January 27, 2015

A storm tracks 50 miles more to the east than expected and some folks get angry at the warnings and

the shut down of travel and mass transit.

Would they have preferred risking this or something worse:

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2014/01/29/rare-winter-storm-causes-wrecks-travel-gridlock-in-deep-south/

Rescue efforts are under way Wednesday after thousands of schoolchildren and hundreds of drivers in the Deep South spent the night stranded at schools and along ice-covered highways following a rare winter storm that brought freezing rain, snow and bitter cold to the region.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed says "a lot of people" are still stranded in their cars on the highways nearly 24 hours the storm slammed the city, but he is not sure of exactly how many people.

January 22, 2015

Breaking: Obama will not meet with Netanyahu during trip to Washington.

No link, email alert from Huffington Post.

Update: Link - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/22/obama-netanyahu_n_6524824.html?ir=Politics&utm_campaign=012215&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-politics&utm_content=FullStory&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

January 18, 2015

Cartoonist still in hiding due to al-Awlaki fatwa. Reason #325 why he got what he deserved

http://m.nydailynews.com/news/national/cartoonist-hiding-islamic-death-threat-article-1.2073298#bmb=1

The horrific massacre of Charlie Hebdo staff is a somber reminder that an American cartoonist has fearfully been in hiding since 2010.

Molly Norris, a former cartoonist with the Seattle Weekly, vanished on advice of the FBI after Islamic militant Anwar al-Awlaki put her on a hit list for creating “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”

“She had to completely change her identity, disappear from her work,” Larry Kelley, the founder of the Free Molly Norris Foundation, told KOMO-TV this week.
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(More at above link)

January 16, 2015

If we can have gun exceptions in GD, we should be able to have religion exceptions.

Religion and whether it should be subjected to satire is about as hot a topic as can be. It should be an exception for a week or two.

I am saying this because I saw Nance's OP on the subject was locked and I think others have been locked too.

January 15, 2015

Children's rights ombudsman in anti-LGBT Russia says "No sex ed, read Tolstoy instead!"

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-will-never-introduce-sex-education-in-schools-children-s-ombudsman/512222.html

You don't need sex education when you have Russian literary giants Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky to enlighten you on the murky realities of the bedroom.

This, at least, appears to be the view of Russia's children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, who said on Monday that the country would not introduce sex education in schools because it contradicts Russia's moral norms and traditions.

"I am often asked: When will you have sex education? I say: Never," Astakhov snapped at a meeting with Russian parents, Interfax news agency reported.
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Astakhov gave his own recipe for teaching teenagers about sex last year, when he said Russian literature offered a goldmine of information on the subject.

“Children need to read more, it has everything on love and relationship of the sexes,” Astakhov told Rossia-24 television.
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(More at above link)

January 12, 2015

South Dakota Same Sex Marriage Ban Struck down

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/12/south-dakota-gay-marriage_n_6458402.html

A judge ruled South Dakota's gay marriage ban unconstitutional on Monday.

U.S. District Court Judge Karen E. Schreier wrote that the plaintiffs in the case "have a fundamental right to marry."

"South Dakota law deprives them of that right solely because they are same-sex couples and without sufficient justification," Schreier wrote.

The decision is stayed pending a possible appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

January 4, 2015

Russian citizens now have to fear being tagged in the wrong Social Media post

Putin, in my humble opinion, is now officially more repressive than was Nikita Kruschev. Even Kruschev allowed fairly significant criticism of the regime and system from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who published "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (Оди́н день Ива́на Дени́совича Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha) with permission from Kruschev and his government. Now, being tagged in the wrong article or video on Facebook, Twitter or VKontakte which makes it appear that one supports criticism of Putin's regime results in arrest or other repression in Russia.

http://www.sptimes.ru/story/41558

THE PERILS OF BEING TAGGED ON SOCIAL MEDIA IN RUSSIA

The Russian government's excessive control over social media made international headlines last week. The state media oversight agency, at the request of prosecutors, forced the popular social network Facebook to block a support page for a Russian opposition leader and prominent anti-corruption activist, Alexei Navalny, who is on trial in a case he has called politically motivated.

But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Many social media users are finding themselves in trouble with the Russian authorities for joining groups, getting tagged, and sharing content on social media sites.

Who among us has not been tagged in an unflattering photo or an offensive post? It might lead us to wonder why we took that group picture after midnight or raise some eyebrows at work. It might also make us regret the evaporation of privacy. But it should not lead to legal trouble with the authorities. Yet this is precisely what happened to a woman in Perm, Russia.

In September, Yevgeniya Vychigina was prosecuted and fined for being tagged by a friend in a so-called "extremist" video on the Russian social media site VKontakte. Featuring interviews with self-styled "partisans" who attacked police officers, the video was undeniably controversial. Yet Vychigina was no partisan. She was neither in the video nor supported the video's message.

Her friend simply wanted her to watch it, and she claims to have accepted the tag without watching the video. After she accepted the video, it appeared on Vychigina's Vkontakte page, leading a court to fine her for "disseminating extremist materials." The case reveals the absurd and alarming scope of Internet censorship in Russia.
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(More at above link)