What's in the news?

[Lustful Bride]

Russia Calls for UN security council meeting concerning the nerve agent attack in the UK.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-calls-un-security-council-meeting-over-salisbury-nerve-agent-attack/ar-AAvu7n0?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz


Female Medics asked to leave sumo ring despite applying first aid to a collapsed patient.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/female-medics-rushed-to-help-a-man-who-collapsed-on-a-sumo-ring-they-were-promptly-told-to-leave/ar-AAvuhSO?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[Eye of Horus]

Russian diplomats accuse UK of fabricating evidence in the Novichok investigation. Which is exactly why our idiot of a foreign secretary shouldn’t have gone out and made categorical statements before all the evidence was published. Putin’s government might be (in all likelihood) guilty as hell, but just like police in a murder investigation you need to make damn sure you build an airtight case or the accused will get off on jury doubt and technicalities.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43662421

Also in the same article:

“Meanwhile it has emerged that when police sealed off Mr Skripal's home at the start of the investigation. there were two guinea pigs and a cat inside. The BBC understands the guinea pigs died of starvation and the cat, distressed from dehydration, was put down.”

I await the movie where Skripal goes on a John Wick vengeance rampage, possibly ending in a showdown with a shirtless Vladimir Putin.

[gaggedLouise]

I await the movie where Skripal goes on a John Wick vengeance rampage, possibly ending in a showdown with a shirtless Vladimir Putin.

Title: Fight in the Kremlin ?

[Lustful Bride]

To be fair there was some probable cause given thr weapon used. And people going too long without knowing who used a nerve agent on their homeland makes people nervous.

Not saying it was right to jump the gun, but I can understand it.

[Sara Nilsson]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michellefabio/2018/04/06/department-of-homeland-security-compiling-database-of-journalists-and-media-influencers/#787ceacc6121

As part of its "media monitoring," the DHS seeks to track more than 290,000 global news sources as well as social media in over 100 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian, for instant translation into English. The successful contracting company will have "24/7 access to a password protected, media influencer database, including journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc." in order to "identify any and all media coverage related to the Department of Homeland Security or a particular event."

The database will be browsable by "location, beat and type of influencer," and for each influencer, the chosen contractor should "present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for, and an overview of the previous coverage published by the media influencer."

One aspect of the media coverage to be gathered is its "sentiment."

[Lustful Bride]

There has been another car attack in Germany. :( Injuries and deaths still unknown :(

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vehicle-crashes-into-crowd-in-muenster-germany-reports-live-updates-today/

[Lustful Bride]

Fire in Trump Tower leads to one person in critical condition.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-tower-fire-critically-injures-one-person/ar-AAvBndE?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[TheGlyphstone]

I shouldn't be surprised that he managed to pat himself on the back while tweeting about the incident.

[Lustful Bride]

People in Syria claim there has been another Chemical Attack by Pro Assad forces.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/syria-attack-activists-says-dozens-killed-by-gas/ar-AAvBu8K?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[Oniya]

I shouldn't be surprised that he managed to pat himself on the back while tweeting about the incident.

I'm just cringing at the fact that 'the President's flagship property' is even a thing.  Because, you know, emoluments and all that.

[TheGlyphstone]

I'm just cringing at the fact that 'the President's flagship property' is even a thing.  Because, you know, emoluments and all that.

Conflicts of interest are FAKE NEWS. Fox and Friends said so.

[Shores]

The social credit system that China is implementing is scaring the fuck out of me. There's so many things that could go wrong with this, which has been explored in various sci-fi media, when a citizen has an arbitrary number attached to their worth. I hope this system fails and it doesn't spread to other parts of the globe.

[elone]

Israel IDF continues to shoot and maim thousands of unarmed protesters. Kent State anyone? Not one Israeli soldier or civilian has as much as a scratch. Hamas had asked that no weapons be used or seen. MSM remains unmoved and mostly silent.

http://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/palestinian-journalists-international/

[Lustful Bride]

Israel IDF continues to shoot and maim thousands of unarmed protesters. Kent State anyone? Not one Israeli soldier or civilian has as much as a scratch. Hamas had asked that no weapons be used or seen. MSM remains unmoved and mostly silent.

http://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/palestinian-journalists-international/

I saw it mentioned on CNN and other online articles.



Trump responds to Assad's use of another chemical weapon on a city with his usual twitter storm.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-trump-seeks-way-out-of-syria-new-attack-pulls-him-back-in/ar-AAvEraV?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[Hades]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/alaska-transgender-%E2%80%98bathroom-bill%E2%80%99-narrowly-defeated/ar-AAvEKT1

It's the first time the issue of so-called "bathroom bills" was given to the voters directly, and voters in Anchorage voted 53% against the measure.  So a bit of good news, especially coming out of a red state.

[Regina Minx]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/alaska-transgender-%E2%80%98bathroom-bill%E2%80%99-narrowly-defeated/ar-AAvEKT1

It's the first time the issue of so-called "bathroom bills" was given to the voters directly, and voters in Anchorage voted 53% against the measure.  So a bit of good news, especially coming out of a red state.

