What's in the News? 2.0

[Oniya]

The wall street backed candidate for mayor, and a former Obama and Bloomberg low income housing head also running, think a Brooklyn home costs $100,000?! Boy are they way off. The median is $900,000.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/nyregion/median-home-brooklyn-mayor.html

I'm fairly sure the place we had in a back-water, failing Ohio town with one street-light and tree-roots growing into the sewer line cost 200,000.

[Haibane]

Uyghur Human Rights Project research reveals more than 630 clerics and imams arrested and imprisoned by Chinese authorities, claiming unlawful gatherings when they were only acting as imams or leading prayer groups.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56986057

[The Lovely Tsaritsa]

The wall street backed candidate for mayor, and a former Obama and Bloomberg low income housing head also running, think a Brooklyn home costs $100,000?! Boy are they way off. The median is $900,000.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/nyregion/median-home-brooklyn-mayor.html

I live in Brooklyn, the few years before? If they think home there costs even close for $100,000, they are very stupid. 

[Haibane]

The ignorance and backward - even medieval thinking of some makes so very angry and very sad. I would lay these acts of ignorance and violence squarely at the door of organised religion - again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57091251

[Tolvo]

I was wondering Haibane if it might be possible to explain what a news story is about when you share it from the BBC, because often those URL's don't actually state what the topic is about and I have to click the link without any real preface or information. Such as that is a story about homophobic violence. For instance all that says in the URL is "World Middle East."

[Haibane]

Yes I can do that. Thanks for the prompt.

[Tolvo]

Thank you for listening. ^_^

[Kathadon]

Anyone else getting suspicious about all the mainstream alien stories lately?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/how-the-pentagon-started-taking-ufos-seriously
https://www.wnpr.org/post/are-we-ready-accept-ufos-are-real-1
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2021/05/11/what-is-the-military-doing-about-ufos-the-pentagons-internal-watchdog-wants-to-know/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/politics/unidentified-aerial-phenomena-defense-department/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/04/politics/pentagon-ufo-enquiry/index.html

[TheGlyphstone]

Who could possibly be coordinating such a thing?

[Kathadon]

Maybe this is all just a slow roll out, for when they land on the White House lawn?

[Sara Nilsson]

It happens all the time, one paper prints some BS about ufos and others jump on it. Slownews with the orange moron not spewing garbage all the time for them to print.

[Oniya]

I mean, you can actually access the Project Blue Book microfilms at the FBI website.  Be advised that they are actually very boring.  Voice of experience here.

[Tolvo]

It's also just so often the case where how they have to categorize things means things sound a lot more scary than they are. Like recently a UFO was reported sighted by astronauts. IIRC it was frozen fuel, but they didn't right away know what it was so reported it  as a UFO. Because it was an unknown flying object, and they have to. Even though they right away said it was probably nothing just couldn't tell right away what it was, all the headlines were "UFO site at space station!"

[Oniya]

It's also just so often the case where how they have to categorize things means things sound a lot more scary than they are. Like recently a UFO was reported sighted by astronauts. IIRC it was frozen fuel, but they didn't right away know what it was so reported it  as a UFO. Because it was an unknown flying object, and they have to. Even though they right away said it was probably nothing just couldn't tell right away what it was, all the headlines were "UFO site at space station!"

I guess 'Identified Flying Object' doesn't make good click-bait. 

[Tolvo]

Maybe it'd be less scary if they reported it as an IDK or "I Dunno."

[Haibane]

The UFO "wave" or "flap" is a well understood phenomena and to me at least a fascinating one:

In 1992, about three years after the first sighting, which occurred on 29 November 1989, in Eupen, Marc Hallet wrote an essay about the Belgian UFO wave criticizing the work done by the SOBEPS: La Vague OVNI Belge ou le triomphe de la désinformation,[9] arguing that this UFOlogical organisation was spreading misinformation in the media. Hallet's thesis is that the Belgian UFO wave was mostly a mass delusion, boosted by the work done by the SOBEPS. This mass delusion would have followed Philip J. Klass's law: "Once news coverage leads the public to believe that UFOs may be in the vicinity, there are numerous natural and man-made objects which, especially seen at night, can take on unusual characteristics in the minds of hopeful viewers. Their UFO reports in turn add to the mass excitement, which encourages still more observers to watch for UFOs. This situation feeds upon itself until such time as the media lose interest in the subject, and then the flap quickly runs out of steam."[8][10]

Quote taken from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave

Which discusses the famous Belgian UFO "triangle craft" wave of 1989 - 1990. Basically there was nothing there, and it was all mass hallucinations and incorrectly reported terrestrial phenomena.

