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Catholic Nuns Get Their Own Abuse Scandal
"The secret not yet told": Women describe alleged abuse by nuns
"It's not abuse, it's education."
2018: The Final Chapter
It's that time of year again. The time of year when everyone and their dog waxes nostalgic about all the shit nobody cares about from the year past, and stupidly predicts the next year in the grim knowledge that when the next New Year comes along, nobody will remember
that the dumbass predicted a bunch of foolish shit that turned out to be complete and utter balderdash. I might as well, too. Just like I did last year (yes, a lot of this was pasted from last year's final chapter).
There are even fewer articles this year than last year, as most of what I was doing was feverishly getting my cookbook ready to publish.
Some of these links go to /., S/N, mcgrewbooks.com, or mcgrew.info.
As usual, first: the yearly index:
Journals:
Articles:
Scince Fiction:
Last years' stupid predictions (and more):
Last year I said I'd publish Voyage to Earth and Other Stories, and I was right,
I predicted that Trump wouldn't be worse than Bush, this is still undetermined. He hasn't started any shooting wars (yet; if he doesn't he'll be the first Republican President since Ford not to start one) and he hasn't gotten our country attacked (yet, he's trying awful hard). He hasn't ruined the economy... yet. I do predict a stock market bubble that will crash the economy when it pops. I hope I'm wrong; so far I am.
I'm also predicting that I won't have a book ready in 2019. I haven't even got a start on one.
I'll also hang on to most of last year's predictions;
Someone will die. Maybe you, maybe me. Not necessarily anybody I know... we can only hope.
SETI will find no sign of intelligent life. Not even on Earth.
The Pirate Party won't make inroads in the US. I hope I'm wrong about that one.
US politicians will continue to be wholly owned by the corporations.
I'll still be a nerd.
Technophobic fashionista jocks will troll slashdot (but not S/N).
Slashdot will be rife with dupes.
Many Slashdot FPs will be poorly edited.
Slashdot still won't have fixed its patented text mangler (I haven't been there for a while, did they fix it?).
Microsoft will continue sucking
Happy New Year! Ready for another trip around the sun?
Women's March Too White
Women's March in California canceled over concerns it would be 'overwhelmingly white'
A California Women’s March was canceled because of concerns that its participants have been “overwhelmingly white,” the march’s organizers said.
Organizers announced Friday that the Women’s March would not take place in Eureka, in Humboldt County, California, on Jan. 19 as previously planned due to issues of representation.
“Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community,” a post on the march’s Facebook page read. “Instead of pushing forward with crucial voices absent, the organizing team will take time for more outreach.”
Eat your own. #Unity
Vacation Musings
On my way back from some morning fishing, a question occurred to me and I thought I'd see if any of you know. Does the government shutdown mean the game wardens are off work? Wondering strictly out of concern for the wellbeing of those fine, upstanding individuals.
Soylent's Fiction: 2018
“But you said I can’t make it look like this is real,” I said. Okay, maybe I whined it. I was confused, as I almost always am talking to this guy.
“It’s all right,” Rority replied. “Nobody will believe it, anyway. Well, except Noboty.”
“Huh?”
“My butler Noboty. He’s a robot made out of nobots.”
“Oh yeah, you mentioned him...”
“Yeah, you’ll write about it. You got it all wrong, but not bad for a protohuman.”
“And you’re really taking me to the future?” I asked, incredulous.
“Well,” he said, giving me a sly look... or what I interpreted as one. “Kind of. It’s nobotic.”
“So it won’t be real?”
Rority took a hit off of his stratodoober, laughed uproariously, and things got weird.
As I write this, it’s February 2000. Five years ago I foresaw some really big problems, because they had designed all the world’s databases with only two characters in the date fields, as if it was going to be the twentieth century forever. Luckily, so did everybody else who knew how computers work, and governments and industry industriously got to work and fixed it.
I got a huge raise a few years ago, and I understand the recession is over for everybody else, too, since Clinton was elected. We’re buying a house this year.
I logged on to the internet to work on my web site, the Springfield Fragfest. The new 56K modem was screeching as Rority appeared, as weird as ever. It looks like smoke or fog assembling into him, and then becomes solid.
Rority says I can’t let anyone see this until at least late 2018, which will be the Illinois bicentennial.
I should mention what nobots are, I guess. Nobots are microscopic robots, each having a computer orders of magnitude more powerful than all the computing power that exists today, and they’re all networked together. They can assemble with other nobots to make solid things. Rority says that in his time, everything but food and drink is made of nobots.
