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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Former Massey Energy chief Don Blankenship was convicted on Thursday of a misdemeanor conspiracy charge related to a coalmine explosion in West Virginia that killed 29 men. The conviction could carry a sentence of up to one year in prison.
A 12-member jury in the U.S. District Court in Charleston found the former industry executive guilty of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety standards.
He was acquitted of two other more serious charges in connection to the 2010 blast, including defrauding mine regulators and lying to financial regulators and investors about safety.
Blankenship was at one time one of the richest and most powerful men in Appalachia, and Massey Energy was once worth $2.6 billion.
Observers had doubted that his trial would ever take place — and Blankenship's lawyers were able to delay and change the location of trial dates since he was indicted last year.
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On December 04 2015 03:40 xDaunt wrote:
Yeah, it's pretty much confirmed that this is Muslim terrorism. Probably not ISIS-related (I'd think that we'd have seen an ISIS press release by now if it was), but still terrorism. The most disturbing aspect of all of this is that Farook was basically a home-grown terrorist, having been here for at least a decade, attending an American high school and university. Wife, baby, home, stable job --- none of it mattered in the end.
Open enrollment in the cause is the new (or old done new) means of warfare. You too can be ISIS.
Easy corruption of westernized Muslims is the new argument against distancing Terror from Islam. I mean poster child wife, kid, western education, un-impoverished monotheist killing for Allah. Both had ostensibly wonderful reasons for living.
For those of you that read the middle fluff and minutiae, this is also a sickness in Western culture that doesn't instill anything worth living or worth dying for. Freedom is passe, family is increasingly marginalized, internet causes are unfulfilling. I'm glad it's some fraction of a percent right now that will pile up bodies. I can't see it going anywhere but up as the older generation dies out and the newer takes their stead.
It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean, you name it.
-John Kerry
+ Show Spoiler [Workplace Violence] +
Just because today has been all about buzz about the choice of target and Islamic terrorism deniers. I live in California, maybe in a month I'm in that area two days working. All I can hear is that it had to be spur-of-the-moment rage, one incident, one guilty individual inside the office that pissed off the group. Really?
Meanwhile in the repudiation of the see something-say something campaign:
A man who has been working in the area said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.
“We sat around lunch thinking, ‘What were they doing around the neighborhood?'” he said. “We’d see them leave where they’re raiding the apartment.” CBS
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United States44203 Posts
Do you have any idea how often people see Middle Eastern people? Whenever anything unexpected happens people like to say "yeah, I was just thinking that would happen but I told myself that it wouldn't really" because it makes them feel important and a part of the narrative. If you see something genuinely suspicious nobody in their right mind would hold back from making a call about it because they didn't want to seem racist. Hell, if you're that concerned about what people think, call anonymously. But there isn't anyone going "better to let those people die than be considered a racist until the police identify that I was right". Instead what you have is people after the fact claiming that they totally knew.
When you see a bunch of foreigners the irrational part of your brain that is bad at statistics and good at fear says "what if they're out to get me". And that's the job of that part of your brain, even though sometimes it makes you check you turned off the gas a billion times. And then the rational part of your brain says "This happens a million times a day and the vast majority of them are harmless interactions and I'm far more likely to die in a car accident. I'm noticing this because they're brown but I am aware that not all brown people are a threat. With no information other than that there are some people and they are brown I will dismiss this." And that's exactly how it is meant to work. You're not not reporting it because you've decided not to seem racist. You're not reporting it because you've correctly identified that there is no information that indicates a threat here. Nobody anywhere sees a brown (or white, or any person honestly) loading their truck with fertilizer and the big book of bombmaking and doesn't say anything out of fear of being called a racist. That's not a thing that happens. But everyone everywhere has "what if" thoughts about everything all the time and does nothing because our rational brains understand statistics and can distinguish between paranoia and reality.
Law enforcement have better things to do than to raid every Sikh temple and every particularly brown Bar Mitzvah whenever anyone gets scared. It is a good thing that the guy was capable of working out the difference between irrational and rational fear. We're far more likely to catch terrorists if people call when they know something real rather than clog the system with "I saw browns and they were speaking foreign". After literally any event you can find a guy who said he thought it would happen but nobody ever takes the time to speak to the millions of guys who thought things would happen and those things didn't happen. It's bad statistics, you need a control group.
