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Aung San Suu Kyi Defends Jailing of Reuters Journalists
Myanmar's Suu Kyi: Rohingya Situation 'Could Have Been Handled Better'
Under international pressure over alleged genocide by Myanmar's army, the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged Thursday that her country's treatment of its Rohingya Muslims "could have been handled better."
Speaking at a World Economic Forum meeting in Vietnam, Suu Kyi also struck a defiant tone when a moderator asked her about two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar. She said their case "had nothing to do with freedom of expression at all."
It was a rare defense from Myanmar's soft-spoken leader, now 73, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She spent nearly 15 years under house arrest at the hands of a repressive military junta, during which time she became one of the world's most famous political prisoners.
However, her reticence on both the fate of the Rohingya and the jailed journalists has been condemned by human rights groups and one-time admirers worldwide.
Nobel Peace Prize is done for tbh.
See also: Aung San Suu Kyi defends jailing of journalists in Myanmar: 'They have every right to appeal'
Previously: Evidence Of Rohingya Mass Graves Uncovered In Myanmar
Reuters reporter says Myanmar police planted 'secret' papers
World reacts to sentencing of Reuters journalists in Myanmar
Apple Uses Women and People of Color as Props in Adverts
Apple is happy to use women and people of color as art, not authority
"Apple's boardrooms look nothing like its advertisements."
Site seems to block archive.is. Wayback may be available later.
David Blumberg: Not Your Typical Silicon Valley VC
- The venture capitalist David Blumberg is a white man in Silicon Valley, and still he says he's a minority.
- In addition to being a supporter of President Donald Trump, the investor is gay — he has two children with his partner — and has a strong faith in God.
- Blumberg said that after coming out as a Republican more than a decade ago, he "got dropped from a lot of cocktail-party lists."
- But being an outsider has its advantages, he says.
Geoffrey Owens and Job Shaming
Actors and fans defend 'Cosby Show' actor after articles job-shame him for working at Trader Joe's
An honest man doing an honest day's work used to be something to be celebrated in America. But it didn't seem like it -- over the Labor Day weekend, of all times -- after actor Geoffrey Owens was spotted at a Trader Joe's in New Jersey, bagging groceries.
It all started with an article in the Daily Mail late last week. A customer at the store in Clifton, New Jersey, spotted Owens -- best known for his role as son-in-law Elvin Tibideaux on "The Cosby Show" -- working as a cashier and snapped a picture.
The image became the basis for the Daily Mail's story under the job-shaming headline, "From learning lines to serving the long line!" The details in the story were just as insulting: "Wearing an ID badge bearing his name, the former star wore a Trader Joe's T-shirt with stain marks on the front as he weighed a bag of potatoes."
The story exploded on social media over the holiday weekend after Fox News picked it up and tweeted out its own version. But the articles seemed to produce a flood of support for Owens, as well as a conversation about job-shaming and classism. Other actors, as well as fans, defended him.
Geoffrey Owens' message to job-shamers: Honor the 'dignity of work'
Leave him alone, he's not a rapist.
It's OK to job shame anyone working at the Daily Mail.
Statistics and gender
Or, perhaps a bit more precisely, I would say that almost everyone misunderstands common statistics - but not in the same ways!
So we'll pull in sex for an example. There's a school of thought that says that there's virtually no difference between men and women, statistically, on anything important. There's another school of thought that says they're so incredibly different, statistically, on virtually everything important, they almost don't look like the same species! And to make this even funnier, these two schools of thought can often point to the SAME data to support their diametrically opposed conclusions!
Ok, so let me break this down for you with just a little more detail. Let's pick an attribute we test for, aggressiveness is a good one here, because the statistical differences between the sexes are about as dramatic on this measure as you'll find anywhere.
So, if I pick out two individuals randomly, and I tell you nothing other than their sex - one is male, the other is female - and ask you to guess which one is more aggressive, what's your guess?
If you guessed the male, of course that was the better guess statistically. But your edge isn't very big, you're only 60% likely to be right. If I answered female I still have a 40% chance to get the question right - you've only got a little edge, not a solid distinction of kind.
In fact, if you go select a group of women who are just a little more aggressive than average, and set them up against a group of males who are just a little less aggressive than average the women are absolutely going to use the guys as footstools and doormats.
