What's in the news?

[Regina Minx]

Crap people, if you don't vote, you can't complain.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA

[Oniya]

If you want a better country, be a better citizen. - Jim Wright, Stonekettle Station.

[Lustful Bride]

If you want a better country, be a better citizen. - Jim Wright, Stonekettle Station.

+1 if you have the energy to complain about the world then you have enough energy to volunteer and donate time to help others.

[Eye of Horus]

I agree with the sentiment behind this, but I dislike narratives where the system at fault pushes responsibility for the solution on to the individual. Don’t let the bastards off the hook that easily.

Similarly, voting is important, but I feel like it is the absolute bare minimum of political engagement a person should be doing.

[Lustful Bride]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-14-year-long-oil-spill-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-verges-on-becoming-one-of-the-worst-in-us-history/ar-BBOHEpy?ocid=spartandhp

Sometimes I feel like there has to be a level of divine intervention keeping our species alive. We are too incompetent to truly survive on our own.

[gaggedLouise]

As the human caravan of Hispanics moves slowly north from the southern border of Mexico, Trump hits the alarm button and warns that there are "unknown Middle Easterners" (=terrorists and Jihadists) in the flow of people. You sure, Donald? How many Jihadists and al-Qaeda people have moved to Central America? :) Is that where they'd go?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1054351078328885248

Besides, I don't really think it's feasible to walk on foot more than 1000 km across Mexico, men, women and children - it was a different matter during those days in September 2015 when tens of thousands of refugees marched from Budapest to the Austrian border, that's just 50 km/30 miles or so...I don't think we will see tens of thousands of Hispanics at the Texas border by Christmas - but it will be very interesting to see how Mexico handles this flow of migrants.

[Lustful Bride]

Norwegian Resistance fighter who helped stopped Nazi Nuclear ambitions has passed away at 99.  A hero to all of humanity if there ever was one.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/man-who-halted-nazi-nuclear-plan-dies-at-99/ar-BBOIDtU?ocid=spartandhp

[gaggedLouise]

Norwegian Resistance fighter who helped stopped Nazi Nuclear ambitions has passed away at 99.  A hero to all of humanity if there ever was one.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/man-who-halted-nazi-nuclear-plan-dies-at-99/ar-BBOIDtU?ocid=spartandhp

Oh yes. I've seen that old film about the Rjukan raid with Kirk Douglas, there was also a great new tv miniseries about two years ago, co-produced by Norway, Britain and Germany, that told the story of both the factory, the efforts to undermine it and make sure that it would not supply any German nuclear project with heavy water, and the scientists behind the research and how they responded to the idea of these new, terrible weapons. :)

[gaggedLouise]

A memo leaked from the US Department of Health to the  New York Times sketches a flat reversion of the definition of gender back to a purely biological and binary definition of sex: all persons belongs with their biological sex as established at birth, period.  >:(

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45939524

No joke. If this is meant seriously I do hope such a law would be ruled unconstitutional (perhaps a weak hope now?), or better, that the political resistance to such a hopeless move will prove too great.

[Oniya]

I agree with the sentiment behind this, but I dislike narratives where the system at fault pushes responsibility for the solution on to the individual. Don’t let the bastards off the hook that easily.

Similarly, voting is important, but I feel like it is the absolute bare minimum of political engagement a person should be doing.

Perhaps 'Be part of the solution, not part of the problem'?  :-)

[Missy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.htm

your link is broken.

[gaggedLouise]

your link is broken.

This one works: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.html

Also the BBC article I posted last night about this memo, just a few posts up, and the first protests against it.

If that memo is something the Trumpists plan to push for real, then it's insane, and enacted into law it would mean a massive step backwards. And not the last step, either.

[Lustful Bride]

Large decrease in Vaccine confidence runs the risk of outbreaks, which is partially being tied to an increase in Measles cases in Europe.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-europe-vaccines/vaccine-confidence-low-in-europe-raising-disease-outbreak-risk-idUSKCN1MX21T


Also a fascinating article on the matter.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07034-4

[gaggedLouise]

Trump tries to substantiate his bullshit claim about middle eastern jihadists and ditto criminals embedded in the migrant caravan from Honduras, but only ends up adding more hogwash assertions and conflatory pseudo-explanations to his credit:

On Monday, Trump tweeted "criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed" into the migrant caravan moving toward the United States. He called this a "national emergy" (sic).