Rority is from ten million years in the future and looks like an Area 51 space alien. Most of what he does looks like magic to me, but I’ve read Clarke. Ten million years is a long time. But time travel, and going faster than light that he says are related, seem like impossibilities to me. But I’m really primitive to him. I think he sees me as a pet.
“We need at least ten cubic meters of space to do this,” he said.
“I know just the place,” I replied. “There’s a cornfield not too far from here, and they won’t be planting for a couple of months.”
We got in my car and drove out there. I hopped the fence and Rority walked right through it like it wasn’t even there. About twenty yards in, Rority said “Okay, we’re far enough. Just a second while I... okay, here we go.”
And I thought how he shows up and walks right through things is weird! Everything turned to fog, kind of the opposite of when Rority shows up.
The fog solidified into a room. There was a desk with a computer on it, and the screen was really strange, only about an inch thick and perfectly flat. There were some strange, cylindrical light “bulbs” in the room’s lamps. Various little lights on the computer were blinking. It took a minute or so to take it all in.
I finally noticed the desk had no phone on it, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t pay much attention to the framed, backlit poster on the wall, until the image started moving, talking, and making music.
“How far into the future is this, anyway?” I asked. “Freakin’ Star Trek.”
“It’s 2018.” Right then I realized that the poster was really a television, tuned to CNN. The announcer said something about the president; Donald Trump was on the screen in front of the White House.
My jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me he’s president!”
Rority grinned and shrugged. “Okay, I won’t. But ignorance won’t change reality.”
“How in the hell...”
Rority seemed to be really enjoying himself. “This fall, back in your time, George Bush will be elected president...”
“Again? He could only serve one more term.”
“No, his son George. Despite what Clinton had warned him about Al Queda, he let his guard down and the country was attacked.”
“Who’s this Al Queda guy, some Mexican drug lord?”
“It’s an Islamic terrorist organization based in Afghanistan. They flew two jet airliners into the Twin Towers in New York, one into the Pentagon, and tried to fly one into the capitol building, but that one crashed. Actually, I made it crash.”
“What’s that got to do with Trump?”
“I’m getting to it. Anyway, Bush started an undeclared war on Afghanistan, then attacked Iraq. Despite, or rather because of his two wars, he was re-elected.
“Then toward the end of his second term, the economy crashed and crashed hard, starting what is called the ‘Great Recession’. Your historians say it was banking that caused it, but the real reason was that fuel prices more than quadrupled. It was either buy gas to get to work or pay the mortgage. The Republican, a war hero named John McCain, lost to Barack Obama, a black man.”
“But how did Trump get to be president?”
“I’m getting to it. Obama was a very good president who your historians say was history’s twelfth best. He managed to find and kill Osama Bin Laden...”
“Is that some federal bill?”
“No, he was the head of Al Queda and ordered the attack on the US. Obama also stopped the country from sliding into a full-blown depression (don’t tell anybody, but I had a hand in that, too) and managed to get a law passed that made sure everyone could get health care.”
“And Trump?”
“When Obama first ran, Trump cooked up a phony story about Obama being Muslim and not a citizen. The crazy racists bought it. Trump, the fraudster, huckster, and all around terrible protohuman kept it up. Obama ran for re-election against Mitt Romney and beat him handily; Obama was a popular president.
“Then in the 2016 election, Trump bullied all the other Republicans out of the race, and the Democrats chose Clinton’s wife.”
“Clinton’s wife?”
“Yes, she’d served two terms as a New York senator, and Obama had appointed her as Secretary of State. There were a series of scandals right before the election, and she was never very popular anyway. None the less, she won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. So Trump’s been President for almost two years. Racism was his ticket to the White House.”
“Who’s this ‘Mueller’ guy, anyway?”
“He’s investigating Trump for collusion with the Russians to steal the election, bribery, campaign finance crimes, witness intimidation...”
“Sounds worse than Nixon.”
“He is. Lets go outside so you can look around.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Because it’s necessary to keep you stupid protohumans from completely destroying your environment. If you don’t stop burning fossil fuels I’ll never be born. Not just you, everybody. And Trump seems to hate the environment.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He appointed a man who had sued the EPA many times as head of the EPA, they’re now dismantling everything the EPA has done in the last fifty years, and Trump took us out of the Paris agreement.”
“Paris agreement?”
“That was another big Obama success. He got together with all the world’s leaders to find a way to stop the global warming. Only one small, poor nation didn’t sign, and Trump pulled out of the agreement as soon as he took office. Come on, let’s go outside.” He opened the door and exited.