He either saw something actionable in which case he is a moron of colossal proportions or he saw nothing out of the ordinary in which case there is absolutely nothing remarkable about his story. It's about as interesting as someone claiming they totally knew what the lottery numbers would be ahead of time but chose not to buy a ticket but then when he saw the numbers afterwards he thought "wow, that's exactly what I thought it would be". Either he knew what the numbers would be, in which case why the hell didn't he buy a ticket, or he didn't, in which case why the hell are you talking to him.
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I don't think those "half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area" are all that likely to have had anything to do with a married couple deciding to shoot up their office party complete with assault weapons and tactical gear after storming out in a huff. I guess we'll see (though given that they're dead I'm not sure we really will).
I mean, you shouldn't report your Middle Eastern coworkers for showing up at your office party. And no amount of calling the police on Middle Eastern men in the area would have prevented this event.
I do think it's fascinating how some people's response to this is "see! Islam is evil!" when my response is something more like "see! It might not be a great idea to allow people to legally purchase assault weapons and tactical gear!"
+ Show Spoiler +I would also add that their stockpile of weaponry makes me think they might be survivalists with a different color skin than we're used to seeing in the U.S. that are scared of the government coming to take their guns away but that might blow some people's minds
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I assume "busybody", if googletranslate serves me well.
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The first US school district to face civil rights penalties for refusing to grant full locker room access to a transgender student has accepted a compromise with the US Education Department, an eleventh-hour move to avoid an unprecedented legal battle and the loss of millions in federal funds.
The compromise concludes a two-year clash over the right of a transgender student in Palatine, Illinois, to have unfettered access to her high school’s girls locker room. The student, who was assigned male at birth and identifies as female, plays on girls’ sports teams, and the school identifies her as female in its record systems. But she has only been permitted to use the girls’ locker room if she changes separately from other students. In 2013, represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, the student filed a civil rights complaint.
Under the new agreement outlined on Wednesday, the student will use private, but not curtained, areas of the locker room. The board of township high school district 211 approved the compromise just hours before time expired to reach a solution with the Education Department’s office of civil rights. The Education Department will now decide whether to sign off on the district’s plan.
District officials voted to approve the reforms during a contentious Wednesday night board meeting. Parents present at the public gathering yelled “shame on you” and “gutless cowards” throughout the vote, the Chicago Tribune reports. Several adults who made public comments referred to the student as a boy. “God does not make mistakes. God made man and then God made woman,” one said. Several high schoolers spoke at the meeting, all in support of their fellow student.
Up to this point, district 211 was poised to be the first school district in the country to face civil rights penalties for refusing to accommodate a transgender student. The Education Department has sent warnings to other schools with policies singling out transgender students. But those schools reformed their policies long before regulators dangled the threat of sanctions.
Source
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On December 04 2015 09:13 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +The first US school district to face civil rights penalties for refusing to grant full locker room access to a transgender student has accepted a compromise with the US Education Department, an eleventh-hour move to avoid an unprecedented legal battle and the loss of millions in federal funds.
The compromise concludes a two-year clash over the right of a transgender student in Palatine, Illinois, to have unfettered access to her high school’s girls locker room. The student, who was assigned male at birth and identifies as female, plays on girls’ sports teams, and the school identifies her as female in its record systems. But she has only been permitted to use the girls’ locker room if she changes separately from other students. In 2013, represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, the student filed a civil rights complaint.
Under the new agreement outlined on Wednesday, the student will use private, but not curtained, areas of the locker room. The board of township high school district 211 approved the compromise just hours before time expired to reach a solution with the Education Department’s office of civil rights. The Education Department will now decide whether to sign off on the district’s plan.
District officials voted to approve the reforms during a contentious Wednesday night board meeting. Parents present at the public gathering yelled “shame on you” and “gutless cowards” throughout the vote, the Chicago Tribune reports. Several adults who made public comments referred to the student as a boy. “God does not make mistakes. God made man and then God made woman,” one said. Several high schoolers spoke at the meeting, all in support of their fellow student.
