Post a Political News Story

sometimesdee wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Given that the American average is only like 2-3 grades higher, I don't see why this is as big a deal as the fact that our average reading level is below high school. >.<

The average American isn't college-educated.

Indeed. It makes the college part of college athalete a kind of kubuki theatre they have to go through to hit the field. It's a shame.

sometimesdee wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Given that the American average is only like 2-3 grades higher, I don't see why this is as big a deal as the fact that our average reading level is below high school. >.<

The average American isn't college-educated.

But the average American IS educated through high school, and we haven't even broke into that yet.

I guess it's just not surprising to me that the amount of crap we see high schools exposed for doing (Helloooooooooo Stubenville) for their high school athletes, where very LITTLE in terms of money is on the line... that we would see something that much different when NCAA money is on the line.

I think some of you might be overestimating the intelligence of the average non-athele college student. I've had to grade the garbage they turn in.

Idiocracy, like 1984, was supposed to be a warning, not a manual.

Malor wrote:

Idiocracy, like 1984, was supposed to be a warning, not a manual.

Oh, I thought of it as more like a critique of where we were already headed.

Demosthenes wrote:
Malor wrote:

Idiocracy, like 1984, was supposed to be a warning, not a manual.

Oh, I thought of it as more like a critique of where we were already headed.

Since when were we under the impression that colleges were for education?

Malor wrote:

Idiocracy, like 1984, was supposed to be a warning, not a manual.

I thought it was a documentary that fell through a space-time rift.

sometimesdee wrote:
Malor wrote:

Idiocracy, like 1984, was supposed to be a warning, not a manual.

I thought it was a documentary that fell through a space-time rift.

IMAGE(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/idiocracy.png)

For some fun, try looking up the origin of the name "Baphomet". It's clear the statue was designed to embarrass the government of Oklahoma, in it's attempt to establish a state religion.

On a different note, 106 retired New York City policemen and firemen who claimed Social Security disability payments from 9/11 were discovered by the Police Department to be frauds, and are being prosecuted for their abuses. Yes; one of the most notorious police departments in a very large American city is actually prosecuting it's own. Surely that's newsworthy.

Robear wrote:

It's clear the statue was designed to embarrass the government of Oklahoma, in it's attempt to establish a state religion.

As were the submissions for statues the state got from PETA, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and a Hindu group.

When you allow one group to display their religious beliefs on state property you have to allow all groups to display their religious beliefs on state property.

Or you do the sensible thing and allow no one to display their beliefs.

Woman ejected from moving LAPD car says cop was sexually assaulting her (David Ferguson, The Raw Story, 2014-01-11)

The nightmare began when she and two male friends were waiting for a cab at 2:00 a.m. outside a restaurant in Los Angeles. The trio, Nguyen said, had been drinking.

A squad car pulled up to the curb and officers handcuffed her and bundled her into the back seat, saying she was being arrested for public intoxication. The car pulled away from the curb without either of Nguyen’s companions.

According to Nguyen’s deposition, one officer remained in the back seat of the squad car. He fondled her chest and yanked her head around by the ears before pulling up her skirt and trying to force her legs open.

It was then, she said, that the door behind her abruptly swung open and she was thrown from the vehicle.

Does Free Speech Mean That Women Are Obliged To Endure Harassment? (Amanda Marcotte, The Raw Story, 2014-01-13)

That is the fundamental question behind a case that the Supreme Court will be hearing about “buffer zones” in front of reproductive health clinics.
The state’s attorney general, Martha Coakley, who is the lead defendant in the suit, said the 35-foot buffer zone created by the 2007 law was a necessary response to an ugly history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994.

“This law is access balanced with speech balanced with public safety,” Ms. Coakley said. “It has worked extremely well.”

She added that there was every reason to think the law was constitutional in light of a 2000 decision from the Supreme Court upholding a similar Colorado law. “Nothing has changed except the court,” Ms. Coakley said.

The plantiffs in the lawsuit are arguing that their free speech rights entitle them to get in someone’s face and harass them. There’s a lot of tap-dancing around the issue, both in terms of minimizing what anti-choice harassers do at clinics and by trying to equate consensual interactions with non-consensual interactions. They’re doing this first by putting a couple of elderly women at the front of the case and hoping to exploit sexist, patronizing stereotypes about how old women are “harmless” to sell the case. They’re also trying to make it seem like an abortion clinic is simply a platform to “debate” the issue between various sides, instead of a medical center where some people are there to help the patients and some people are there to hurt them.