I followed him out into the cold. There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground. “If Trump is such a danger to the future, why did you let him win?”
“The math boys say if Clinton had won, destruction would have come even sooner.” He walked up to a really cool looking car and got in the driver’s seat. I got in the passenger seat.
“Why? She had the experience.”
“How much of your history do you know?”
“What I learned in school, about the same as most people, I guess. Why?”
“Because her government experience was a close parallel to James Buchanan’s. Buchanan was the one who started the civil war; he tried too hard to please everyone, just like Clinton. The math boys say had she won, there would have been a thermonuclear war resulting in a massive extinction event that would have dwarfed even the ‘Great Dying’.”
The car started moving and didn’t make a sound. At least, not enough for me to hear. “So I take it that Trump and Clinton both need to be out of the picture? What happens to them?”
“I can’t tell you, your knowledge would be dangerous. It will work out okay after the next recession.”
“The next recession?”
“There’s always a next recession, at least until we got past laboring for goods.”
“When will it hit?”
“I can’t tell you, you’d really screw things up for us.”
A Harley thundered past us going the opposite way. “This is sure a quiet car. I don’t recognize the brand.”
“It will be another three years before they even get started building a company. This is a Tesla Model S.”
“They must have some breakthrough mufflers.”
“It’s electric. It doesn’t need a muffler. In parts of the world, it would emit no pollution or carbon at all. The trouble is, and this is what I want you to tell people in 2018, is that here in Springfield this Tesla pollutes more than any vehicle on the road.
“Well, maybe school buses are dirtier, those things really stink. But this Tesla runs on coal.”
“Coal?”
“Its batteries are charged from the local electric grid when the car’s parked. Springfield’s biggest and most used generator is coal-fired. So here, electric cars pollute more than even diesel.”
We went as far as Ash street, and signs indicated that it was closed. Rority pointed to it. “They’re building a high-speed rail system through here. There won’t be any crossings, just underpasses. Ash will be open next Spring and they’ll close Laurel to construct its underpass.
“I wanted you to see the progress.” He turned left on Ash and left again on 5th. We drove down to the university.
“See that shiny wall?” he asked as we drove through the campus.
“Yeah, what’s it for? It looks strange.”
“It’s a solar panel. It generates electricity from sunlight.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of solar cells but have read that they’re way too expensive and inefficient to be practical.” By then he was heading south on I-55.
“They were, twenty years ago. In fifty years there won’t be many traditional electric generators, except some old hydroelectric and nuclear plants. Most houses will have solar panels on the roof, and most skyscrapers will have windmills on top.”
“You mean like in the old Dutch paintings?”
“No, these look like... well, they probably will look like a prop from a science fiction movie to you. We’ll come up on one soon... oh, over there, look.”
It kind of looked like a giant futuristic box fan mounted on a huge pole, only without the box. The blades turned slowly.
“Not much wind today,” he said. “Now we’re going three hundred years in your future; your future if you keep burning coal and oil.” It suddenly got very foggy, and Rority pulled off of the road and stopped. We had been going through a wooded area, snow still on the ground.
The fog lifted. I’d never seen it get so foggy so fast, or for it to lift so fast.
The highway was so cracked and disused and full of potholes it was hard to recognize as a road, let alone a highway. The snow was gone, and the sunlight’s angle suggested a summer day rather than winter. The trees were mostly gone, and what was left was dead and broken. Rority did a U-turn and went back north, still in the southbound lanes. It worried me.
“Aren’t you afraid of a head on crash?” I asked nervously.
He shook his head. “There’s no other traffic.” We came up on an overpass, and I understood why he’d said that—the overpass had collapsed, blocking the road. He drove up the entrance and back down the exit.
Farther down he exited on an entrance ramp and turned left on highway 104. “Where’ we goin’?” I asked.
“Back to Springfield.”
“Kind of the long way there, ain’t it?”
“The bridge over Lake Springfield is out.”
We passed through Auburn, or at least the town’s ruins. I wondered what had happened to the town? There were only a few structures still standing. There was evidence of a great many fires. He turned right on highway 4. I didn’t say anything until we reached Chatham, which was likewise in ruins.
“What the hell happened?” I was both aghast and awe-struck.
“I told you, global warming.” We crossed over a stream or something, the creaky old bridge miraculously still standing.
“Just the rising temperatures caused all this?”
“It started it. California and Florida were the worst hit in North America, but the rising seas and frequent, never before seen monster storms, destroyed most of the world’s coasts. Fires destroyed most of California. Crops failed worldwide from droughts.”