Up to this point, district 211 was poised to be the first school district in the country to face civil rights penalties for refusing to accommodate a transgender student. The Education Department has sent warnings to other schools with policies singling out transgender students. But those schools reformed their policies long before regulators dangled the threat of sanctions. Source
I don't even understand what the protesters wanted the school to do if not this. This seems like the ideal endgame for them. Are the curtains that important? Or did they want the school to force her to change in the men's locker room against her will? Quarantine her in a special trans locker room maybe? Or did they want the school to declare her a he?
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Or did they want the school to force her to change in the men's locker room against her will?
“God does not make mistakes. God made man and then God made woman,” one said.
I assume pretty much, yes. Not gonna go and comment on what i think of people like that, since it has loads to do with religion, but.. yeah.
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The sports thing is always very iffy to me. The hormone treatments are not really proven in this area, i.e. reducing athletic performance to "what you should be". There is Fallon Fox who was a rubbish fighter as a man, but is ludicrous in the female leagues.
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On December 04 2015 09:18 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2015 09:13 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:The first US school district to face civil rights penalties for refusing to grant full locker room access to a transgender student has accepted a compromise with the US Education Department, an eleventh-hour move to avoid an unprecedented legal battle and the loss of millions in federal funds.
The compromise concludes a two-year clash over the right of a transgender student in Palatine, Illinois, to have unfettered access to her high school’s girls locker room. The student, who was assigned male at birth and identifies as female, plays on girls’ sports teams, and the school identifies her as female in its record systems. But she has only been permitted to use the girls’ locker room if she changes separately from other students. In 2013, represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, the student filed a civil rights complaint.
Under the new agreement outlined on Wednesday, the student will use private, but not curtained, areas of the locker room. The board of township high school district 211 approved the compromise just hours before time expired to reach a solution with the Education Department’s office of civil rights. The Education Department will now decide whether to sign off on the district’s plan.
District officials voted to approve the reforms during a contentious Wednesday night board meeting. Parents present at the public gathering yelled “shame on you” and “gutless cowards” throughout the vote, the Chicago Tribune reports. Several adults who made public comments referred to the student as a boy. “God does not make mistakes. God made man and then God made woman,” one said. Several high schoolers spoke at the meeting, all in support of their fellow student.
Up to this point, district 211 was poised to be the first school district in the country to face civil rights penalties for refusing to accommodate a transgender student. The Education Department has sent warnings to other schools with policies singling out transgender students. But those schools reformed their policies long before regulators dangled the threat of sanctions. Source I don't even understand what the protesters wanted the school to do if not this. This seems like the ideal endgame for them. Are the curtains that important? Or did they want the school to force her to change in the men's locker room against her will? Quarantine her in a special trans locker room maybe? Or did they want the school to declare her a he?
Many of those things and more. Schools are the place where parents declare they don't want their children exposed to things they do not believe in, like transgender students or evolution. And the school has to push back because at some point their students will leave this little closeted community and go out into the world where evolution is a thing and transgender people have civil rights and shit.
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On December 04 2015 09:30 cLutZ wrote:
The sports thing is always very iffy to me. The hormone treatments are not really proven in this area, i.e. reducing athletic performance to "what you should be". There is Fallon Fox who was a rubbish fighter as a man, but is ludicrous in the female leagues.
Really depends when she started hormone treatment. She definitely wouldn't have any advantages if she started at puberty.
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"WE DEMAND that UCSB provide an additional stipend to campus police officers to patrol campus grounds and the Isla Vista community in an effort to more effectively discover and subsequently root out and punish any and all forms of speech that are deemed offensive to students of Europe@n descent, including but not limited to: "Cracker," "Stupid white people"; "OMG, you are so white"; "Where are you from?"; "No, I mean like what part of Europe?"; "Wow, I bet you get sunburned really easily!"; "you wouldn't understand because you're white"; "don't eat this; it's too spicy for you"; "honky (and any variants thereof)"; and so forth. "
Also I giggled at every Europe@n
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Having transgender people compete in sports is pretty much bullshit. Someone born a male is just physically different from someone born a female. Especially in combat sports where they are fighting against people born female and who are physically weaker.
