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Return from ISIS
The Guardian and Channel 4 News each report about a young British mother who went to the "Islamic State" to join her jihadi husband (a former Guantánamo Bay detainee) but changed her mind, describing life there as, "not my cup of tea."
The gangster mentality that she encountered amongst other women and the squalid living conditions that the jihadi wives and children had to endure were not to her liking, so she and the children fled where they were held in Syria near the Turkish border by a gang of smugglers who needed strong convincing that she wasn't an ISIS supporter.
She claims she went there to try to talk some sense into her husband, to plead with him to come home. She wants to come back to the UK, but what fate awaits her?
Last year Sir Peter Fahy, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police and policing lead for the government's Prevent counter-terrorism strategy, warned that Britons returning from Syria would be stopped at the border and face arrest.
How could anyone be so naive, at the age of 33 and having had five children? And living in the UK where we still just about have free speech and the freedom of the press? How could you possibly not know what it would be really like? How could you voluntarily take five innocent, defenceless children willingly and knowingly into a war zone?
Fear, Islamism and Freedom of Expression
Female ex-Muslim anti-Islamist campaigner Maryam Namazie writes in the Guardian "Why I speak out against Islamism."
The article is superbly written and makes very clear points regarding the importance of the ability to criticise religion (of any kind) to facilitate social progress.
The complex situation regarding Islamism, Islam, Muslims, Muslim culture and "the Muslim Community" is outlined making clear distinctions between each, and in particular the range of opinions (and beliefs) within them. This contrasts with the (bigoted) simplistic views (pro- and anti-) presented in the Western media and which frequently leads to Islamophobic attacks against peaceful and innocent people.
What is particularly refreshing to see written in main-stream Western media is the following:
The labelling of much-needed criticism of Islamism as antisocial, even dangerous by left apologists sees dissent through the eyes of Islamists and not the many who refuse and resist. How else are we to show real solidarity with those who struggle against the theocracies we have fled from – if not through criticism? The fight against Islamism and the need for international solidarity apparently does not enter into their calculation.
In short: things will not improve unless we are free to talk.
2015: Witchcraft in the UK
The BBC has a story about children being abused, having been accused of witchcraft, in the UK in 2015.
It would appear that there are significant numbers of people who really believe in witches, witchcraft, black magic and evil spirits here in 2015.
An NSPCC spokesman said: "While the number of child abuse cases involving witchcraft is relatively small, they often include horrifying levels of cruelty.
Small children have been thrown out of their homes by ignorant, hysterical parents, and in some cases murdered.
Of course, money is involved.
...within churches there was often a financial motivation behind accusations.
"The pastor says there's a witch in this church today; looks around and points to a child.
"That means public humiliation for the family. The next step is exorcism which is not done for free. It's a money-making scam."
The Witchcraft Act 1735 appears to have been written by learned people who took the opinion that Witchcraft was an impossible crime and so it outlawed the pretence of witchcraft. The law was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951. Finally, this was replaced in 2008 by Consumer Protection Regulations.
So there you have it.
October 13, 2015: U.S. Democratic Primary Debate #1
Previously:
- August 6, 2015: U.S. Republican Primary Debate #1
- September 16, 2015: U.S. Republican Primary Debate #2
The candidates participating in the debate are Lincoln Chafee, Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Jim Webb. Larry Lessig did not make the cut. CNN coverage begins at 8:30 PM EDT, the debate begins at 9 PM EDT and ends at 11 PM EDT.
Links:
The first debate is scheduled for October 13, 2015, at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern time. It will air on CNN, and will also be broadcast on radio by Westwood One [AUDIO-only should be available online via CBS Radio]. Anderson Cooper will be the moderator of the debate, with Dana Bash and Juan Carlos Lopez asking additional questions and Don Lemon presenting questions submitted by voters via Facebook.
To be invited to the debate, a candidate must have achieved an average of at least 1% in three recognized national polls released between August 1 and October 10. In addition, a candidate must either have filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission or declare that one will be filed by October 14, the day after the debate. The latter criterion would accommodate Vice President Joe Biden if he decided to enter the presidential race as late as the day of the debate.
- 2016 Democratic Presidential Nomination Polls
- The Endorsement Primary
- CNN Will Live Stream Democratic Debate in Virtual Reality and SoylentNews
- Single page candidate comparison
- OnTheIssues: Sanders, Clinton, O'Malley, Chafee, Webb
- Template at Wikipedia linking to candidate position pages
- CNN releases Democratic debate podium order
Should Vice President Biden decide to enter the race and take part in the debate, there would be a podium placed on the stage for him as well.
Google's .bro file format changed to .br
Journals: Soylent controversial topic containment zone?