He got on highway 72 and crossed the median; highway 4 had collapsed on the interstate. We were going east in the westbound lanes. “The wars did most of the damage.”
“I thought you said it was global warming.”
“It was. Hungry people fight for food.”
When we reached the entrance from 5th street he moved onto 6th street at the entrance to a big Walmart, which wasn’t there in 2000 and now laid in ruins, like everything else. We continued north. The railroad overpass by Stanford Avenue was completely missing, with no debris on the road.
Further north, the next railroad overpass was down, debris blocking three of the four lanes. Most of the houses were completely gone, with nothing left but charred rubble.
I asked “Hungry people did all this?”
“Hungry nations did all this. Wars were fought, more wars were fought, nuclear arms were unleashed, and this is the result. No more people, dogs, cats, birds... in fact, there’s very little still alive. Cockroaches, Tardigrades, very few other species.
“The math boys say that in about another five hundred million years there would be new land species, even evolving to sentience later, but we’ll be gone. By the time the few surviving species become sentient, no trace of humanity will remain at all.”
He turned left on Capitol, and there it was: the Illinois State Capitol building, charred and blackened, but still standing. He headed back to the cornfield.
“So how am I supposed to stop all this?” I asked, frantic. This was about the worst thing I’d ever seen.
“Your little web site?”
“What about it?”
“It’s going to get you started writing. You already wrote the art thing and the thing about the cat. By 2018 you’ll have written and published half a dozen books. When we get back, write this down, put it away, and post it on the internet no earlier than Halloween 2018.”
By then we had reached the cornfield, now only dirt, and got out of the Tesla. There was no fence to hop. The fog rose and fell again, and the fence, snow and stalk stumps were back, the stumps flattened to the ground in a square, ten yards to a side.
“I’ll see you,” he said. “Go on home and write this down. But do not under any circumstances let anyone see it or even hear about it until after Halloween 2018.”
“But how will that stop the destruction?”
“Look, I don’t have the math to explain it to you even if you could understand it. But you’ve heard of the ‘butterfly effect’, where the flapping of a butterfly’s wings affects the weather, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with this?”
“You’re the butterfly that prevents the hurricane!”
He hit his stratodoober again, laughed uproariously, and vanished in the now familiar cloud of smoke.
I sure hope I’m flapping my wings right.
email to Amazon
So, I bought a Kindle book a couple days ago. Tom Kratman, A Pillar of Fire by Night. Amazon most likely keeps tabs on your progress through your books. To the, it may appear that I'm out of reading material, because I've read everything I've bought from them. So, right on cue, they send me some recommendations. Michelle Obama? Seriously? There is pretty much NOTHING in my reading history that would suggest that I might read her book.
Runaway1956
6:45 AM (1 minute ago)
to Amazon.com
Why the HELL would your recommend Michelle Obama's book to me? Your algorithms are pretty screwed up sometimes. No, I don't want to read Michelle's book, nor Clinton's, nor any other liberal/progressive book. I MAY POSSIBLY read a Democrat's book, IF AND ONLY IF that Democrat is not part of the anti-American far-left progressive establishment.
Clean up your act/algorithm. I know that your boss, What'sisName is a rabid leftie, and he probably ordered this idiot algorithm to push Obama's book, but it makes you all look stupid.Runaway1956
No, I really don't mind insulting the rich and the powerful. If they forward my criticism to High Lord What'sisName, I'd be happy to say the same to his face.
Failed Circumcision Kills Toddler in Italy
Italy circumcision kills toddler, with one man charged
A two-year-old boy has died from blood loss following a failed circumcision at a migrant centre in Italy. The boy's twin brother also underwent the procedure in Rome's north-western suburb of Monterondo and is recovering in hospital.
A 66-year-old man has been charged with murder, according to Italian media. Some 5,000 circumcisions are performed in Italy each year but more than a third are carried out illegally, according to health charity Amsi.
Cultural non-profit group Arci said the procedures had taken place at a refugee centre it runs with the local council in Monterondo. "It is a tragedy that leaves us speechless," Arci said in a statement on Facebook, adding that it would take civil action once those responsible for the child's death had been determined by police.
The two boys, who have not been named, were born in Italy in 2017 to a Nigerian mother who has five other children in Nigeria. Local media say the mother had asked for the operations in respect for Nigeria's Islamic traditions, despite being Catholic herself.
The medical credentials of the doctor are reportedly being questioned by police. Ansa said the man arrested was an American citizen of Libyan origin.
