What's in the News? 2.0

[Lustful Bride]

China may have plans to use military force to quell Hong Kong protests.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/world/asia/china-military-hong-kong-taiwan-protests.html

My heart and prayers are with the people of Hong Kong.

[Kitteredge]

China may have plans to use military force to quell Hong Kong protests.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/world/asia/china-military-hong-kong-taiwan-protests.html

My heart and prayers are with the people of Hong Kong.

This is basically end game, I'd say. With the U.S. so incredibly weak, there is no counter balance in the region.

[Beorning]

Continuing with saddening news, Rutger Hauer passed away:

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/rutger-hauer-dead-dies-blade-runner-co-star-1203278050/

[Blythe]

RIP Mr Hauer 

[Sara Nilsson]

Yeah he was a great actor. That scene always makes me cry.

And Ladyhawk always makes me smile.

[Skynet]

There are times when I wonder if Turning Points USA is a troll group or not. POTUS gave a speech at one of their events, and someone projected the Russian Eagle holding a set of golf clubs in one talon in lieu of the American Eagle.

Last year they had the great idea to have a member dress like a baby in public to protest the concept of safe spaces. And yet they're good enough for President to treat as a legitimate organization.

[Tolvo]

https://www.wprost.pl/zycie/10236720/rammstein-z-teczowa-flaga-na-koncercie-w-chorzowie-a-wszystko-w-pontonie.html

In response to the assaults upon Pride Parades in Poland at a Polish show Rammstein while surfing the crowd were waving Pride Flags. Ther have been numerous snapshots on twitter and people posting them on social media. This does track with Rammstein who are pretty left wing and progressive, usually they like to offend people and the people they like to offend are close minded and hateful people. Great examples would be Mann Gegen Mann(Which is about men having sex with each other and is a pun) and Deutschland(Which is a brutal look at the history of Germany and the horrors of its past featuring a black woman starring as Germania). Though I admit Rammstein is one of my favorite bands so I am a bit biased to talk them up. I figured I'd show the examples though content warning for Mann Gegen Mann has sex and nudity, and Deutschland covers genuinely much of Germany's worst events in history so content warnings for the Holocaust, crusades, for dismemberment, gore, surgery, it is very grotesque.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EVKy35L7MM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc

[Regina Minx]

https://www.wprost.pl/zycie/10236720/rammstein-z-teczowa-flaga-na-koncercie-w-chorzowie-a-wszystko-w-pontonie.html

In response to the assaults upon Pride Parades in Poland at a Polish show Rammstein while surfing the crowd were waving Pride Flags. Ther have been numerous snapshots on twitter and people posting them on social media. This does track with Rammstein who are pretty left wing and progressive, usually they like to offend people and the people they like to offend are close minded and hateful people. Great examples would be Mann Gegen Mann(Which is about men having sex with each other and is a pun) and Deutschland(Which is a brutal look at the history of Germany and the horrors of its past featuring a black woman starring as Germania). Though I admit Rammstein is one of my favorite bands so I am a bit biased to talk them up. I figured I'd show the examples though content warning for Mann Gegen Mann has sex and nudity, and Deutschland covers genuinely much of Germany's worst events in history so content warnings for the Holocaust, crusades, for dismemberment, gore, surgery, it is very grotesque.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EVKy35L7MM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc

I saw Rammstein perform in Washington DC at the 9:30 Club. They had a great show.

[Kitteredge]

There are times when I wonder if Turning Points USA is a troll group or not. POTUS gave a speech at one of their events, and someone projected the Russian Eagle holding a set of golf clubs in one talon in lieu of the American Eagle.

Last year they had the great idea to have a member dress like a baby in public to protest the concept of safe spaces. And yet they're good enough for President to treat as a legitimate organization.

They definitely aren't a troll group. Or, at least one that is secretly anti-Trump. They are alt-right. It's just that their tactics are so blitheringly idiotic it's hard to believe anyone would support them. But that's where we are. The alt-right trades in dumbness as a form of insulating irony that winds up sucking disaffected viewers in who are ripe for grooming. (The world is a dumb place, might as well be dumb in the service of the right-wing establishment.) Other examples include the Proud Boys, who are amazing at this stupidity -- their leader crammed a dildo up his ass on a streaming show in order to stick it to gay people. Recently, the subreddit r/clownworld was taken down -- they posted frog-clown memes supporting Holocausts and genocide generally, all 'jokingly.'