However, there have been no reports, in the press or publicly from intelligence agencies, to suggest there are "Middle Easterners" embedded in the caravan he's referring to.

Trump added Tuesday that "there's a very good chance" of Middle Eastern individuals being in the caravan.

"I also think that over a course of a period of time you (will) have (Middle Eastern individuals in the caravan), or they don't necessarily have to be in that group. But certainly, you have a lot of people coming up through the southern border from the Middle East and other places that are not appropriate for our country," he said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/23/politics/donald-trump-proof-unknown-middle-easterners-migrant-caravan/index.html

And sadly, he's now got Mike Pence on board offering the same crappy arguments. :(

[Mechelle]

Large decrease in Vaccine confidence runs the risk of outbreaks, which is partially being tied to an increase in Measles cases in Europe.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-europe-vaccines/vaccine-confidence-low-in-europe-raising-disease-outbreak-risk-idUSKCN1MX21T


Also a fascinating article on the matter.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07034-4

There do seem to be some strange links between Trump  supporters (and some Brexiters) and opponents of vaccination. I assume it must be linked to the rubbishing of knowledge and experts.  Andrew Wakefield is the disgraced British doctor mentioned in the earlier article posted by Lustful Bride.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/18/how-disgraced-anti-vaxxer-andrew-wakefield-was-embraced-by-trumps-america

[TheVillain]

Yeah, the stereotype is that Anti-Vaxx is a left-wing progressive thing but actually there's almost 2 separate Anti-Vaxx movements that otherwise balance each other out politically. It would be fascinating if it wasn't so fucking stupid.

[gaggedLouise]

Somebody's sent suspected bomb packages to Obama, the Clintons' home and to...the White House. :( A strange package also turned up at CNN's headquarters.

The new UNA-bomber?  ???

[Beguile's Mistress]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/video/live-news-coverage-from-cbs-news/ar-BBmYvYY?appwebview=true

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no-suspicious-package-addressed-to-white-house-source/ar-BBOPKJt?li=BBnb7Kz

Could this be a vast right-wing conspiracy by Trump supporters?

[TheGlyphstone]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/video/live-news-coverage-from-cbs-news/ar-BBmYvYY?appwebview=true

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/no-suspicious-package-addressed-to-white-house-source/ar-BBOPKJt?li=BBnb7Kz

Could this be a vast right-wing conspiracy by Trump supporters?

Nah, it's clearly a false flag attack by liberals to frame the right, because logic.

[gaggedLouise]

Nah, it's clearly a false flag attack by liberals to frame the right, because logic.

I was thinking that was the way Trump himself would spin it. The bomb packages sent to Clinton and Obama are mere red herrings - the real design is Leftie Democrats trying to run a Fake News bomb attack that looked like it was aimed at top-level Democrats, while also trying to get a hit on Trump. Right?  ;)

[gaggedLouise]

The reports about a suspected bomb package getting intercepted en route to the White House seem to have been incorrect:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/24/pipe-bomb-addressed-to-the-white-house-is-intercepted-cnn.html

[Oniya]

Well, that changes things completely.  The intended targets are now all on the same side of the political spectrum.

[gaggedLouise]

Trump refuses to quit using his private (pre-WH) cell phones for talking to friends about his work and what he's planning to do, although one or more of these phones have been hacked by the Chinese - and tapped by Russian spies.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/when-trump-phones-friends-the-chinese-listen-and-learn-20181025-p50bu0.html

Next up: China or Russia hack Trump's twitter account and begin pumping out their own Real Trump Tweets. :P

https://twitter.com/fakedonaldtrump (no tweets here - yet) :)

[gaggedLouise]

Well, that changes things completely.  The intended targets are now all on the same side of the political spectrum.

If somebody had the idea of using this for a "Reichstag fire strategy" - "We're under attack from some violent terror outfit, you'll have to stick together behind Trump and the media should damn well stay in line and be nice to us" - then the choice of targets seems to defeat such a plan.

[Callie Del Noire]

If somebody had the idea of using this for a "Reichstag fire strategy" - "We're under attack from some violent terror outfit, you'll have to stick together behind Trump and the media should damn well stay in line and be nice to us" - then the choice of targets seems to defeat such a plan.

What you want to bet that no matter who the authorities find the President will blame it on someone islamic of Persian or Arabic decent..and I figure even odds it will be someone who is a truly epic 'Trumpian' supporter.