There's a lot of snark I could put here but I'll just go with "Merry Christmas!"
Patreon
This is not a disclaimer, just a reminder: in case you've already forgotten what you clicked on, this is a personal journal entry. Taking it as anything else will cause you to be mocked thoroughly.
Ever wonder why SoylentNews doesn't have a Patreon option? Have a read and if you still have any questions, I'll be happy to explain why I'm going to flatly refuse to write the necessary code even in the event that management decides it's a thing we should support.
These lines in particular annoy me:
But secondly as a membership platform, payment processing is one of the core value propositions that we have. Payment processing depends on our ability to use the global payment network, and they have rules for what they will process.
Bull fucking shit. We're a long damned way from Social Justice assclowns having enough stroke to get Visa and Mastercard to bend their knee to whatever their manufactured outrage of the moment is. If you're going to take a position that loses you money, that's your right. At least have the balls to own your position though.
"Short Throw" 4K Laser Projector
I didn't quite realize these were a thing. Something like this would be nice to replace a family member's old projector (it has 3 VGA inputs but no HDMI), but I'm sure this specific model will be priced out the ass. It might make a lot of sense for some people though since it's much more compact than a large TV and you won't have people blocking the image when they stand up.
LG is also planning to sell roll-up OLED TVs in 2019. I don't see how that approach is better than this short throw projector. Maybe the projector makes some fan noise, or maybe the roll-up has better brightness/HDR.
background check
I've had a lot of background checks, in my lifetime. In my teens, twenties, and early thirties, the Navy did a bunch of them. In my thirties and forties, employers did a number of them. I've never actually thought about them much, they're just part of life, ya know?
Now, guns. When I was fourteen, I bought my first gun - a private purchase from an individual, with no licensed firearms dealers involved. So, of course no background check, not even in today's world.
Second gun, I was fifteen. Walked into the sporting goods store, and told them I wanted a 30-30 for deer hunting. Guy took a Winchester model 94 off the shelf, showed it to me, I liked it, and handed over $75 + tax, and got a receipt for it. Manager asks me how old I am, I say fifteen, and he picks the rifle up, and says I have to have my dad approve of the sale before I can have my Winchester. Hell, I wasn't even sure my dad WOULD approve.
Got the old man to come in to town with me, and give my purchase his aproval. He asks, "Where in the hell did you get $75?" I told him "I earned it, what did you think I was mowing lawns for?" We walked into the store together, the manager says "Hi", dad asks, "Did my kid pay you for a rifle?" Manager says "Yes, paid cash for it." Dad says, "Well, let him have it." That was all the "background check" that it took to buy a rifle back then.
Today? Well, I don't need or want a nice gun. The kids would just haul it off, and I might see it sometimes. I walked into the store, and asked for their cheapest .22 rifle. Dude says he has an automatic for a hundred bucks. I ask "That's NEW, for a hundred bucks?" Yep. Savage Arms, model 62. Good enough - it may not be highly accurate, but as long as it doesn't blow up (I'm remembering a Japanese made .22 that blew up in my kid brother's face decades ago) it's good enough.
"You'll have to do a background check, Sir." "Well, Okay, how long does that take?" "About half an hour." "And then, I have to wait for five days?" "Only if the computer rejects your application is there any wait."
So, he sits me in front of a computer, and I start answering questions.
"Are you a felon?" "no"
"Are you loony toons?" "no"
"Have you killed anyone lately?" "no"
"Are you an illegal alien?" "no"
"If a veteran, were you dishonorably discharged?" "no"
"Please rate the following people's performance, on a percentage scale, and add a one or two sentence explantion to each rating"
"1. Bill Clinton" "55% - might have been a good president if he weren't a draft dodging crook."
"2. George W. Bush" "60% - just too damned dumb to be any better."
"3. Barrack H. Obama" "50% - he should have run for office in a Muslim country."
"4. Donald H. Trump" "56% - he's a slightly classier crook than Clinton, but not as intelligent, and he has good looking women around him."
I'm waiting for the results of my background check, when people started gathering around. I'm feeling conspicuous, like maybe I've not only failed, but they are waiting for the SWAT team to come get me. The manager finishes his entries on the computer, and turns to me, with a tear in his eye.
"Mister, we haven't had anyone pass this background check with such a high score. Your score is so high, we want to give you this gun."
Everyone applauded, I got my gun, and walked out of the store with it. It's just that painless!
It's just awesome, people. Now I wish I had asked about a nicer, more expensive rifle.