Google's .bro file format changed to .br after gender politics worries
In late September, Google released a compression algorithm called Brotli and gave files it makes the extension “.bro”.
But last week the extension was changed to “.br”.
The reason for the change is threads like this one, in which posters suggest that “'bro' has a gender problem” and “comes of[f] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in.”
[...]
BBC Trending: Drawing of a 6-year-old Syrian girl, racist?
BBC Trending: Is this manga cartoon of a six-year-old Syrian girl racist?
"I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life… all at the expense of someone else," reads the text on the illustration above. "I have an idea. I'll become a refugee."
The image and caption were posted by a right-wing Japanese artist last month. Now, more than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in Japanese urging Facebook to take it down. The petition, posted by an account calling itself the "Don't Allow Racism Group", claims that several people have reported the illustration and demands that "Facebook must recognize an illustration insulting Syrian refugees as racism."
Although the Japan Times reported that Facebook did not take the picture down, saying it did not go against community guidelines, the artist herself removed the picture. But she remains defiant about her motivations for posting it in the first place. Toshiko Hasumi told BBC Trending that she believed the people signing the petition were left-wing activists. "I draw many political mangas [Japanese comics] which are not favourable to them," she said. "This is why they targeted me."
Barrett Brown: Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels
The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison: Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels
Another fun piece written by Barrett Brown from federal prison, this time about Purity.
Here are some older articles along similar lines.
Britons, Work Like the Chinese! (Or Else)
Right-thinking Tory Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Freudian-Slip has announced today that the decent, honest, noble, compassionate Conservative Party would like to encourage the poor to work as hard as the Chinese and Americans.
How they'll achieve this is novel and exciting.
A previous Labour government introduced a system of Tax Credits for people in work with families (i.e. children to feed) but on low incomes which, without the tax credits, would mean that they were in poverty. So, the idea is it pays to work hard.
Note that we are talking about tax credits - a rebate of some of your Income Tax (a tax discount) - not a hand-out for "scroungers."
This is the good part. Those intellectual giants of the Conservative Party reason that, if they abolish Tax Credits (which are only paid to those on a gross annual income of under £16,500 or $25,000) those people will be so motivated and empowered that they will move into better-paid jobs!
“There’s a pretty difficult question that we have to answer, which is essentially: are we going to be a country which is prepared to work hard in the way that Asian economies are prepared to work hard, in the way that Americans are prepared to work hard? And that is about creating a culture where work is at the heart of our success.”
Hunt also suggested in the interview that those reliant on tax credits and benefits lacked self-respect. “Dignity is not just about how much money you have got ... officially children are growing up in poverty if there is an income in that family of less than £16,500. What the Conservatives say is how that £16,500 is earned matters.
Meanwhile, in this brave, new, flexible and empowered labour market of short-term and zero-hours contracts, hard-working Britons are so scared of being off sick at places like Sports Direct that they're being taken away by emergency ambulance.
Work harder for your crumbs, plebs.
Disclaimer: I've never voted Labour (or Tory) in my life. But I do always vote.
Last season's anime (incomplete list)
This is a reposted submission with editing.
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Incomplete list.
Overlord. (13 episodes) Too short. Ending yelled "our production budget is too small". Really, felt like an advertisement to learn WRITTEN japanese, and buy the raw manga from amazon.co.jp; to find out what happens next.
Chaos Dragon. (12 episodes) Beautifully dark; at least for the first few episodes. The "happily ever after" ending felt tasteless and disgusting. Doesn't anybody know how to write a good tragedy anymore ?
Normally, I wouldn't submit trash like this; but the queue's empty, so . . .
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Torches and Pitchforks
The inexorable rise of property prices in the UK, especially London, due to a lack of supply of new builds, buy-to-let investments, the selling off of social housing and large numbers of new builds being bought by foreign speculators is finally causing the torches and pitchforks to come out.
In places like London, it's becoming nearly impossible for a "normal" person on an average income to live since renting even the smallest of properties (e.g. a studio flat or a room in a house share) is out of reach, Forget being a teacher, nurse, police officer or fire fighter and living there. It's just not going to happen. Social housing has mostly gone, so the poor renting privately are finding their monthly rents doubling over night and having to leave.
The good Christian Irritable Duncan Syndrome brought in cuts to housing benefit just to remind the poor, sick and disabled that they're a filthy burden on the rest of us. And they can jolly well cut back on food and heating to pay their rent.
So some "motivated" protesters have got out the torches and pitchforks and completely got it wrong.
You couldn't make it up.
What a miserable society it is that can't look after its poor, sick and disabled. Let the bleeding hearts amongst the Little People look out for them, we'll just take our money away and laugh.
Mind you, the other side have got a new leader and they're thinking about changing things.