This is the no significant differences argument simplified a bit for easy digestion. And it's valid. It's true. On average, women are only a little bit less aggressive than men, and many women are more aggressive than many men. So it's ignorant prejudice to say that men are the aggressive ones and women are not aggressive. It's radically contrary to the facts! And if that's true in terms of aggressiveness it's much more true on most other metrics.
BUT, there are more facts than have been mentioned. What if we look beyond the average, at the distribution?
What if, instead of randomly selecting a male and a female from the general population, we FIRST randomly select 100 individuals, 50 males 50 females, THEN select the most aggressive individual of the bunch. This time, we guess which sex that individual is. Again, you say male, leaving me with the contrary position.
This time the odds are entirely different. There's virtually no chance I'll win.
The average woman is only slightly less aggressive than the average male, and more aggressive than many. Many women are more aggressive than the average male. But the most aggressive man on the planet will be a male. In fact, if we could rank every individual on earth, something like the top 5-6 million people would be males. Only after that would you start seeing females.
A really neat thing is this actually works almost as well in the opposite direction as well. Lots of women are fairly low on the aggression scale but if you want to find someone that is really freakishly low on it, yeah, that's probably going to be a male. Imagine that!
The middles of the distributions aren't far off. But the shape is different, and there are a lot more males waaaaay out on the limbs. On lots of different metrics, not just aggression.
Black Strap Molasses
The song's lyrics discuss popular health foods of the time. The verses make "absurd" claims about the supposed benefits of these foods, and the chorus runs:
Black strap molasses and the wheat germ bread
Makes you live so long you wish you were dead
You add a little yogurt and you'll be well fed
On the black strap molasses and the wheat germ bread.One contemporary review interpreted the lyrics as referring specifically to the "Live Longer" diet advocated by nutritionist Gayelord Hauser. Hauser, labeled a "quack" by the American Medical Association, gained widespread popularity in the mid-twentieth century promoting "wonder foods" including blackstrap molasses, wheat germ, and yogurt, as well as brewer's yeast and powdered milk. He was known as a nutrition guru to many Hollywood celebrities.
Amazon is pretty screwed up - yet again.
I purchased a book through Amazon. No big deal, I have a couple dozen ebooks that I purchased through Amazon. I checked my email a little bit ago, and found this:
"Some Old Guy, did 'A State of Disobedience' meet your expectations? Review it on Amazon"
Ehhh, I liked the story, and was prepared to write a review on it. So, I clicked the link. Odd - the link loaded, and they asked to send me a code to verify that I'm me. Didn't ask for my password or anything like that. I approved the code thing, then pasted that code into their form. The next page to load told me:
To submit reviews, customers must make a minimum number of valid debit or credit card purchases. Prime subscriptions and promotional discounts don't qualify towards the purchase minimum. For more information, see our Customer Review Guidelines.
Now, that seems pretty screwed up. I didn't exactly volunteer to spend my time doing book reviews for Amazon. They asked me, not the other way around. FFS, they know that I don't spend thousands of dollars per year on their products. Why bother to send me an invite, if they didn't intend to honor the invitation?
Just more stupid shit from a big corporation. Fek Amazon, and double-plus double-good double-fek Jeff. I'll probably spend even less money at Amazon after this.
Another quick thought on left and right
I think it's important that we realize that both of these ideas have both positive and negative aspects. It's important that we do NOT harden these tendencies into tribal division as we are doing now - it's important that each side recognize the positive aspects of the opposition - and the negative aspects of their own side.
So what are they? Off the cuff, the left is, at it's best, the champion of the oppressed, the vanguard of positive change, the people that are making the world better. But it's also envy. It's refusing to believe that anyone could be richer than me without doing something wrong. It's creating the oppressed so that you can be their champion, it can tend too easily not just to tribalism, but to a particularly virulent and harmful form of tribalism - the assumption of moral superiority which so easily escalates to dehumanization and thence to mass murder. Look at the Soviet Union after the fall. It's change for the sake of change, it's that idea that somehow burning down the system that keeps food in the mouth and roof over the head of so many of your fellow humans is actually going to improve their lot. It won't.
And the right? At it's best, it is indeed the champions of civilization, the willingness to stand up and strap on your gear and go face the barbarian at the gate. But it's also greed. It's taking the easy choice of acceding to tradition, as if you were helpless before it - but only when doing so benefits you financially. At it's worst, it too veers into tribalism, to nationalism and racism and every form of jingoism - and with those things the same tendency to dehumanize, to excuse murder, war, genocide.
