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No laughing matter: PC policing would make 'Monty Python' and other classic comedies 'crimes' today

Neil Clark
RT
Tue, 10 Sep 2019 13:53 UTC
Monty Python
© Getty Images / Michael Ochs Archives / Stringer
The classic British comedy series 'Monty Python' is 50 years old this month, but the sobering fact is that it, along with other shows of the era, would not be made today due to politically correct policing.

The Spanish Inquisition was a series of sketches in a 1970 episode of 'Monty Python.' Whenever a character said "I didn't expect a Spanish Inquisition," the Spanish Inquisition would turn up with the words "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." The thing is today, all comedy writers do expect the PC Police Inquisition, so they self-censor. Which is why modern comedy is nowhere near as inventive, or funny, as it was 50 years ago.

There are so many things modern comedy writers can't say, for fear of being branded 'racist/anti-Semitic/sexist/homophobic/genderist/misogynistic - or a combination of the aforementioned. Even the mildest joke could get you into serious trouble. And that's a big problem. As Python John Cleese has said: "All humor is critical. If you start to say 'We mustn't; we mustn't criticize or offend them,' then humor is gone."

Comment: See also:

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Magnify

Justice Department, IRS investigating USOPC, USA Gymnastics, USA Swimming

Scott M. Reid
The Orange County Register
Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:34 UTC
Scott Blackmun
© AP File Photo/Lee Jin-man, File
Former USOPC chief executive officer Scott Blackmun is allegedly part of a wide-ranging federal investigation for his potential role in handling the initial Larry Nassar allegations and whether he misled members of Congress about the case and other matters.
U.S. Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service investigators have crisscrossed the country in recent months interviewing more than a dozen witnesses and subpoenaing thousands of pages of documents in a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, USA Swimming, USA Taekwondo and other national sports governing bodies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of sexual abuse cases, according six people familiar with the investigation.

Justice Department and IRS officials are also looking into financial practices of officials at USA Gymnastics, USA Swimming and other national governing bodies, according to four people familiar with the probe.

A Washington, D.C., based-team of approximately 10 federal investigators and prosecutors have interviewed at least 16 people, including Olympic and world champion medalists, about the USOPC and at least five national governing bodies as part of a probe into potential money laundering, sex trafficking and child sex labor, the Southern California News Group has learned.
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Question

Family of abortionist makes grisly find after his death

Laura Italiano
New York Post
Sat, 14 Sep 2019 12:24 UTC
medical equipment
© Shutterstock
After a South Bend abortionist died in Indiana, his family made a grisly discovery in his Indiana home: 2,246 medically preserved fetal remains.

The family of Ulrich George Klopfer found the remains in his Will County home after his death on Sept. 3 — and reached out to their attorney, local station WNDU reported.

The attorney called the county coroner's office on Sept. 12.

Klopfer operated abortion clinics in South Bend, Fort Wayne and Gary, and there is no evidence he conducted any medical procedures at his home, officials said.
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Bizarro Earth

55 Palestinians injured during clashes at border with Israeli soldiers - Medics


Sputnik
Fri, 13 Sep 2019 21:56 UTC
Gaza
© AP Photo / Tsafrir Abayov
As many as 55 Palestinians were wounded as a result of weekly Friday clashes with Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip, Ashraf Qidra, spokesman for Gaza's Health Ministry, stated.

"Today, by 07:30 p.m. [04:30 GMT], 55 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were injured in clashes with the Israeli army at the eastern borders of the enclave, 29 of them were wounded by live bullets", Ashraf Qidra said.

Earlier, the ministry reported 30 victims.

Comment: See also: Gilad Atzmon: The End of Israel

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Cult

Mozilla wants to hear your tales of YouTube radicalization so unwanted videos get censored


RT
Sat, 14 Sep 2019 07:44 UTC
youtube eye
© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
Firefox maker Mozilla is trying to shame YouTube into "fixing" its recommendation algorithm, soliciting horror stories from users sent down radicalizing "rabbit holes." Trouble is, most users don't want more censorship.

"Once, at 2 a.m., you searched YouTube for 'Did aliens build Stonehenge?' Ever since, your YouTube recommendations have been a mess: Roswell, wormholes, Illuminati," Mozilla laments in its call for submissions, asking users for their "YouTube regret" so that they might "put pressure on YouTube to do better."

"YouTube's recommendation engine can lead users down bizarre rabbit holes — and they're not always harmless," the company warns. "Sometimes they drive people toward misinformation and extreme viewpoints."

Putting aside the inanity of blaming YouTube for its users' regrettable viewing choices - no one forces a user to click on the platform's "recommended" videos - Mozilla seems confident that there is an army of YouTube users out there who are itching for stricter censorship on the platform. The media establishment, after all, has been screaming for months that YouTube is radicalizing people, and no one wants to be radicalized.

Comment: See also:

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Dollar

Here we go again: Banks seeking to lower credit score requirements, targeting over 50 million new subprime borrowers

Tyler Durden
Zerohedge
Fri, 13 Sep 2019 08:11 UTC
financial bubble
When the next bubble bursts - and it will - be sure to take a look back at this article. It might help explain some things. Lenders, seemingly unhappy with the vast avalanche of debt they've issued over the last decade, are now looking to "move the goalposts" in order to be able to lend even more money to even less creditworthy individuals.