[Kathadon]

LMAO. The two candidates that got the "pop quiz" answers wrong in the NYC mayoral race, their campaigns are now accusing Andrew Yang of cheating. Without any evidence of coarse.

Yang was alone among the eight candidates to get all three questions correct, though some of his rivals got two right and were close on the third. The primary date is now just 40 days away and Yang has been in first place in most polling.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/2-nyc-mayoral-candidates-accuse-221151874.html
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/05/andrew-yangs-rivals-accuse-him-of-cheating-nyt-interview.html

And he walked back his pro-Israeli tweet. After getting flack from AOC..."Utterly shameful for Yang to try to show up to an Eid event after sending out a chest-thumping statement of support for a strike killing 9 children, especially after his silence as Al-Aqsa was attacked," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "But then to try that in Astoria? During Ramadan?! They will let you know."

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/yang-walks-back-overly-simplistic-192340280.html

[Beorning]

The UFO "wave" or "flap" is a well understood phenomena and to me at least a fascinating one:

Quote taken from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave

Which discusses the famous Belgian UFO "triangle craft" wave of 1989 - 1990. Basically there was nothing there, and it was all mass hallucinations and incorrectly reported terrestrial phenomena.

A thought: is it me, or did the amount of noteworthy UFO photos decrease with the advent of digital cameras and smart phones? I may be mistaken, but I think that, in the decades before that, there were quite a few UFO photos that caused a stir. Of course, they were blurry etc... Nowadays, with better technology available for everyone, one would expect much more UFO photos being taken - and of good quality, too. Meanwhile, I think it's the opposite... which really seems to prove that there's really nothing out there to take photos of...

[Oniya]

A thought: is it me, or did the amount of noteworthy UFO photos decrease with the advent of digital cameras and smart phones? I may be mistaken, but I think that, in the decades before that, there were quite a few UFO photos that caused a stir. Of course, they were blurry etc... Nowadays, with better technology available for everyone, one would expect much more UFO photos being taken - and of good quality, too. Meanwhile, I think it's the opposite... which really seems to prove that there's really nothing out there to take photos of...

Kinda hard to take pictures of something in the sky when folks have their noses buried in their phones.

[RedRose]

Whether it exists or not... I think there's also a fashion phenomenon.

[Kathadon]

Oh boy, the de facto dictator of El Salvador has removed the last democratic checks to his power. And of coarse his people love him for it.  At least the ones that do not flee to the U.S.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/15/tried-democracy-failed-adoring-el-salvadorians-swoon-millennial/

[Haibane]

The protests against the military coup in Myanmar are evolving into a civil war between the army and a rebel faction.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57134964

[Skynet]

US Supreme Court is hearing an abortion case that can potentially undo Roe v. Wade.

It concerns a Mississippi law that prohibits all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, save "in cases of medical emergency or major fetal abnormality."

[Tolvo]

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/05/businesses-will-now-forced-post-signs-announcing-serve-transgender-customers-tennessee/#.YKPdJEqlhUo.twitter

The Governor of Tennessee has signed a bill that will require businesses to "warn" cis customers with a sign if the business allows transgender people to use their bathrooms.

[Oniya]

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/05/businesses-will-now-forced-post-signs-announcing-serve-transgender-customers-tennessee/#.YKPdJEqlhUo.twitter

The Governor of Tennessee has signed a bill that will require businesses to "warn" cis customers with a sign if the business allows transgender people to use their bathrooms.

This could lead to some interesting r/maliciouscompliance incidents.  The places more likely to need the warning signs are probably snarky enough to come up with something clever.  (Considering demographics, there are probably some that simply won't allow it - somehow.)