The spoof Presidential Seal was either a mistake, the organizers throwing something up lazily and hastily, or deliberate by a disaffected graphics person they hired. Either way, it shows how inattentive, lax, and entitled they are.

Unfortunately, though, TP-USA (yes, toilet paper USA) is speaking the language that appeals to future members. See also someone like PewDiePie.

[gaggedLouise]

This Thursday, an asteroid made a near miss at our planet, passing 72.000 km above the earth's surface, between us and the moon, at about 24 km (16 miles) per hour. Size somewhere between 60 and 130 m, so if it had impacted, the effect would have been as bad as the 1908 Tunguska explosion or even worse.  The asteroid was named, kinda fittingly, 2019 OK. :)

The space rock came at us from the direction of the sun, which meant it was detected only days before the passage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_OK (the yield estimate of "around thirty times Hiroshima" is most likely in the low range, I would say a thousand times Hiroshima or more, since the size of the object was roughly in the same range as the 1908 object).

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

[gaggedLouise]

A passenger dressed up as a clown causes shock, a large drunken brawl (with passengers using furniture and plates as weapons) and general mayhem on board a cruise ship off the coast of Norway. 

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/28/uk/cruise-ship-brawl-uk-gbr-scli-intl/index.html

ITV's "Good Morning Britain" correspondent Richard Gaisford was on board the ship when the fight broke out. In a series of messages on Twitter, he said that heavy amounts of alcohol contributed to violence that started on the 16th floor restaurant on Thursday, when a passenger appeared dressed as a clown.

The passenger's attire apparently upset some of the guests, Gaisford said.

"One witness, part of a group involved in the trouble, explained to staff that things kicked off when another passenger appeared dressed as a clown," Gaisford said. "This upset one of their party because they'd specifically booked a cruise with no fancy dress. It led to a violent confrontation."

Some people must have been very drunk - or were they also arguing about Brexit? (the cruise had started in Southampton).

[Oniya]

A clown suit is considered fancy dress?  This now increases my options for dinner parties.

[clonkertink]

A clown suit is considered fancy dress?  This now increases my options for dinner parties.

A "fancy dress" party, at least in the UK, is what we would call a costume party. Usually with a specific theme.

[Oniya]

I've become too used to having a sarcasm emote on Twitch.  lol

[Lustful Bride]

New mosquito borne disease is taking advantage of the heatwave this year.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/eastern-equine-encephalitis-deadly-mosquito-borne-virus-detected-in-florida/ar-AAEYWl0?ocid=spartanntp

[Sara Nilsson]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/julia-isabel-amparo-medina-immigration-border_n_5c96aa60e4b0a6329e177fbb?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjZWJvb2suY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMWC9r1aWASD9Bw6OmULGtwBXobrmvBUBXUlPBlmc5rSIpf8iXuS_XlCcjIE92I1KkBTldmm8OVGRgQedklX0zJg-447QUsiRT5xBNUFWlFGuKs7pRAv350oAw0B44DXihwoIEO0_n9MvSfvEk7dL08XUW0XIprclAlfDzfv_UVY

A 9-year-old American citizen on her way to school was apprehended by U.S. immigration officials and detained for some 32 hours before she was released back to her family. Federal officials said later that the girl, who was carrying a U.S. passport card with her, gave “inconsistent information.”

Imagine a 9 year old giving inconsistent information, shocker. Also.. she was a citizen!!!! and they held her for 32 hours.

[Tolvo]

They've been doing that more and more, another example being when they held three children hostage at an airport in Chicago and our fucking governor had to come in along with a member of congress and the fucking embassy to stop them. Or when they held an 18 year old US citizen for 3 weeks then lied before congress about it(Which that's gonna get interesting). I've mostly been posting that stuff in the ICE thread.

[Oniya]

At least 3 dead, 11 injured in shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.  Scene still active as of an hour ago.

Shots fired outside a Florida synagogue, one person injured. 

