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Katashi_itto

Katashi_itto's Journal
Katashi_itto's Journal
April 19, 2015

Man Kills Himself Holding 'Tax The 1%' in Front of Capitol—and Nobody Hears About It

When 64-year-old Vietnam vet John Constantino burned himself to death on the DC Mall in October of 2013 I couldn’t stop thinking about this man and his act. Who was he? What compelled him? What was his life’s story? What were his political views, his life’s station, etc? I wanted to write a blog then but didn’t.

Then Saturday happened.

On the kind of beautiful sunny day when hope springs eternal, an older gentleman wearing a backpack walked over by the fountain in front of the Capitol Building in Washington DC. And a sign. According to people who saw him, it said simply: “Tax The 1%”

The police captain on the scene who addressed the news cameras eerily avoided the question, mumbling that it was “something about social justice,” as if he were annoyed to address any specifics. So we know nothing else. Not even a name was given. A dog run over by car might have gotten more respect and news coverage than this unknown man.

What kind of a society have we become? A man decides to commit suicide as an act of political courage, and is dismissed by both the police and media as unworthy of further examination?

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/man-kills-himself-holding-tax-1-front-capitol-and-nobody-hears-about-it

April 19, 2015

How the bitter men of the MRA movement ruin things for other guys



One of the weirder developments of the online publishing era is the way a loose confederation of embittered anti-feminists has formed, across social media and the blogging world, under the banner of “men’s rights activism.” MRA is an attempt to reframe old-fashioned misogyny as if it’s some kind of human rights movement, much like organized racism has periodically tried to reframe itself as a “white pride” movement. MRAs, who spend most of their “activist” energy roaming around the Internet, harassing feminists and pushing misogynist myths about false accusers and gold-diggers, are clearly bad for women. But while they claim to speak for men, their rhetoric is just as bad for men as it is for women. Here are some of the reasons why.

1. They sow paranoia about false accusations. One of biggest hobbyhorses of MRAs is the idea that many rape or domestic violence accusations are false. On their blogs, forums, social media, and in any unmoderated comment section under a story about rape, you will see swarms of MRAs claiming that men are in grave danger of having women they sleep with decide to falsely accuse them out of spite.

This is simply false. The FBI estimates that only 2-8% of rape reports are false. Many, possibly most of those never result in an accusation, but instead are women claiming to have been assaulted by strangers. It’s so rare that even when MRAs get lucky and a rape story ends up being fishy or untrue (such as the recent Rolling Stone story about UVA) it never fits the model they propose. (For instance, the “Jackie” in the UVA story never accused anyone specifically and no men were ever under any legal suspicion.)

It’s clear that the purpose of spreading this myth is to sow doubts about actual rapes that have happened, since most rapists do attack someone they know and claim it was consensual after the fact. But it’s possible that young or naïve men could see all this fear-mongering online and start to legitimately believe they are in grave danger of being falsely accused, a belief that might make them fearful of women and hesitant to date with confidence. But the odds of it happening are infinitesimal and exponentially lower than the odds a woman faces of getting raped.

More
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/04/how-the-bitter-men-of-the-mra-movement-ruin-things-for-other-guys/
April 13, 2015

Police issued guidelines on how to behave while trapped in a wicker man


NEW police guidelines include how to behave sensitively when being sacrificed to a Pagan deity.

The 300-page guidebook has been updated to recognise the religious sensitivities of those who worship nature by using fire.

A Police Federation spokesman said: “During stressful situations there is a tendency to use hurtful or insensitive language, especially if you’re trapped in a massive, highly flammable corn dolly while an entire village gambols around it with lit branches singing folk songs about ‘ye offerings’.

“Naturally this situation is a long way from best practise in terms of health and safety, but the officer should refrain from using ideologically inappropriate language while begging for egress.

“For example, the phrase ‘Jesus Christ, help me!’, clearly presupposes that a Christian god would be willing to intervene and somehow overpower the Pagan god.

“Likewise ‘you’re all insane!’ infers that religion is some sort of mental illness and opens up a Dawkins-esque Pandora’s Box.”

According to the guidelines, the correct procedure is to request flame-retardant garments from the appointed fire warden, who is usually the one carrying a pig’s bladder and called ‘Simple Tom’.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/police-issued-guidelines-on-how-to-behave-while-trapped-in-a-wicker-man-201011023214
April 4, 2015

Melting Ice Caps Expose Hundreds Of Secret Arctic Lairs

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An ice shelf off the coast of Greenland in 2006 (Before) and last week (After).

ZACKENBERG RESEARCH STATION, GREENLAND—Claiming it to be one of the most dramatic and visible signs of climate change to date, researchers said Monday that receding polar ice caps have revealed nearly 200 clandestine lairs once buried deep beneath hundreds of feet of Arctic ice.

"We always assumed there would be some secret lairs here and there, but the sheer number now being exposed is indeed troubling," said noted climatologist Anders Lorenzen, who claimed that the Arctic ice caps have shrunk at the alarming rate of 41,000 square miles per year. "In August alone we discovered 44 mad scientist laboratories, three highly classified military compounds, and seven reanimated and very confused cavemen. That's more than twice the number we had found in the previous three decades combined."

"This is no longer conjecture," Lorenzen added. "This is a full-blown crisis."

According to oceanographers, the Arctic Circle has been devastated by the effects of global warming in recent years, threatening hundreds of men and women who use the frozen tundra as a place to conduct bizarre experiments in human-animal grafting, carry out massive government cover-ups, or simply as a hidden headquarters from which to battle the forces of evil and fight crime.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/melting-ice-caps-expose-hundreds-of-secret-arctic,2806/
April 1, 2015

Antarctica hits highest temp recorded: 63 F

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Antarctica may have experienced its warmest day ever recorded on Tuesday, with the temperature reading of 63.5°F, reports The Weather Underground.

Tuesday's record high temperature follows another high reading of 63.3°F set just the day before. Until this week's heat wave, the highest-known recorded temperature on the continent was 62.6°F back in 1976.

The Antarctic Peninsula where the readings were made "is one of the fastest warming spots on Earth," reports The Weather Undergound. The website cites studies from 2012 that show the world is warming at a quickening pace.

Five nations and territories have tied or hit all-time high temperature records so far this year.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102541217

Profile Information

Gender: Male
Current location: New Orleans
Member since: Wed Jul 20, 2011, 10:14 AM
Number of posts: 10,175

About Katashi_itto

Well lets see, stuff about me... Veteran, Navy Admiral's Staff 2nd Fleet. I practice Kendo as my primary martial art. I am also a ranking Iaidoist (Japanese Sword). Working on a Master's in International Forensics' Accounting. Filmmaker, originally commercials, now working on my first feature comedy film, should be released Summer or Fall of 2016.
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