RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/December 2013
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December 2013[edit]
   | 30 | New Pew survey reveals one-third of Americans don't believe in evolution. |
| -15 | Terri Schiavo part deux? |
| 16 | First the Downing Street memo, then the Bush-Blair memo, then the Bush–Aznar memo, then the 2004 Iraq document leak, and now... what should be called the Big Red One. |
| 27 | To no one's actual surprise, the NSA appears to have backdoored practically every US tech security company's product lines. I think this means Huawei is owed an apology. |
| 15 | Look, if Nigel Farage is saying we should let Syrian refugees come to the UK, it might be worth thinking about. |
| 13 | Devon and Cornwall Police: there to protect you from muggers, burglars, ghosts, witches and vampires. |
| 27 | And so ends the dumbest manufactroversy since Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: "Months of investigation by The New York Times, centered on extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that al-Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault... And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam." |
| 21 | Sherlock Holmes is now officially in the public domain. |
| 8 | China's one-child policy is on its last legs. |
| 14 | New York judge says NSA surveillance is legal. Federal court fight! |
| 18 | There's a word for someone who acts like you're their best friend when around you and depends on you for support, and who then tells your secrets to your rival: Israel |
| 29 | Making BioShock a reality: no foolin', they've called their enclave "Galt's Gulch". |
| 14 | McDonald's gives some more advice to its employees. Hilarity ensues once again. |
| 28 | Utah county adopts Jim Crow-era tactic, closes its Clerk's Office until the gay marriage appeal process has played out. So yeah, screw you straight folk too. |
| 18 | Utah appeals to the judge who threw out their same-sex ban to block gay marriages until the appeal process is worn out. Judge Shelby: DENIED |
| 32 | 61 years after his death, Alan Turing finally gets pardoned. (Well, even that's just sort of.) |
| 34 | So, it turns out that there actually is a large conspiracy around climate change: Up to a billion dollars a year spent to fight and fuel the war against climate science. |
| 20 | Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at age 94. |
| 5 | A new known-plaintext attack on RSA encryption is found, by listening to computer noises. |
| 17 | You can get a longer sentence for abortion than for rape under Spain's new abortion "reforms". A beachhead for the revived Catholic right or just another pisspot European centre-right government lashing out blindly before it's kicked out at the next election? |
| 54 | Sorry to rain on your parade, New Mexico: A federal judge has smashed another same-sex marriage ban. In Utah. Update: "The court agrees with Justice Scalia’s interpretation of Windsor and finds that the important federalism concerns at issue here are nevertheless insufficient to save a state-law prohibition that denies the Plaintiffs their rights." Yes, you read that correctly - Scalia's opinion was just used against him. (Grab some popcorn.) |
| 20 | How do you fuck up a dedication to Nelson Mandela? Easy! Use a picture of Morgan Freeman instead. |
| 7 | Double-naught secret FBI interrogation manual, open to all at the Library of Congress. (They were trying to copyright it.) |
| 18 | Canada's Supreme Court unanimously voids the country's prostitution laws. They stay in effect until either Parliament has enacted a new law or a year has passed. Update: The legal precedent this has set means that assisted suicide may be on its way. |
| 16 | Uganda takes bold strides while preparing to join the 20th Century. |
| 27 | New Mexico gives residents an early Christmas prezzie, and becomes the 17th US state to legalise gay marriage. |
| 15 | MRAs and 4chan users abuse a college's online form for anonymously reporting rape, with MRAs making more than 400 false rape accusations. |
| 36 | David Cameron's plan to |
| 17 | Santa Maria! The British Medical Journal reports that about 0.5 percent of American woman they surveyed "consistently affirmed their status as virgins and did not use assisted reproductive technology, yet reported virgin births." |
| 30 | Shots fired: Pope Francis poops on the Prosperity Gospel. |
| 18 | Stealing bikini calendars for Jesus. |
