IronLionZion

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Gender: Do not display
Hometown: Southwestern PA
Home country: USA
Current location: Washington, DC
Member since: Mon Nov 10, 2003, 07:36 PM
Number of posts: 43,677

About Me

If an H-1b has an American accent, they are probably not an H-1b. It's race, not citizenship. Americans are more diverse than you think. Millions of US citizens don't look the way you might expect. This fact is very important and will help us win elections.

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Indian police file homicide charges, arrest 9, as bridge toll passes 134

Source: Washington Post

NEW DELHI — Indian officials filed homicide charges Monday against the operators of a suspension bridge and arrested nine people after at least 134 people died when the recently renovated footbridge collapsed, sending tourists plunging into the Machchhu River in western Gujarat state.

In addition to the dead, there are still a number of people missing as of midday Monday, Ashok Yadav, a Gujarat police official, told The Washington Post. Some outlets, citing unnamed officials, reported the death toll could be higher, exceeding 140. The accident took place in Morbi, a riverside town known for its Victorian-era bridge and old town, and came amid a holiday rush. Tourists have been celebrating Diwali as well as the Gujarati New Year, which fell this year on Oct. 26.

Videos from the scene showed a crowd snapping smartphone photos from the crowded bridge on Sunday evening when it began to sway violently before collapsing. Some officials estimated up to 400 people were packed onto the bridge — far more than the safe limit — when the suspension cables buckled and the 760-foot span gave away.

Faruk Aadam Sandhi, who lives in Morbi and lost his 18-year old cousin Riyaz Rehman Bhatti in the accident, arrived at the scene 10 minutes after the bridge collapsed. Some visitors were still clinging onto the crumpled bridge barely above the waterline, crying out for rescue. Others crawled along its railings back to shore. More were lost in the water.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/31/india-bridge-gujarat-morbi-investigation/

Infrastructure is important. We should do it right.

Gift Link (no paywall): https://wapo.st/3sGPXDX

Posted by IronLionZion | Mon Oct 31, 2022, 11:24 AM (4 replies)

David Pumpkins Returns - SNL

Posted by IronLionZion | Sun Oct 30, 2022, 11:47 AM (8 replies)

Racist tweets quickly surface after Musk closes Twitter deal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/28/musk-twitter-racist-posts/

An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network, raising fears that his pledge of unrestricted free speech could fuel a new wave of online hate.

The flood of racist posts was among the most prominent signs of how Twitter had changed in the first hours of Musk’s ownership. But those who were expecting even bigger changes, such as the restoration of former president Donald Trump’s account and the layoff of hundreds if not thousands of Twitter employees, will have to wait longer.

Musk on Friday tweeted that he would make “no major content decisions or account reinstatements” until the convening of a new “moderation council.” He promised that the council would have “widely diverse viewpoints” but offered no other information about who would be on it, how its members would be selected, what authority it would have or whether its views would be binding on the company.

Musk’s social media rival Mark Zuckerberg, chief of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, also turned to an outside group — known as the Oversight Board — to pass judgment on Facebook’s social media moderation actions after years of public criticism of its decisions. But whether Musk has a similar arrangement in mind was unknown.

Paul M. Barrett, the deputy director of New York University’s Center for Business and Human Rights, said such a council under Musk would face even more skepticism because of Musk’s “notoriously erratic and imperious personality.”

Gift link, no paywall:
https://wapo.st/3DHawq6

Deplorables gonna be deplorable

Posted by IronLionZion | Sat Oct 29, 2022, 07:51 AM (8 replies)

Rishi Sunak Selected UK Prime Minister & U.S. Test Scores Drop The Daily Show

Posted by IronLionZion | Tue Oct 25, 2022, 07:57 AM (0 replies)

Diwali is having a mainstream moment in the US

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/23/business/diwali-products-marketing-us-mainstream-cec/index.html

Diwali seems to be everywhere this year.

More and more major brands are recognizing the festival of lights, running ad campaigns and stocking products related to the holiday in the US. South Asian Americans who celebrate Diwali can now pick up fireworks from Costco, greeting cards from Hallmark and party decorations from Target.

Diwali, also known as Deepavali, is one of the most important festivals in Hinduism. The holiday also has significance for Sikhs and Jains, and is celebrated not just in India, but in Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries with South Asian diasporas.

The growing acknowledgment of the holiday in the US is a marked shift for many first- and second-generation South Asian Americans who grew up celebrating the festival at home but rarely saw it acknowledged outside of their communities, says Soni Satpathy-Singh, who runs the meal delivery review website Meal Matchmaker.

Eight years ago, Satpathy-Singh wrote a piece for Brown Girl Magazine lamenting that Diwali hadn’t caught the attention of mass market retailers, despite the Indian American population’s growing numbers and high incomes. Today, the landscape looks much different.

“It’s interesting to see how much has developed over the last eight years just in terms of things you can buy to celebrate Diwali,” she told CNN. “Growing up, we would buy diyas from India or [use] things that my parents already had at home. There was no venturing out to buy stuff for a party, partly because it wasn’t even available.”

My family is Christian but we like any excuse to celebrate something.

Posted by IronLionZion | Mon Oct 24, 2022, 02:11 PM (1 replies)