What's in the news?

[Flower]

Unfortunately, douchebags are everywhere.

[Lustful Bride]

Will be interesting to see where this goes. Though I'm not surprised, given Chris Brown's reputation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/woman-says-she-was-sexually-assaulted-at-chris-brown’s-home-in-civil-lawsuit/ar-AAx27Or?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[RedRose]

Racism exists in Canada, for sure.

OT: I'll preface this saying I hesitated posting it.
It is HORRIBLE, I wish I didn't read it, and I'll say TW even though I don't believe in them.
But it needs to be published, especially since, I, a French teacher, only discovered this tragedy today. The reason why it goes viral just now is that, while it isn't written in this article, when the emergency doctor was called he said she was faking (for attention, a big French concept) and the hospital was just as useless until...

A cultural component is that French people will often say the bullied person or child needs to toughen up, "adapt" (they love this word), and also that it's "not for the victim" to leave so they will stick through horrible things hoping the school will "react" and intervene...
http://anti-bullying.over-blog.fr/article-the-story-of-noelanie-sene-58673701.html

[gaggedLouise]

In a surprising win, Malaysian politician Mahathir Mohamad, 92 years old, is elected prime minister, breaking the hold on power that the former dominating party has held securely ever cince independence sixty years ago. Kudos to him! :)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44063675

Strange slip: for at least thirty minutes early this morning, the "headline news ribbon" at the bottom of the screen on BBC World News contained this amazing line: "Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia is elected new world leader"

I guess somebody cropped out "new PM and the oldest". :)

[Shores]

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/trump-kim-summit-to-take-place-in-singapore-jun-12-10222378

Damn it. Please no. Meet in Mongolia.

[Lustful Bride]

Fungus killing off Amphibians in stunning numbers.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ground-zero-of-amphibian-apocalypse-finally-found/ar-AAx4OIG?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[Deamonbane]

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/11/us/california-school-shots-fired/index.html

1 injured in shooting at Highland High School in Palmdale, California; suspect in custody

[Lustful Bride]

Can we get this man declared a saint?  He deserves it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/he-donated-blood-every-week-for-60-years-and-saved-the-lives-of-24-million-babies/ar-AAx7Okx?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[Lustful Bride]

WHO sends experimental vaccine to the Congo to try help containment of the resurgent Ebola virus.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-pioneering-vaccine-is-being-sent-to-congo-in-hopes-of-containing-a-new-ebola-outbreak/ar-AAx88Na?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[Lustful Bride]

Its sad and scary how easily people can be manipulated and given marching orders by a few skilled instigators on the internet, and how easily racial tensions get enflamed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we-read-every-one-of-the-3517-facebook-ads-bought-by-russians-their-dominant-strategy-sowing-racial-discord/ar-AAx8B4g?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[gaggedLouise]

North Korea promise to dismantle their main nuclear weapons testing range, even before the meeting with Trump. Western journalists will be invited to watch the destruction of the site live (from observation towers nearby?).

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/12/asia/north-korea-missile-test-pledge-intl/index.html

This is going to be very interesting - even if some of he range is said to have been damaged already by a misfired test last year.

[Missy]

North Korea promise to dismantle their main nuclear weapons testing range, even before the meeting with Trump. Western journalists will be invited to watch the destruction of the site live (from observation towers nearby?).

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/12/asia/north-korea-missile-test-pledge-intl/index.html

This is going to be very interesting - even if some of he range is said to have been damaged already by a misfired test last year.

They've got what they wanted, the range is useless to them now, this is little more than a meaningless token gesture intended to make themselves look good.

Now if they were to say, open their borders and start treating their people reasonably, then that would be a meaningful action.

[Lustful Bride]

They've got what they wanted, the range is useless to them now, this is little more than a meaningless token gesture intended to make themselves look good.

Now if they were to say, open their borders and start treating their people reasonably, then that would be a meaningful action.

+1

They could start by dismantling the slave labor camps they force anyone even suspected of dissidence into.

These gestures go a long way, but until real change happens they still need to be looked at with caution and suspicion.

[Lustful Bride]

Hawaii Volcano likely to get worse.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hawaii-braces-for-major-volcano-eruption-prepares-for-possible-evacuation-of-2000/ar-AAx9GKN?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

I hope everything is alright for the people of the island and that they can recover from this.

[Orval Wintermute]

Well that was strange...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44097050
during the Eurovision Song Contest some random man invaded the stage during the UK's entry, grabbed the mic from the singer and apparently shouting "Nazis of the UK media, we demand freedom." The singer SuRie just kept going and didn't accept the offer to perform again, so she deserves to win for just for keeping a cool head while some whack job ran on to the stage.

[gaggedLouise]

Well that was strange...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44097050
during the Eurovision Song Contest some random man invaded the stage during the UK's entry, grabbed the mic from the singer and apparently shouting "Nazis of the UK media, we demand freedom." The singer SuRie just kept going and didn't accept the offer to perform again, so she deserves to win for just for keeping a cool head while some whack job ran on to the stage.

I missed out on seeing that one - saw some of the early acts of the contest - but I'm guessing that the stagecrasher could have been thinking of the UK parliament voting down a proposed public inquiry into how the media cooperate with police sources, the so-called Leveson 2  inquiry. The original Leveson was triggered by the UK phone hacking scandal relating to Rupert Murdoch's media empire and the News of the World daily (a paper that was shelved due to all the bad press and troubling crimes by its editors).