The glass is 47% empty person that is Regina Minx notes that it's only a slim majority that voted against it.

[Hades]

There is that, yes.  The difference between the two sides is more narrow than it should be, but we have to start somewhere and this is a good foundation to spring from.

[TheGlyphstone]

The glass is 53% full of water and 47% full of air needless pedantic that is TheGlyphstone notes that Alaska is the 3rd smallest state in terms of net population, so it's probably not a great indicator either way of trends. But as an isolated data point it is heartening.

[Oniya]

The glass is 53% full of water and 47% full of air needless pedantic that is TheGlyphstone notes that Alaska is the 3rd smallest state in terms of net population, so it's probably not a great indicator either way of trends. But as an isolated data point it is heartening.

Looks like they might have edged out North Dakota for 47th place, as of the 2010 census.  (I was curious to see what states had less people than Alaska. Vermont and Wyoming were the others.)

[Beorning]

There has been another car attack in Germany. :( Injuries and deaths still unknown :(

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vehicle-crashes-into-crowd-in-muenster-germany-reports-live-updates-today/

According to the news I've heard, it wasn't a terrorist attack, but an attack of a mental ill person... unless some new information surfaced?

Back here, it's the 8th anniversary of the Smoleńsk plane crash. A bit of information for you: Russia has still not returned the plane's wreckage to the Polish authorities...

[Shores]

The Stockholm attack in 2017 was also conducted on April 7th. One year to the day of a past terrorist attack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Stockholm_attack

"Police considered the attack an act of terrorism. Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old rejected asylum seeker born in the Soviet Union and a citizen of Uzbekistan, was apprehended the same day, suspected on probable cause of terrorist crimes through murder (a Swedish legal term). Swedish police said he has expressed sympathy with extremist organizations, among them the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),[5] and Uzbek authorities said he had allegedly joined ISIL before the attack.[6] According to the head prosecutor, Akilov had sworn his allegiance to the Islamic State in a self-recorded video the day before the attack.[7] Akilov admitted to carrying out the attack at a pre-trial hearing on 11 April.

On 30 January 2018, Rakhmat Akilov was formally charged. The leading prosecutor in the case is Hans Ihrman, who submitted the indictment to the Stockholm District Court.[8]"

I wouldn't discount terrorism.

[Beorning]

On the other hand: attacks conducted by mentally ill people do happen. A few years ago, we had a case in Poland when a man sped a car back and forth a big walkway in Sopot - which was crowded with tourists. Nobody died, but multiple people were wounded. It turned out, the man had a history of mental problems and was in the middle of a psychotic break...

[gaggedLouise]

A spicy scandal that's been building for months, with close ties to the Swedish Academy (yes, the one awarding the Nobel prize for literature!) erupts in three members (out of 18) taking a time-out, possibly for ever, much of the rest of the circle in open revolt against academy secretary (and chief spokesperson) Sara Danius, who has tried to defuse the situation, and a failed vote to expel a female poet whose hubby faces allegations of unpaid labour and accountancy crime, larceny, multiple serious sexual harassments and - leaking the names of several Nobel prize winners. The epistles in the press by some of the members have been really acrimonious: former secretary Horace Engdahl called Ms Danius "the worst one on her post since this society was founded in 1786" and branded other members "stupid losers" or callous persons who want to make themselves important by talking to the press about the findings of an internal inquiry (since when is ist strange that writers speak to the press about current affairs?). One of the most senior members of the academy and Engdahl's onetime mentor and faculty professor, Kjell Espmark, replied and called the article I just quoted, in a Stockholm tabloid, was "the most disgusting piece I've ever read".

Actually there are now three "permanent secretaries" of the academy fighting one another in the press, Danius (the current one), Engdahl and historian Peter Englund who served in between them. And there are huge amounts of bad blood, fulminations and suspicions as an old, hallowed institution that technically has more to do with the royal court than with moden society, risks imploding in the media limelight (and coming up against the impact of #metoo). It could be that the only viable solution will be to change out half the members of the academy and then rewrite the constitution of the society.

Things are moving fast in this story and it is possible that more people will leave (two more members had left for other reasons years ago, one of them over the Rushdie affair, but technically you can't give up your seat except by dying)


A good overview here: https://www.thelocal.se/20180410/swedish-academy-members-husband-accused-of-leaking-names-of-seven-nobel-prize-winners

[Oniya]

So, what happens to someone's 'seat' if they just leave?  Does it get filled, or does it stay vacated until that person dies?

[gaggedLouise]

So, what happens to someone's 'seat' if they just leave?  Does it get filled, or does it stay vacated until that person dies?

It stays empty. After the Rushide affair there were three empty seats after writers who had left the table, critical of the "tepid response" of the Academy to Khomeiny's fatwa. Two of them have died since, the third one has been absent for almost thirty years. That's a bizarre rule, it clearly needs to be changed so people can exit in a normal way.