Our school system as a whole is pretty fucked, I was just extremely fortunate to have gone to good schools, but most of the people I know from the area and the young people in my family now are not as fortunate. My Aunt and Uncle removed my cousin from public schools because he has a learning disability and the school wasn't very accommodating, they placed him in a private school. They said they were better at allowing him to learn at his pace but then he comes home saying he was taught today that homosexuality is evil and that homosexuals go to hell. So now they are home schooling him.
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On December 04 2015 08:01 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2015 03:40 xDaunt wrote:
Yeah, it's pretty much confirmed that this is Muslim terrorism. Probably not ISIS-related (I'd think that we'd have seen an ISIS press release by now if it was), but still terrorism. The most disturbing aspect of all of this is that Farook was basically a home-grown terrorist, having been here for at least a decade, attending an American high school and university. Wife, baby, home, stable job --- none of it mattered in the end. Open enrollment in the cause is the new (or old done new) means of warfare. You too can be ISIS. Easy corruption of westernized Muslims is the new argument against distancing Terror from Islam. I mean poster child wife, kid, western education, un-impoverished monotheist killing for Allah. Both had ostensibly wonderful reasons for living. For those of you that read the middle fluff and minutiae, this is also a sickness in Western culture that doesn't instill anything worth living or worth dying for. Freedom is passe, family is increasingly marginalized, internet causes are unfulfilling. I'm glad it's some fraction of a percent right now that will pile up bodies. I can't see it going anywhere but up as the older generation dies out and the newer takes their stead. Show nested quote +It has nothing to do with Islam; it has everything to do with criminality, with terror, with abuse, with psychopathism – I mean, you name it.
-John Kerry + Show Spoiler [Workplace Violence] +Meanwhile in the repudiation of the see something-say something campaign:Show nested quote +A man who has been working in the area said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.
“We sat around lunch thinking, ‘What were they doing around the neighborhood?'” he said. “We’d see them leave where they’re raiding the apartment.” CBS
"Great" job and wife and family and house. What else is there to live for? What else could anyone want?
Freedom to accept whatever wage you are offered is passe. Freedom to work as long and as hard as you want as long as you are in your desk 40 hours a week is passe. Freedom to uproot yourself from whatever community you belonged to so that you can move wherever employers are hiring is passe.
Pardon me if I gag a little while you lament the fraying of "family values" and general disillusionment with the American Dream.
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WASHINGTON -- The 14 remaining Republican presidential candidates gathered in Washington on Thursday at the Republican Jewish Coalition's headquarters with a clear goal: win the hearts of wealthy donors, namely casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who is reserving his immense financial support for the candidate who can prove he or she will do the most to protect Israel.
But instead of joining the other candidates in jockeying over whose pro-Israel credentials are the greatest, underdog candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) took an unusual approach. For the first 20 minutes of his remarks, he eviscerated rival candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for what he described as Cruz's alienating stance on abortion and other social issues.
“How many of you believe we’ve got a problem with young women as Republicans?” Graham asked the RJC crowd, which was largely old, white and male.
“How about abortion?” continued the anti-abortion senator. “I believe that you can be pro-life and win an election. But if you are going to tell a woman who has been raped she has to carry the child of a rapist, you’re losing most Americans,” he said to a cheering room. "Good luck with that.”
“Not the speech you thought you were going to hear?” Graham asked the audience. “[It's] not the speech I thought I was going to give."
Graham’s impromptu comments were a surprising choice at an event that is typically dominated by a discussion of security issues. But he was rewarded with applause from potential donors.
It’s likely that the South Carolina senator’s move was a calculated risk. A 2012 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 77 percent of Jewish Republican voters think abortion should be legal in “all or most cases.” (The number rises to 95 percent among all Democrats.)
Source
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HONOLULU — A long-awaited Hawaii Supreme Court ruling Wednesday invalidating a construction permit for what would be one of the world's largest telescopes represents a major setback for the $1.4 billion project on a mountain astronomers tout for having perfect star-gazing conditions.
The ruling is a victory for protesters who say they are fighting the project to curb development, preserve Native Hawaiian culture and protect the Big Island's Mauna Kea, a mountain many consider sacred.
