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Russian Orthodox Church: ECHR's ruling on Pussy Riot a blow to religious freedom in Europe


RT
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 20:26 UTC
Pussy Riot band members
© AFP / Andrej Isakovic
Pussy Riot band members
The European Court of Human Rights' (ECHR) decision to reject Moscow's appeal against the сompensation to female punk band Pussy Riot has infringed the rights of millions of believers, Russia's Orthodox Church said.

With no further means to challenge the ruling, Russia's Justice Ministry said on Wednesday that the compensation will be paid in full as the country always thoroughly executes all of the ECHR's decisions.

In July, the Strasbourg court ordered Russia to pay the three members of the scandalous band €37,000 in damages as well as €11,760 more for costs and expenses. The judges said that the right to self-expression of the balaclava-wearing artists were violated after they were handed two-year prison sentences for an unsanctioned political protest at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in 2012.

Comment: Here is the video of what the members of Pussy Riot did at the church in 2012, a rather disgusting desecration of a spiritual and holy center.


Keep in mind that Pussy Riot staged a different kind of protest in 2008, where they joined with another punk group called Voina and decided that their way to protest presidential politics was to undress and join in a group orgy at a Moscow biological museum. Pussy Riot's leader, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, happened to be a few days away from delivering birth that day. Those are the kind of people that the European Court of Human Rights just defended against the Orthodox Church.

Previously: Double standards. ECHR says you can insult Christianity, but not Islam

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Black Cat

Florida's election nightmare continues - Brenda Snipes won't go away

Philip Wegmann
The Washington Examiner
Mon, 03 Dec 2018 17:01 UTC
brenda Snipes
© Mario Tama/Getty Images
Brenda Snipes
Were Franz Kafka alive, and an American, he would find his muse in a certain municipal functionary from Florida. Her name is Brenda Snipes, and she is the nightmarishly incompetent, bizarre, and wholly illogical supervisor of elections in Broward County.

Snipes became the subject of the nightly news because she couldn't do what all 65 other election supervisors could. She couldn't follow the rules and count votes by the book.

It almost ruined the election between Gov. Rick Scott and incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. In one election and one subsequent recount, Snipes broke the law in at least three ways:

Comment: It's beyond comprehension that with such a poor record of discharging her duties, Brenda Snipes was allowed to continue in office. On the other hand, she's been very useful to certain political parties.

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Snowflake

SNL writer booted from stage for jokes deemed 'offensive' - group says he violated their 'safe space'

Shubham Saharan
Columbia Spectator
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 19:44 UTC
Nimesh Patel SNL comedian
© YouTube
Nimesh Patel, 32, was the first Indian-American writer for SNL, and has since been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing.
Saturday Night Live writer and comedian Nimesh Patel was pulled from the stage by event organizers after telling jokes that were criticized as racist and homophobic during his performance at cultureSHOCK: Reclaim, an event held by Columbia Asian American Alliance on Friday night.

Patel, 32, was the first Indian-American writer for SNL, and has since been nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing. Patel has previously performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers and opened for comedians such as Chris Rock.

During the event, Patel's performance featured commentary on his experience living in a diverse area of New York City - including a joke about a gay, black man in his neighborhood - which AAA officials deemed inappropriate. Patel joked that being gay cannot be a choice because "no one looks in the mirror and thinks, 'this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it.'"

Comment: A safer world is pipe dream. The world is not 'safe' and it never will be. Better to make yourself strong to meet it.



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Bulb

I'm a liberal feminist, and even I can see the necessity for Betsy DeVos's Title IX reforms

Lara Bazelon
New York Times
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 19:35 UTC
California State University
© Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media, via Orange County Register, via Getty Images
The campus at California State University at Fullerton. Appeals courts have overturned suspensions of students for sexual assault at two California universities, citing a lack of due process.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's proposed regulations overhauling how colleges handle sexual assault, which may become law in January, are far from perfect. But there is a big reason to support them: I'm a feminist and a Democrat, and as a lawyer I have seen the troubling racial dynamics at play under the current Title IX system and the lack of due process for the accused. Ms. DeVos's proposals take important steps to fix these problems.

Consider this scenario: A young black man enrolls at a state university in California on an athletic scholarship. He's the first person in his family to go to college. His teammate's white ex-girlfriend matches with him on Tinder, comes to his apartment, has sex with him and, they both agree, returns three days later to have consensual sex.

Weeks later, the young woman, who has reconciled with her boyfriend, claims the Tinder match raped her during the first sexual encounter. The Tinder Match adamantly denies this. Her boyfriend, who is also black, says she is lying. There is no hearing, no chance for the accused to ask her questions.

Comment: Who knew that the fundamental legal requirement of due process that has served as the basis for social cohesion for over 600 years in the West would actually turn out to be a good idea? It might not be perfect, but it is the best we've come up with. It's unfortunate that only way for 'progressive' types to understand this is through identity politics. A bad idea is a bad idea. Law without just rule brings chaos, and it affects everyone no matter the color of their skin.

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Christmas Tree

Christmas has become another trigger word to the snowflake nation

John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 18:35 UTC
"This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities. And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don't have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power."- Martin Luther King, Jr., "A Christmas Sermon on Peace"
To a nation of snowflakes, Christmas has become yet another trigger word.
roudolph reindeer war on christmas political correctness
© Fox News
The latest Christmas casualties in the campaign to create one large national safe space are none other than the beloved animated classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (denounced for promoting bullying and homophobia) which first aired on television on December 6, 1964, and the Oscar-winning tune Baby, It's Cold Outside (accused of being a date rape anthem) crooned by everyone from Dean Martin to Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel in the movie Elf.
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Monkey Wrench

When algorithms rule: Joe Biden, raw chicken and vomiting unicorns are now porn according to Tumblr


RT
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 16:38 UTC
Tumblr algorithm
© envato
Tumblr's algorithm is struggling to distinguish chicken from pornography.
Social media giants are locked in a never-ending war to get the internet to play nice, but for all of their 'good intentions,' the facepalm-worthy failures are what stand out, including the latest #TooSexyForTumblr trend.