More about Leveson 2 here: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/01/leveson-2-explained-what-was-it-meant-to-achieve

[gaggedLouise]

..and for the record, Sweden has been trailing Austria for some time now as #2 in the Eurovision vote.  :)

[Orval Wintermute]

..and for the record, Sweden has been trailing Austria for some time now as #2 in the Eurovision vote.  :)

Sod that... the Israeli enter was a steaming pile but somehow still won. The only explanation I have involves Mossad polluting water supplies with LSD, because no sane,sober person voted for that.

[Lustful Bride]

President Macron responds to Knife attack in Paris.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/macron-firm-after-paris-stabbing-claimed-by-is/ar-AAxaE01?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

[gaggedLouise]

Sod that... the Israeli enter was a steaming pile but somehow still won. The only explanation I have involves Mossad polluting water supplies with LSD, because no sane,sober person voted for that.

Yeah, that song doesn't make any sense to me either. It's rather irritating and without a shadow of natural groove or inviting vocal lines. There were many songs with much more of an apealing groove, or a sense of fun and muscial talent.

But strangely enough, the Israeli act was pushed to the top by the "viewers' vote" part, so many ordinary people who phoned in their votes must have liked it. Or was there foul play again?

[Nachtmahr]

Well that was strange...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44097050
during the Eurovision Song Contest some random man invaded the stage during the UK's entry, grabbed the mic from the singer and apparently shouting "Nazis of the UK media, we demand freedom." The singer SuRie just kept going and didn't accept the offer to perform again, so she deserves to win for just for keeping a cool head while some whack job ran on to the stage.

It's definitely an unfortunate turn of events, but I wouldn't say that she deserved to win just for that. In my opinion, disregarding the, uh.. "activist"? I'd still argue that the number was fairly underwhelming.

I mean, I'm not bitter about Denmark's 9th place or anything, just saying. >.>

To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of any of the numbers, but I expected Cyprus to win purely on the back of it being an easy club-hit. Cool with the young kids and all of that.

Yeah, that song doesn't make any sense to me either. It's rather irritating and without a shadow of natural groove or inviting vocal lines. There were many songs with much more of an apealing groove, or a sense of fun and muscial talent.

But strangely enough, the Israeli act was pushed to the top by the "viewers' vote" part, so many ordinary people who phoned in their votes must have liked it. Or was there foul play again?

In my opinion there were several numbers that pushed the; "Don't get political!"-line this year, but this one was probably the weirdest and, quite frankly, dumbest of them all. I really didn't like it. Maybe I just didn't get it, but I don't see how it would've won without riding the "#MeToo"-movement bandwagon. If anything, I found her performance to be terribly disrespectful and immature in the way it handled something so controversial and divisive. I also don't think this is really the right time for a Eurovision to be held in Israel.

Oh well! I guess we'll have to see where this goes. But I predict that this will lead to a fair amount of controversy in the days to come.

[Eye of Horus]

It's definitely an unfortunate turn of events, but I wouldn't say that she deserved to win just for that. In my opinion, disregarding the, uh.. "activist"? I'd still argue that the number was fairly underwhelming.

Yeah, SuRie stole her look from Annie Lennox and her lyrics from Avicii and (probably a sign of how cynical I’ve become since Brexit is now a black hole that affects pretty much all public discourse here) “we can make it through the storm!” sounded like some kind of asinine Brexit rallying cry.

She didn’t deserve to get her mic stolen though. Has anyone been able to shed light on what issue the stage invader was actually trying to highlight?

I mean, I'm not bitter about Denmark's 9th place or anything, just saying. >.>

I really liked the Viking boy band. But my personal favourite was Hungary’s heavy metal song.

Yeah, that song doesn't make any sense to me either. It's rather irritating and without a shadow of natural groove or inviting vocal lines. There were many songs with much more of an apealing groove, or a sense of fun and muscial talent.

I think that since every country sends a good singer, the popular vote is going to be won by the weirder stuff that sticks in your mind. And a kooky electropop chicken song is certainly distinctive (that said, I thought the Moldovan comedy skit was pretty good as well).

[RedRose]

Can we get this man declared a saint?  He deserves it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/he-donated-blood-every-week-for-60-years-and-saved-the-lives-of-24-million-babies/ar-AAx7Okx?ocid=spartandhp&ffid=gz

He does! and yay, ebola vaccine! Since that time I was caught in (another) epidemics in Asia, I'm kinda phobic of all those...

OT: Is it sad that I don't stress or feel surprised anymore?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5721939/French-police-shoot-knifeman-launched-attack-bystanders-Paris.html

[Lustful Bride]

He does! and yay, ebola vaccine! Since that time I was caught in (another) epidemics in Asia, I'm kinda phobic of all those...

OT: Is it sad that I don't stress or feel surprised anymore?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5721939/French-police-shoot-knifeman-launched-attack-bystanders-Paris.html

Not really, it just seems like the theories some have been shopping around that Terror Attacks have the opposite effect of what they are intended to do is becoming more valid.

[HairyHeretic]

I'd say that's value. I grew up in Northern Ireland, and terrorism was a 'normal' part of my life. You took precautions where you could, but you didn't let the possibility of something happening stop you from getting on with life.