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NPC

Why bother with a milkshake? British left-wing comedian fantasizes about attacking right-wing politicians with acid

Jo Brand
A left-wing comedian in the United Kingdom says she fantasizes about acid-attacking right-wing politicians, asking "why bother with milkshakes?"

During an appearance on Radio 4 last night, Jo Brand, who is a lifelong Labour Party supporter, tacitly endorsed political violence.

"Certain unpleasant characters are being thrown to the fore, and they're very, very easy to hate, and I'm kind of thinking, why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?" asked Brand.


Comment: As any good criminologist will tell you, all crimes committed by pathological individuals begin with a fantasy...


Attention

It's official: Child molesters in Alabama will now be chemically castrated

alabama chemical castration
Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill into law Monday that will require some sex offenders to undergo chemical castration one month prior to being released from custody, and will also ensure that offenders have to foot the bill for the treatment.

Under the law, offenders "convicted of a sex offense involving a person under the age of 13" will have to be chemically castrated a month ahead of release and would also be required to continue treatment "until the court determines the treatment is no longer necessary." Offenders would also have to pay for the procedure, but a denial of their parole could not be based "solely" on an inability to pay.

Chemical castration is defined in the law as "the receiving of medication, including, but not limited to, medroxyprogesterone acetate treatment or its chemical equivalent, that, among other things, reduces, inhibits, or blocks the production of testosterone, hormones, or other chemicals in a person's body," according to AL.com.

People

UK drug war: Child spies put in grave risk of harm by Home Office

looking through hole
© Pixabay
The Home Office is endangering children as young as 15 by allowing them to be used as informants on drugs gangs and terrorists, a court will hear.

High Court judges will today (June 11) consider a judicial review brought by children's charity Just for Kids Law accusing the Home Office of exploiting children by allowing them to be used as spies.

The case comes after it was revealed during a House of Lords debate in October last year that a 17-year-old girl was recruited by police to spy on a man who was sexually exploiting her.

While deployed as a covert informant, she continued to be exploited by him and was even coerced into being an accessory to murder.

Government figures reveal that at least 17 children, in 11 local authorities, have been recruited as spies since January 2015 - one aged just 15.

Water

Trudeau vows to ban single-use plastics by 2020

trudeau
© Global Look / Arindam Shivaani
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that in addition to banning single-use plastics, his government would take other, unspecified steps to reduce plastic pollution.

Trudeau did not specify the products to be banned, but said likely candidates include plastic bags, straws, cutlery, plates and stir sticks "where supported by scientific evidence and warranted."

"You've all heard the stories and seen the photos," he said. "To be honest, as a dad it is tough trying to explain this to my kids. How do you explain dead whales washing up on beaches across the world, their stomachs jam packed with plastic bags?

"How do I tell them that against all odds, you will find plastic at the very deepest point in the Pacific Ocean?"

Comment: See also:


Attention

Serial hostage-taker holds two guards captive in French prison

soldiers and chopper
© AFP / Jean-Francois Monier
French soldiers stand next to a chopper in front of the penitentiary center of Alencon, in Conde-sur-Sarthe, northwestern France late on June 11, 2019.
Two people have been taken hostage at a high-security prison in Conde-sur-Sarthe in the Orne region of north-western France, according to local media.

One inmate took a guard and a trainee guard - said to be male and female - hostage at the facility during the evening meal time between 18:30-19:00 GMT, according to Le Figaro. The prisoner is reportedly armed with an improvised knife.

Media reports said the French Ministry of Justice has responded to the incident and activated a crisis unit.

Footage from the scene shows heavily armed police officers, as well as military servicemen - who apparently arrived by helicopters - amassing in front of the correctional facility. The police officers apparently belong to the elite RAID unit - a special tactical force, analogous to SWAT.

