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[Nadaka]

Re: gerrymandering
Algorithms already exist to partition states fairly based. The simplest uses county based population counts. But it isn't any more complex to use data points for every residence, it just takes longer.


http://news.yahoo.com/gay-honor-killing-movie-shakes-turkey-113831171.html

Yea... If you don't want to fly into a homicidal rage against homophobes, don't read the comments.

Considering there's roughly 1 honor killing per week in Istanbul alone I'm surprised that people are shocked by this. Of course, the difference could be that most victims of honor killings are female and/or Kurdish instead of 'real' people...   

I've posted here on female honor killing before, but this one is slightly different (but no more or less horrible).

[scriver]

Sweden: Requires forced sterilization of transgendered/genderqueer people if they want to transition legally.

Fucking seriously

Yep, it's shameful. Completely in opposition to what people want as well. And if the article is correct, it's done to appease the Christ Democrats (the four not-blatantly-nazi right wing parties are in a coalition together) parties, a party nobody takes serious and that probably won't stay in the Riksdag come next election - they're currently below the 4% border. It's complete and utter bullshit.

Some better stuff though; I don't usually visit reddit but today when I happened to go there this article caught my attention. Good to see a company taking some social responsibility.

[GlyphGryph]

PCP: It will make you tear off your clothes and attack the cops by beating them with their own severed arms, as you bleed out from multiple gunshot wounds. It really is the only thing that we shouldn't legalize under any circumstances.

It's a dissassociative, hallucinogen, neurotoxin and mood destabilizer all wrapped into one. Mind you, even then that sort of stuff usually requires large amounts of the drug - smaller doses are much safer. Since dosing is pretty much completely unknown when purchased illegally, that's a clear issue as well.

But honestly, I don't know why people touch that shit.

[Frumple]

Some better stuff though; I don't usually visit reddit but today when I happened to go there this article caught my attention. Good to see a company taking some social responsibility.

Nrgh, M$ is one of the folks working with private prisons in the US, though. Which is to say supporting outright slavery and helping to steal better-than-minimum-wage jobs from the unincarcerated in the process.

Though I guess "some" is technically accurate, bleh.

[ECrownofFire]

Transgender rights in Massachusetts.

[ChairmanPoo]

500 hundred Mossos, the Catalonian regional police,  have blockaded a major street in protest against the salary cuts they are undergoing
As a reference, these guys are the same people who violently repressed the protesters of the 15M movement (simmilar to OWS) six months ago, with several of them gloating in social media about it

Funny how situations can change all of a sudden, right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEianPdvx8Q


Edit: even more funny: a Mosso made a comment in that news item, complaining about how, when doctors, teachers, and public workers had went to the streets to protest against their salary cuts, they had gotten wide popular support. He "doesn't understand why the Mossos aren't getting that same support". LOL.

I'm kind of hoping the goverment unleashes the Civil Guard (which, despite the name, is a military police corps) on them. Just so that they a new perspective on the subject of police brutality.

[Truean]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/broke-sick-lonely-stanford-heads-122429951.html

"The Free Market without regulations."

And they're all saying the government should've done more before this. My my, didn't they say smaller government is better? Except of course when it's your own personal ass on the line.... Good luck getting your life savings back if you invested with this guy.Regulations = good.

[Montague]

I'm really suprised people are still surpised when people do barbaric religiously-motivated things in Muslim majority countries.

Their culture and belief system is not even remotely similar to western values. They are similarly shocked and awed by the way we do things here.

[alway]

I'm really suprised people are still surpised when people do barbaric religiously-motivated things in Muslim majority countries.

Their culture and belief system is not even remotely similar to western values. They are similarly shocked and awed by the way we do things here.

You were fine up until you got to the part about Muslim countries. Don't think for a moment similarly brutal things do not occur due to other religions in the backwaters of the world.
Modern day Christian witch hunts in Africa, for example, in which parents murder their own children: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/575178.stm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-20-childwitch_N.htm

[Truean]

The birthers refuse to go away despite incontrovertible proof of being wrong.