| 23 | Bitcoin's value is halved as China further restricts its use. |
| 28 | Issa To Texas Health Official: 'You Need To Watch More Fox News' |
| 15 | "You better lawyer up asshole, because I'm not coming back for 30%, I'm coming back for everything." |
| 35 | A Florida fifth-grader who won first place for a speech about the history of people who use religion to justify murder is stripped of the prize by an assistant principal who deemed it inappropriate for fourth and fifth graders. |
| 20 | Billy Graham's grandson claims Evangelicals have a worse sex abuse record than Catholics. |
| 15 | Turns out that cats have been using us for far longer than we originally thought. |
| 18 | Harold Camping has been raptured. |
| 16 | Canada's shame: we apparently buy into the Truther thing. |
| 11 | Hopefully, this "mission accomplished" goes better than the last one. |
| 13 | Judicial activism complainers will be shutting up right about now. |
| 2 | Remember, what I said about Obamacare and the fact that I am signing up for it are totally separate and different issues. |
| 9 | The Iraq war still isn't over. |
| 3 | There's a new George Bush in town. |
| 15 | China may have disproved the moon landing hoax "theory" more than anyone ever tried. |
| 21 | The Sun lists Lucy Powell as one of the laziest MPs in the UK based on her voting record - actually, she was on maternity leave. (cue some serious bullshit from twitter fuckwads) |
| 21 | The Mormons finally decide that black skin isn't a curse from God. (The LDS's official statement: Race and the Priesthood) |
| 11 | The many benefits of smog. |
| 26 | Scared you're losing the support of women? Voter ID laws will sort that problem out. |
| 14 | Reports of a school shooting, one day before the anniversary of Sandy Hook. |
| 6 | New Jersey politics just got very weird. |
| 10 | "Worse than a dog" isn't really that much of an insult, you know. |
| 34 | Texas: Where you can get pardoned after killing four people because of "affluenza." No, really. No, really. |
| 23 | "The cyber attack will remain a serious threat to our national security." Your inability to control yourselves seems to be the larger problem. |
| 19 | It seems the GOP wants to play with fire again. |
| 14 | Australia's courts and new government give us a all a glimpse of how they wish to turn the country into a regressive piece of shit. |
| 13 | Belgium will soon become the first country in the world to remove the age limit on euthanasia. |
| 17 | India's Supreme Court: Being gay is a crime. |
| 9 | Scientists suggest that panspermia may have been possible during the Chicxulub extinction level event, but bringing microbial life to Mars, Titan or Europa. |
| 40 | This is what happens when you apply Ayn Rand to real life. |
| 20 | A Conservative MP, a radical feminist and an evangelical Christian |
| 19 | The Free World is once again in peril. The Nazis have Tila Tequila. Although the Nazis seem a little skeptical of their newest recruit. |
| 21 | Not even Azeroth is safe from the prying spying eyes of the US ! |
| 28 | When anti-asylum sentiment, liberal media whining and Nazi apologism combine. |
| 38 | Measles cases in the United States have hit triple the annual average. 90% of cases are among the unvaccinated. Thanks Jenny and Andrew! |
| 13 | We will lend you guys money on the condition that we will grab money from suckers who sold us credit default swaps on your company. Totally legal. |
| 28 | Elsevier enters final desperation stage, going after authors sharing their own papers online. Repeat after me: "Elsevier delenda est." Update: Hits The Chronicle. |
| -4 | Motorboating-stunt pickup artists, rejected by breast cancer charities, give the money directly to a victim |
| 50 | Madiba has passed away at 95. |
| 15 | 4:00pm - International media on the tarmac: "This story has to be over." 4:30pm - "Fuck." |
| 15 | 400,000-year-old Denisovan DNA found in Spain. (Popularisation.) |
| 10 | We've already had a goalkeeper and a Nazi, so why not a bouncer? |
| 22 | Anti-GMO celebrity Gilles-Eric Séralini ticks off another item on the crank checklist by threatening to sue the journal that retracted his study. |
| 10 | The Grauniad is effectively untouchable. |
| 6 | So it is possible to combine the paleo diet with the Mediterranean diet. |
| 26 | Pope Francis becomes the ultimate troll. Related: Seriously, bodyguards, man. |
| 27 | In other emerging-space-nation news, the Chinese lunar rover is on its way. |
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