When we divide into right and left, we lose. We need to do the opposite. We need a middle ground, not in terms of a compromise, but of selecting the best qualities of each.
Argento "Loose" Ends
Previously: NYT: #MeToo Leader/Victim Settled With Her Own Accuser
Just some further developments.
Italian Filmmaker Wears "Weinstein is Innocent" Shirt on 'Suspiria' Red Carpet
Her father directed the original film. The article discusses Italian attitudes towards #MeToo.
Asia Argento's Episodes on Parts Unknown No Longer Streaming After She's Accused of Sexual Assault
CNN has stopped streaming episodes of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown that include Asia Argento after a sexual assault allegation was made against her.
“In light of the recent news reports about Asia Argento, CNN will discontinue airing past episodes of Parts Unknown that included her, until further notice,” a CNN spokesperson tells PEOPLE.
Argento, 42, appeared in the Rome and Southern Italy episodes of the show and directed a Hong Kong episode, during which Bourdain said, “To fall in love with Asia is one thing. To fall in love in Asia is another. Both have happened to me.”
A Buenos Aires episode, which did not feature Argento, was also removed from CNN Go for unspecified reasons, according to BuzzFeed News which was first to report.
Leah McSweeney and Asia Argento’s war of words could escalate
When Penthouse columnist Leah McSweeney lambasted Asia Argento last month in a column called “Can We Talk About Toxic Femininity?,” she was hit with an angry legal letter from Argento’s team, she said.
McSweeney posted the letter on Instagram after she wrote in the opinion column that Argento, who has accused Harvey Weinstein of rape, instead “had a sexual relationship with Weinstein, which resulted in a transactional, consensual union, because — let’s be honest — that’s how Hollywood works.”
Rose McGowan Says Asia Argento Admitted to Sleeping With Young Actor
Rose McGowan, one of the leading voices of the #MeToo movement, said Monday that her partner had exchanged text messages with the actress and director Asia Argento in which Ms. Argento said that she had indeed slept with the actor Jimmy Bennett — an act that Ms. Argento recently denied.
In a lengthy statement, Ms. McGowan also said that her partner — the model Rain Dove — told her that in text messages, Ms. Argento had said that she had been receiving unsolicited nude photos of Mr. Bennett since the time he was 12 years old and had not informed the authorities or told him to stop sending the photos.
So she did the deed, but little Jimmy may have been thirstier than he remembers.
Rain Dove speaks out about Asia Argento allegations
Argento complained, Dove told CNN, that she was being extorted for money by Bennett and initially denied having sex with him. Argento later contradicted herself in an alleged text exchange with Dove, which Dove shared with CNN.
"The Public knows nothing, only what the NYT wrote. Which is one sided. The shakedown letter. The horny kid jumped me...," an alleged text from Argento read.
"So it was rape? Or an attempted sexual action?" Rain Dove replied in a text viewed by CNN.
"I had sex with him it felt weird. I didn't know he was a minor until the shakedown letter," Argento allegedly wrote in response.
2013 photo, with comments
Damage control:
The future of #MeToo: 'The movement is bigger than Asia Argento'
And finally, some real cheese.
U.S. Attempted to "Flip" Russian Oligarchs, To No Avail
Agents Tried to Flip Russian Oligarchs. The Fallout Spread to Trump. (archive)
In the estimation of American officials, Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin, has faced credible accusations of extortion, bribery and even murder.
They also thought he might make a good source.
Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal problems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to current and former officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska. In one dramatic encounter, F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced and uninvited at a home Mr. Deripaska maintains in New York and pressed him on whether Paul Manafort, a former business partner of his who went on to become chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, had served as a link between the campaign and the Kremlin.
The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said.
Two of the players in the effort were Bruce G. Ohr, the Justice Department official who has recently become a target of attacks by Mr. Trump, and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier of purported links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The systematic effort to win the cooperation of the oligarchs, which has not previously been revealed, does not appear to have scored any successes. And in Mr. Deripaska’s case, he told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Russian organized crime and Kremlin collusion in the campaign, a person familiar with the exchanges said. The person added that Mr. Deripaska even notified the Kremlin about the American efforts to cultivate him.
"Thanks, but no thanks."