The court ruled that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have issued a permit for the telescope before a hearings officer reviewed a petition by a group challenging the project's approval.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/hawaii-supreme-court-voids-telescope-construction-permit-n473236
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On December 04 2015 11:46 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:Show nested quote +HONOLULU — A long-awaited Hawaii Supreme Court ruling Wednesday invalidating a construction permit for what would be one of the world's largest telescopes represents a major setback for the $1.4 billion project on a mountain astronomers tout for having perfect star-gazing conditions.
The ruling is a victory for protesters who say they are fighting the project to curb development, preserve Native Hawaiian culture and protect the Big Island's Mauna Kea, a mountain many consider sacred.
The court ruled that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have issued a permit for the telescope before a hearings officer reviewed a petition by a group challenging the project's approval.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/hawaii-supreme-court-voids-telescope-construction-permit-n473236
Doesn't this just open the door for a perfunctory "hearing" and immediate reissueing of the permit? I don't know enough about this to have any idea whether the telescope is a good or a bad thing here, but this ruling seems like a pyrrhic victory unless they have very compelling evidence to present in that hearing.
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On December 04 2015 19:16 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2015 11:46 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:HONOLULU — A long-awaited Hawaii Supreme Court ruling Wednesday invalidating a construction permit for what would be one of the world's largest telescopes represents a major setback for the $1.4 billion project on a mountain astronomers tout for having perfect star-gazing conditions.
The ruling is a victory for protesters who say they are fighting the project to curb development, preserve Native Hawaiian culture and protect the Big Island's Mauna Kea, a mountain many consider sacred.
The court ruled that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have issued a permit for the telescope before a hearings officer reviewed a petition by a group challenging the project's approval.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/hawaii-supreme-court-voids-telescope-construction-permit-n473236 Doesn't this just open the door for a perfunctory "hearing" and immediate reissueing of the permit? I don't know enough about this to have any idea whether the telescope is a good or a bad thing here, but this ruling seems like a pyrrhic victory unless they have very compelling evidence to present in that hearing.
The evidence could a large portion of people don't want the telescope or there are problems with its construction. Regardless, the public hearing should have been held for such a large project. But the state should avoid it ending up in litigation oblivion like the Cape Wind Project in MA.
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On December 04 2015 22:54 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2015 19:16 Acrofales wrote:On December 04 2015 11:46 Karis Vas Ryaar wrote:HONOLULU — A long-awaited Hawaii Supreme Court ruling Wednesday invalidating a construction permit for what would be one of the world's largest telescopes represents a major setback for the $1.4 billion project on a mountain astronomers tout for having perfect star-gazing conditions.
The ruling is a victory for protesters who say they are fighting the project to curb development, preserve Native Hawaiian culture and protect the Big Island's Mauna Kea, a mountain many consider sacred.
The court ruled that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources should not have issued a permit for the telescope before a hearings officer reviewed a petition by a group challenging the project's approval.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/hawaii-supreme-court-voids-telescope-construction-permit-n473236 Doesn't this just open the door for a perfunctory "hearing" and immediate reissueing of the permit? I don't know enough about this to have any idea whether the telescope is a good or a bad thing here, but this ruling seems like a pyrrhic victory unless they have very compelling evidence to present in that hearing. The evidence could a large portion of people don't want the telescope or there are problems with its construction. Regardless, the public hearing should have been held for such a large project. But the state should avoid it ending up in litigation oblivion like the Cape Wind Project in MA.
I live in Hawai'i and these people are buffoons. If you know anything of Native Hawai'ian history is that before the arrival of Cook, most of them gave up their "old ways" of Kapu especially of Mauna Kea. Native culture before the arrival of Cook was a primitive authoritarianism where women were treated like they are today in Saudi Arabia, extremely hierarchical and authoritarian, and very violent with wars being commonplace. Of course these people don't acknowledge these things, especially that by the time Cook had arrived, the Kapu system was waning. I don't see them wanting to bring back ali'i nui, or anything else. They're the same people who ruined our inter-island ferry system. They're just extreme luddites. and are using Kapu as an excuse. I know actual Native nationalists, and they don't like these people either.
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EPT