Star of David

NY Times abandons humor, drops political cartoons over fallout from 'antisemitic' graphic

New York Times headquarters

New York Times headquarters
The New York Times has stopped publishing political cartoons over a month after experiencing heavy backlash over a controversial cartoon featuring a blind President Donald Trump led by a seeing-eye PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Times made its official announcement after the paper's in-house cartoonist leaked their plans in a blog post. Complaining about the "moralistic mobs" that "gather on social media and rise like a storm," cartoonist Pat Chappatte - who did not draw the offending cartoon - nevertheless slammed the image as something "that should never have run in the best newspaper of the world," blunting his message with the suggestion that he sympathized with the outrage mobs in this case.

"The media need to renew themselves and reach out to new audiences. And stop being afraid of the angry mob," Chappatte wrote, attaching a final cartoon featuring a sad-looking artist with broken pencil gazing down at a memorial to the cartoonists murdered in 2015's Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. "In the insane world we live in, the art of the visual commentary is needed more than ever. And so is humor."

Comment: Also see:


NPC

Caving in to groupthink? Journalist backtracks on 'best book' about US imperialism by Max Blumenthal

The Management of Savagery
© Facebook / Roar Olsen
British journalist Grace Blakeley gave a glowing review of fellow reporter Max Blumenthal's new book on US foreign policy, only to retract her comments a day later claiming she had been "made aware" of his "apologism for Assad."

Blakeley initially raved about Blumenthal's book, 'The Management of Savagery', a look at how US imperialism fuels terrorism and ultra-nationalism around the world. She even called it "the best book I've read all year" and described its contents as an "excoriating indictment of US, British and French imperialism in the Middle East."

But the impressed journalist had a sudden change of heart on Monday and deleted the tweet. She then informed her followers that she had been informed of Blumenthal's "apologism" for Syrian President Bashar Assad.


Camera

#MeToo effect? Keanu Reeves' 'hands-off' pictures with female fans get attention

Keanu Reeves
© Getty Images/ Phillip Faraone
Keanu Reeves doing the "hover hand" with actress Rebekah Kennedy.
We can't know for certain if Keanu Reeves is just shy, or wary of potential sexual harassment accusations - but that both are equally plausible is a terrifying indictment of the state of relations between the sexes.

A tweet has gone viral with a compilation of photos featuring the Hollywood actor posing together with women, in which he performs perhaps what is colloquially known as the 'hover hand' - a phenomenon that occurs when two people embrace for a photo op, but one or both leave their fingers an imperceptible distance away from the other. Only, the Matrix star exhibits an almost comically exaggerated version - arms inches away from the waist, open palms exposed to the camera.

"See, no touching!" his body language screams.


House

Owners are "shocked" by "hotbed" of illegal Airbnb rentals as luxury NYC condo raided

The Atelier
© New York Nesting
The Atelier - 635 West 42nd Street - Midtown West
The Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, known as OSE, is reportedly investigating a network of allegedly illegal short-term rentals at the Atelier, a Midtown condominium building, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This investigation is just one way Mayor Bill deBlasio is trying to address a misuse of home sharing platforms, like Airbnb, to develop large-scale lodging businesses. New York City has been stepping up its pursuit of "large illegal hotel operators" right around the same time as Airbnb is preparing for an IPO.

A spokesperson for Airbnb said that it "wants to work with New York City on legislation to protect hosts so that the city can focus enforcement resources on large-scale illegal hotel operators."

Star of David

A sister's nightmare: The occupying IDF shot my little brother one night during Ramadan

Amina Salah bother shot ramadan
© Courtesy of Amina Salah
Amina Salah and her younger brother Mahmoud
Amina Salah, 30, is a Palestinian woman from the occupied West Bank living in California. She was born and raised in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem city, where she graduated from Bethlehem University with a degree in Social Work. In addition to practicing as a social worker in Palestine, Amina taught traditional 'dabke' dancing to local youth, and played for the Jordan and UAE national volleyball teams. She married her husband Laith and moved to the United States in September 2018.

I am Amina Salah, a Palestinian woman. I grew up with three sisters, two brothers, and too many relatives and friends to count - too many loved ones who I try not to count, so that I don't fall apart when I realize how many I have lost.

I always dreamt of an outrageous, courageous, and ambitious life, with a future of achievements and success waiting for me. But when I grew up, I quickly realized that as a Palestinian, holding on to my dreams wouldn't be so simple.