[Beorning]

https://www.wprost.pl/zycie/10236720/rammstein-z-teczowa-flaga-na-koncercie-w-chorzowie-a-wszystko-w-pontonie.html

In response to the assaults upon Pride Parades in Poland at a Polish show Rammstein while surfing the crowd were waving Pride Flags. Ther have been numerous snapshots on twitter and people posting them on social media. This does track with Rammstein who are pretty left wing and progressive, usually they like to offend people and the people they like to offend are close minded and hateful people. Great examples would be Mann Gegen Mann(Which is about men having sex with each other and is a pun) and Deutschland(Which is a brutal look at the history of Germany and the horrors of its past featuring a black woman starring as Germania). Though I admit Rammstein is one of my favorite bands so I am a bit biased to talk them up. I figured I'd show the examples though content warning for Mann Gegen Mann has sex and nudity, and Deutschland covers genuinely much of Germany's worst events in history so content warnings for the Holocaust, crusades, for dismemberment, gore, surgery, it is very grotesque.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EVKy35L7MM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc

Rammstein is good! Also, great that the band decided to show some support for the LGBT rights in Poland.

Meanwhile, it seems to be that people here just don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. As I mentioned before, in the last few years Polish Catholic church was very vocal about how immoral "LGBT ideology" is, they kept warning about "the deluge of deviancy" etc. And yet, even after what happened in Białystok, some people just don't see the connection! Yes, they oppose the violence - but when you point out to them that our bishops make all these accusations against LGBT people, they don't see this as anything wrong! Because "the bishops don't tell anyone to beat people up". So, if we get situations like people throwing rocks at a LGBT parade, it's not the Church's fault! There's absolute no reason to connect the bishop's bellowings against "deviants" to people being violent against the LGBT society... *cries*

Also, last weekend there was a march in Białystok that protested the anti-LGBT violence. And guess what? The biggest opposition party *declined* to participate. Because their leaders are afraid that if they supported that march, then the current government would use it to smear them as immoral supporters of LGBT child molesters etc...

This country is sick 

[Lustful Bride]

A massive wildfire is eating up Siberia.

More than 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) were in the grip of fires on Monday, mainly in the vast regions of Yakutia in the north and Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk in Siberia, authorities said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/weather/siberia-forest-fires-spark-potential-disaster-for-arctic/ar-AAF3At4?ocid=spartanntp

[gaggedLouise]

A massive wildfire is eating up Siberia.

More than 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) were in the grip of fires on Monday, mainly in the vast regions of Yakutia in the north and Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk in Siberia, authorities said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/weather/siberia-forest-fires-spark-potential-disaster-for-arctic/ar-AAF3At4?ocid=spartanntp

They have more forest than you can imagine. :)

*notes to self to tell Dasha*

[Tolvo]

https://earther.gizmodo.com/satellite-images-show-vast-swaths-of-the-arctic-on-fire-1836500468

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/arctic-experiencing-its-worst-wildfire-season-record-180972749/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/26/unprecedented-more-than-100-wildfires-burning-in-the-arctic-in-worst-ever-season

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/23/satellite-images-ignite-alarm-over-unprecedented-scale-and-planet-heating-emissions

https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-circle-wildfires-climate-change-greenland-alaska-siberia-photographs-a9015851.html

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/11072019/arctic-wildfires-alaska-climate-change-heat-wave-2019-university-funding

https://earther.gizmodo.com/greenland-was-on-fire-this-week-amid-unprecedented-arct-1836309604

This has been going on for a little while, it happened last year as far as I remember too though the current ones are the largest and most widespread ever recorded. Siberia and the arctics have been seeing massive wildfires. In Eastern Europe it is an additional problem since many are covered in peat that is flammable but normally does not ignite because it's too cold and wet. This has been releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and various other chemicals into the atmosphere. Highly speeding up climate change.

[Oniya]

https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/udall-pushes-for-overturn-of-citizens-united-case/

Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision - the one that determined that corporations 'were people' insofar as donations to campaigns.  News conference is ongoing - I don't have the actual bill identifier for the Senate bill.

40 Senators have already signed on, and the corresponding House bill already has 131 cosponsors.

[TheGlyphstone]

How does he expect to get it past the senate? This isn't something the GOP is going to tolerate losing the benefits of.

[Oniya]

I'll know more once I can find the actual bill, but the one in the House (that I linked to) shows bi-partisan support among the co-sponsors.  When similar legislation was introduced in the Senate previously, it was held up by filibuster. 

It's also probably significant that McConnell is currently dealing with being referred to as 'MoscowMitch' after blocking yet another bill to improve election security, literally on the same day that the Mueller hearing was revolving around Russia's ongoing attempts to influence our elections.