Gone are the old days of relying on a consumer's borrowing history to determine creditworthiness, and instead lenders now look at such bizarre trivia as magazine subscriptions and phone bills to decide how much should be lent to potential borrowers. Banks like Goldman Sachs Group, Ally Financial and Discover are now experimenting with the new metrics.

keeping score
The changes are seismic for many large banks, who spent the last 10 years targeting only extremely credit-worthy borrowers. But, as we all know too well, when that pool runs out the show must go on by any means possible. And that is how we got to no-doc loans and subprime CDOs just before the last bubble burst.

At stake is a lot of potential money: banks are targeting the estimated 53 million U.S. adults that don't have credit scores and 56 million that have subprime scores. The banks claim that many of these people don't have traditional borrowing backgrounds, often times because they pay in cash or are new to the U.S. That doesn't make them bad debt slaves prospects, however. Quite the opposite.

Comment: And just what history is the author referring to here...

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Briefcase

Lawyer says Assange case "sets terrifying precedent" against journalism


Media Entertainment and Arts
Tue, 10 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
Jennifer Robinson

Lawyer Jennifer Robinson
During a recent visit to Australia, Jennifer Robinson, legal adviser to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, sat down with MEAA to explain the implications for all journalists of the US government indictment against Assange, and why it is important for MEAA members to campaign against his extradition on press freedom grounds.

Assange, faces up to 170 years in jail if extradited, tried and found guilty of espionage charges laid by the United States government.

Assange, who is an Australian citizen and a member of MEAA Media, has been indicted by the US Justice Department with 18 charges under the Espionage Act for his role in receiving and publishing classified defence documents both on the WikiLeaks website and in collaboration with major publishers including The New York Times, and The Guardian.

Assange is currently an inmate of the Belmarsh Prison in England for unrelated offences, and the US government is expected to begin extradition proceedings next year.


Comment: The bought-and-paid-for media shills for the corprotocracy could not care less about the implications of Assange's persecution - because they arguably do not practice real journalism - and place little to no value on reporting the crimes of their governments.

See also:

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V

Not-so-shocking poll: Americans dislike the government almost as much as they dislike Big Pharma

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.org
Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:00 UTC
big pharma
In a new and not shocking poll, Americans said they hate the government almost as much as they hate big pharma. Considering both are in each other's back pocket, that makes complete sense and no one should be surprised by this.

America hates big pharma and the government. No surprise there. But the pharmaceutical industry is hated slightly more. It ranked last in favorability among Americans, according to a new poll conducted by Gallup. This year marked the lowest net positivity rating (the difference between people who say they like the industry and those who dislike the industry) that the pharmaceutical industry has had since Gallup started polling in 2001. Big Pharma's -31 net positivity rating was so low, only a handful of industries had been ranked lower. Other hated sectors include the federal government, and oil and gas companies
America's distaste for the scandal-plagued pharmaceutical industry isn't without reason. Earlier this year, Congress grilled pharma leaders for the high cost of prescription drugs. An Oklahoma judge recently ordered Johnson & Johnson pay $572 million for its role in the opioid epidemic. Novartis and other major pharma companies stopped developing life-saving medicine for lack of profit. -Middle Town Press

Comment: See: Gallup: Big Pharma sinks to the bottom of US industry rankings

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Bizarro Earth

French identitarians to be fined and jailed for opposing illegal immigration

Guillaume Durocher
Unz review
Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:00 UTC
Illegal Immigration

Prison for Non-Violent Opposition to Illegal Immigration: GI activists Clément Galant, Romain Espino, and Damien Lefèvre.
The pro-European and anti-immigration movement Generation Identity (GI) has achieved a worldwide notoriety through its often spectacular actions, whether by occupying EU and government buildings or manning their own ship to halt migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean. Such actions are not without risk however.

In spring 2018, French GI activists - frustrated by the French government's inability or unwillingness to get the migrant crisis under control and prevent illegal immigration into their country - decided to take matters into their own hands with symbolic but effective nonviolent action.

GI blocked the Col de l'Échelle, an Alpine mountain pass near the border with Italy, through which migrant crossings were known to occur. The activists deployed banners, fences, and even helicopters to prevent the migrants from entering France.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal #26: Globalization vs Nationalism - The Hidden Causes of The Yellow Vest Protests in France

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Oscar

Felicity Huffman's 14-DAY sentence shows you can get away with ANYTHING if you're rich & famous


RT
Fri, 13 Sep 2019 22:17 UTC
Felicity Huffman
© Reuters / Robert Galbraith GMH / PN
Felicity Huffman accepts her Emmy award.
That actress Felicity Huffman will go to jail for only 14 days over college entrance fraud shows there are really two justice systems in the US: one for the rich, famous and politically correct - and another for everyone else.

The 'Desperate Housewives' star pleaded guilty to paying $15,000 to falsify her daughter Sophia's SAT - a college admissions test - and was sentenced to two weeks in jail, 250 hours of community service, a $30,000 fine and a year of supervised release. Altogether, a slap on the wrist to a Hollywood celebrity.

It did not take long for her case to be contrasted with the fate of Tanya McDowell, a Connecticut woman who falsified a residency document in 2011 to enroll her son in a better school. McDowell ended up getting jailed for five years for first-degree larceny, and would have faced an even longer sentence had she not made a deal with prosecutors.

Comparing the two cases is absolutely apples to apples. That McDowell was later charged with selling drugs to undercover police officers and given a concurrent sentence does not change the severity of her initial punishment - 130 times longer than was meted out to Huffman.
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