Here is a crazy Georgia State Administrative Judge saying that President Obama must appear personally in a Georgia Court to defend his citizenship and provide legal authority why he shouldn't have to....

Obama's Birth certificate has been publicly available in PDF form for some time:
Here is Obama's Longform Birth Certificate  (Notice it is longer than the short form)
Here is Obama's Shortform Birth Certificate (Notice it is shorter than the long form)



Forget for a second that the case is totally moot and frivolous, as Obama has already publicly released his birth certificate. The State of Georgia has no Jurisdiction whatsoever. Obama has no ties to Georgia. Moreover, citizenship is a federal issue, not a state issue. They haven't forced the Republican nominees to issue their birth certificates to be on the ballots so either there is no state election law saying you have to (edit: release your birth cert.)  to be on the ballot or they're only enforcing it against Obama (that would be the one black guy) and everyone else gets a pass. Coincidence?

He already showed his birth certificate in both long and short form to everyone and it is now public knowledge. You can google it with minimal effort, but they don't care...? What more do they want from him, to just yell at him and waste his time?

Obama is actually more of a citizen than McCain, but let's grill Obama:
You know what the really weird part of this is? As I've said before John McCain was actually not born in the US, so Obama has a better claim to citizenship than he does. McCain was born in Panama on a US Military Base.

"McCain, having been born in the (Panama) Canal Zone, if elected would have become the first president who was born outside the current 50 states. This raised a potential legal issue, since the United States Constitution requires the president to be a natural-born citizen of the United States."

O what? Wait a minute, let's grill the black guy even after he's proven he's legit and has released all the paperwork, but nobody give the old white guy any flack at all? 

Edit: One question, what more do they want him to do that he hasn't already done?

[kaijyuu]

Even if there was a legitimate reason to have him testify, can he really be subject to a subpoena?

Not saying that "if the president does it it's not illegal," but rather, isn't he the head honcho of those who have the power to enforce it? Maybe I'm getting my government powers mixed up, but it seems to me like calling a police station and asking the sheriff to arrest himself. (not even that, because there's someone over said sheriff that could do the arresting. There's no one over the president)

[Pnx]

I believe the president has some degree of immunity, I don't know how far that extends, but I'm pretty sure it makes anything that judge can do worthless.

[Truean]

Even if there was a legitimate reason to have him testify, can he really be subject to a subpoena?

Not saying that "if the president does it it's not illegal," but rather, isn't he the head honcho of those who have the power to enforce it? Maybe I'm getting my government powers mixed up, but it seems to me like calling a police station and asking the sheriff to arrest himself. (not even that, because there's someone over said sheriff that could do the arresting. There's no one over the president)

I'll be perfectly honest with you, I'm not sure if the issue has ever come up before. You're talking about subpoenaing the freaking POTUS man.... I don't know that this has been done and it's simply not something I've ever run across.  It's entirely possible he might have sovereign immunity. {to answer Pnx's post}

Devil's advocate for a second: Procedurally, when someone is subpoenaed they can usually fight it with a "Motion to Quash," which in English is them voiding the subpoena to have no legal effect. Simply it's getting out of it. There are certain things a motion like that has to have in it. I know what it is in Ohio, but it's different from state to state. If to beat the subpoena you have to have A B C and D in your motion, and you don't have all of those things (A B C and D), then your motion to get out of the subpoena may fail for technical reasons. If that's the case then they might technically have him. The link I posted to is the judge denying Obama's Motion to Quash (court filling to get out of the subpoena).

However, I highly doubt this has legitimacy. I mean really, you're talking about DOJ lawyers working directly for the POTUS man. Those guys are usually pretty good. The thought that they would make such a rookie mistake, while possible, just .... I don't buy it. Obama can pretty much hire any lawyer in the country, do you wonder if the ones he picked are any good?

Inherent skepticism aside, I find this hard to swallow.

 

[DrPoo]

RRAAARRRGHHH WHY WONT MY BANANA OPEN PLEASE MAKE IT OPEN RAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[The Merchant Of Menace]

* The Merchant Of Menace gives DrPoo a knife.