Hypatian wrote:

Does Free Speech Mean That Women Are Obliged To Endure Harassment? (Amanda Marcotte, The Raw Story, 2014-01-13)

That is the fundamental question behind a case that the Supreme Court will be hearing about “buffer zones” in front of reproductive health clinics.
The state’s attorney general, Martha Coakley, who is the lead defendant in the suit, said the 35-foot buffer zone created by the 2007 law was a necessary response to an ugly history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994.

“This law is access balanced with speech balanced with public safety,” Ms. Coakley said. “It has worked extremely well.”

She added that there was every reason to think the law was constitutional in light of a 2000 decision from the Supreme Court upholding a similar Colorado law. “Nothing has changed except the court,” Ms. Coakley said.

The plantiffs in the lawsuit are arguing that their free speech rights entitle them to get in someone’s face and harass them. There’s a lot of tap-dancing around the issue, both in terms of minimizing what anti-choice harassers do at clinics and by trying to equate consensual interactions with non-consensual interactions. They’re doing this first by putting a couple of elderly women at the front of the case and hoping to exploit sexist, patronizing stereotypes about how old women are “harmless” to sell the case. They’re also trying to make it seem like an abortion clinic is simply a platform to “debate” the issue between various sides, instead of a medical center where some people are there to help the patients and some people are there to hurt them.

If I have to get my 4th Amendment rights violated in the interest of public safety at every DUI checkpoint then the plaintiffs can stand back 35 feet, also in the interest of public safety.

The Real Victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse (Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, Slate, 2014-01-07)

Their release may also finally mark the end to one of the strangest, widest-reaching, and most damaging moral panics in America’s history: the satanic ritual abuse panic of the 1980s and 1990s.

“That was literally a witch hunt,” said Keith Hampton, pro-bono lawyer for the Kellers. “We say ‘witch hunt’ in this figurative way, but that was a modern-day literal witch hunt. They really were after people who they thought were worshipping at the feet of the Dark Lord.”

So what the hell happened?

Gary Gygax and a generation of D&D nerds.

IMAGE(http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D%26D/2.gif)

Blackleaf no!!!!

Tenebrous wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D%26D/2.gif)

The whole panthlet is here. Somehow my D&D days in the 90's did not have so many women. The game must have gone down hill or it was just me being ugly .

I'm betting both. I would know..I can smell one of my own.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D%26D/2.gif)

The whole panthlet is here. Somehow my D&D days in the 90's did not have so many women. The game must have gone down hill or it was just me being ugly .

The same site has an account of a recovering vampire, a tract showing the evils of Halloween which claims human sacrifice is making a comeback (whoever is makeing these things hates Halloween, there are multiple tracts putting it down), a tract that warns of Islamic Infiltration, an Anti-Cathoic sceed called the Death Cookie, and the real story of the Salem Witch that shoehorns a racist bit in it (the witchcraft was taught by a slave).

I used to find these all over in Chicago back in 89/90. They were like street art.

I got one in the mid 90's, but it was the premarital sex/Beware the Older Lothario one, which was hysterical in its own way.

I got one in 2005 about Harry Potter.

Anyway, cross-post from the Horrible News Story catch-all:

A retired cop shoots and kills a man for texting his 3-year-old daughter in a theater before the movie started.

Nocco said his detectives considered if this could be a 'stand your ground' case but decided the criteria did not apply.

IMAGE(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6ybj73zEc1rt4il3o1_500.gif)

WSJ Lobotomy Files; forgotten soldiers

wow :/

the Veterans Administration performed the brain-altering operation on former servicemen it diagnosed as depressives, psychotics and schizophrenics, and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals

Uber car attacked in Paris. Fortunately the doors were locked and the driver managed to escape.

The Fullerton cops who beat Kelly Thomas to death while he cried for help have been found not guilty.

Dr.Ghastly wrote:
Tenebrous wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.escapeplan.org/chick/D%26D/2.gif)

The whole panthlet is here. Somehow my D&D days in the 90's did not have so many women. The game must have gone down hill or it was just me being ugly .

I'm betting both. I would know..I can smell one of my own.

I love Jack Chick...his tracts are so awesome. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

IMAGE(http://www.fmh-child.org/FourHorsemen/FourHorsemenCover.jpg)

edited to include the cover of my favorite comic from his publishing house