Following a recent child porn controversy on the blogging site, Tumblr administrators decided to clamp down on all Not Safe For Work material on the platform.

The plan was to purge "Photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content-including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations-that depicts sex acts" from the website by December 17.

But, as always, "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry," and Tumblr's prudish, porn-policing algorithm is proving more puritanical than even the most hardline conservative, religious fundamentalist could ever hope to be.

In the internet age, these cringe-worthy failures get amplified like never before in human history, as showcased by #TooSexyForTumblr which is spreading like wildfire on Twitter with some truly hilarious (and bizarre) examples.

Comment: They may have a point regarding creepy Uncle Joe Biden...

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Cloud Grey

Swedish journalist under fire for saying Sentinelese tribesmen were 'completely rational' in killing Christian missionary


RT
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 23:56 UTC
John Allen Chau
© Johnachau/via REUTERS
In the wake of the 2004 tsunami this member of the Sentinelese tribe was photographed firing arrows at a helicopter. Indian Coastguard / Survival International; An American self-styled adventurer and Christian missionary John Allen Chau
A prominent Swedish journalist has sparked a Twitter backlash with a column arguing that the Sentinelese tribesmen who killed a US Christian missionary had acted in a "completely rational" way fending off the evil of "white men."

In the controversial piece published by Aftonbladet, Peter Kadhammar said the death of John Allen Chau, who the tribesmen killed with arrows, was "tragic" but that the residents of the island were acting in a "completely rational" way.

"Let in the white man, and your world is soon wiped out," Kadhammar wrote, arguing that indigenous peoples in Australia, North America and Africa should have done the same thing when European colonizers arrived.
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Black Cat 2

Matthew Hedges claims UAE coerced him to give false confession, tried to get him to spy for them


Al Jazeera
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 16:36 UTC
matthew hedges
© AFP
British academic Matthew Hedges has accused investigators from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of subjecting him to psychological torture and forcing him to give a false confession that he is an agent of the British spy agency, MI6.

In an interview with The Times of London, Hedges said that during his more than six months of imprisonment, he suffered sleep deprivation and was forced-fed a combination of tranquilisers and stimulants by his Emirati captors.

"They started getting more and more aggressive and I'd have panic attacks for two or three days in a row. After all that pressure, I said: 'OK, fine, whatever, yeah, sure.'"

Hedges also revealed that at one point during the interrogation, he was offered to become a double-agent for the UAE, even as he was forced to stand for the whole day in ankle cuffs and was interrogated for as long as 15 hours.

"I was so scared and on edge," Hedges said, adding that he was threatened to be sent to a military base to be tortured.


Comment: It's a shame Hedges had to go through that. It's just a good thing he never had to experience the torture tactics used by Alfreda Bikowsky and Gina Haspel at the CIA.


Comment: See also:

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Red Flag

US Navy fleet commander says ships and sailors took a beating during NATO's Trident Juncture exercise

Christopher Woody
Business Insider
Wed, 05 Dec 2018 00:00 UTC
USNS Leroy Grumman alongside USS Iwo Jima Norwegian Sea, operation Trident Juncture
© US Navy/Mass Comm. Specialist 3rd Class Joe J. Cardona Gonzalez
Fleet replenishment oiler USNS Leroy Grumman alongside the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima in the Norwegian Sea, October 27, 2018.
NATO troops and partner forces converged on Norway in October for Trident Juncture, the alliance's largest exercise since the Cold War, taking place in and over the Nordic countries and on the Baltic and Norwegian seas.

Trident Juncture is a regularly scheduled exercise, and this year's version was meant to test the alliance's ability to respond collectively to a threat - in this case an attack on Norway - and the logistical muscles needed to move some 50,000 troops, thousands of vehicles, and dozens of ships and aircraft on short notice.

Trident Juncture also saw the first time a US aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, sailed above the Arctic Circle since the early 1990s. The Truman strike group was joined by the USS Iwo Jima expeditionary strike group.

Working in the harsh conditions found in the northern latitudes in autumn was also part of the plan, said US Navy Adm. James Foggo, who commands US naval forces in Europe and Africa and was in charge of Trident Juncture.

"One of the things that we took advantage of was the opportunity to do this in October and November," Foggo said on the most recent episode of his podcast, "On the Horizon."

Comment: And NATO's Nordic partners didn't fare so well either:

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Info

FBI reveals it did NOT label Proud Boys an extremist group

Maxine Bernstein
The Oregonian
Tue, 04 Dec 2018 16:30 UTC
Oregon FBI Special Agent in Charge Renn Cannon
The FBI has not designated the Proud Boys, whose members routinely appear at right-wing protests in downtown Portland, as an extremist group, Oregon's top FBI agent said Tuesday.

The FBI never intended to do so when it briefed Clark County law enforcement leaders recently about regional threats, Special Agent in Charge Renn Cannon said during a wide-ranging meeting with media at the bureau's Portland headquarters.

His comments directly counter an internal Clark County Sheriff's Office memo that suggested otherwise and drew national attention.

In the FBI's slide show in Clark County, agents talked about the Proud Boys, white supremacists, militia groups and anarchists, Cannon said.

Started in 2016 by conservative writer Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys have billed themselves as "pro-Western fraternal organization" and have vigorously fought accusations by critics that members are associated with white nationalists.

Comment: See also:

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