic-version-of-panic-_n_5599492.html Panic! at the Disco?] The Church replete with yet another terrible parody song, the Poe's Law intensifies.

Guess who John McCain blames for the Ukrainian plane tragedy... Haggard's Law strikes again.

A mysterious 100-meter wide crater has appeared in the Russian Arctic. "Everyone is still focused on the MH17 crash, Mr. Prime Minister." "Alright, invade Gaza." (Also, an IDF soldier risks jail time by hosting an AMA on Reddit) Another Malaysian Airlines plane - nearly 300 passengers - has gone down. This time above separatist-controlled Donetsk in Ukraine. Update: *Cue Jaws theme* ("Russia may have just seen their national interests catastrophically harmed because a couple of schmucks fired off a SAM.") Whether Russia is responsible under International law is unclear. Helicopter parenting now legally required.

Carbon tax axed in Australia in a 39-32 vote. Hell of a job, Abbott! Memo to US residents with kids in public high school: If they take a business education class called "Youth Entrepreneurs" (or with texts published by YE), be forewarned that it's a front funded by Koch Industries with the goal of turning them into good little libertarians. Capital punishment struck down in California "Everyone is still focused on the Gaza crisis, Mr. President." "All right, sectoral sanctions on Russia." (BP and ExxonMobil: NOOOOOO) Update: Also, because this question seriously needs to be asked: "Can I still sell an AK?" Climate-change denier compares the demonization of CO2 to Hitler's treatment of the Jews, because “carbon dioxide is actually a benefit to the world, and so were the Jews.” Kevin Martin threatens Facebook with a lawsuit and a personal visit after it takes down several of his pages. The most badass-looking flying dinosaur ever has been discovered in China. Four wings, anyone? The Raelian movement tried to encourage removing the stigma associated with the swastika by putting it on an airplane banner, superimposed onto a Star of David, and sending it over a number of NY beaches. Unsurprisingly, it really doesn't fly with locals. One possible solution to global warming reminds us it's there. Church of England General Synod approves women bishops. R.I.P. Nadine Gordimer.

Just when you thought humanity couldn't get worse... turning an underage rape victim into a meme... Pope "admits about 2% of Catholic clergy are paedophiles". (Caveat: "But a Vatican spokesman said the quotes in the newspaper did not correspond to Pope Francis's exact words." - but then they always say that when he starts to look too liberal.) Kentucky church hires sex offender pastor who was "forgiven by God" of his previous actions. Any guesses on how well that worked out?

Because Israel-Gaza can't get any more depressing: "On both sides, there's a total lack of empathy that I've never seen before." Slavoj Žižek caught plagiarising White Nationalist journal New York City renames a street after George Carlin. The Church of Rome objects. If you thought Aussie politics wouldn't get any weirder during the Abbott months, erm, it just did. I'm a Republican, repeal Obamacare! *uses ACA* [http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80768555/ Thanks... Obama?] Cosmos has earned 12 Emmy nominations Perverse incentives of "publish or perish": 60 articles retracted after being implicated in a peer-review and citation ring. (Discussion including someone who worked on detecting the ring.) Gov. Brownback proposes doubling down on his fiscally disastrous policy of tax cuts. A group of evangelists, pretending to be gay friendly, offered free food at a Pride event, then went on to tell attendees that they will burn in Hell. More than a dozen people needed counselling after their encounter. Raelians want to "reclaim the swastika," but nobody will put up their billboards. Meet the Muslim-American leaders the FBI and NSA spied on for six years. Brazil 1 - Germany 7. "WELL DONE..BRAVO...LONG LIVE HITLER..." Oops! Does this finally put to bed "The boys from Brazil"?? The Mall Galleries freaks out over a woman's pubic hair in a portrait. Interesting: A sane man may actually win the Afghan presidential election. "If we ever mention Ward Churchill to attack the left again, is there anything out there that will make us look like hypocrites?" "Well, it's not like controversial conservatives are being appointed to high-ranked faculty positions, you know." If Obama is for environmentalism -- or anything else, for that matter -- then we're against it in the stupidest way possible.

Peer review at work: we have just unseen a couple of planets. Richard Mellon Scaife of vast right-wing conspiracy fame is dead at 82. New NSA leak: "Among the most valuable contents — which The Post will not describe in detail, to avoid interfering with ongoing operations — are fresh revelations about a secret overseas nuclear project, double-dealing by an ostensible ally, a military calamity that befell an unfriendly power..." Say whaaaat? Meanwhile in India, the police help two couples to escape the stigma of premarital sex by forcing them to get married. All hail the BBC. Jesus fucking Christ, Abbott. One for the Haggard's Law book: Anti-gay North Carolina senator worked as a drag queen in a gay bar. #Notallclergy support Hobby Lobby. The thoughtcrime of the Cannibal Cop has been overturned. Fox News rips off BioShock Infinite logo, irony ensues Genetics just can't get any better: Neanderthal, meet Denisovan. "I just wish America would be America again because it's not...they're going to take over our schools!" (Redneck uprising in California.) The Nazis continue to break irony meters after 80 years. Florida's gay marriage ban may be next on the chopping block. Make sure granny and grandpa have their heart medicine ready. And the next domino to fall is... Kentucky. School's out, but children still need to eat.  As if Paul LePage, Maine's wingnut governor wasn't bad enough, now it's been discovered that he's been meeting with a Sovereign citizen terrorist group, and largely agrees with them. The Occupy movement is still not dead - and it's manifested in a massive protest by Hong Kong citizens against the Chinese government. Japan renounces pacifism, which won't have any domestic or foreign policy consequences at all.