Dad hurls chair at judge after light sentence handed to driver who killed his daughter

A judge failed to throw to book at a driver who killed a child, so the child's father threw a chair at her. From RTL Nieuws, translated automatically:

The father of a two year old girl who was killed last year in Meijel has thrown a chair to the court out of frustration.
The incident took place when the court in Roermond the cause of the accident, a 33-year-old Polish man, sentenced to community service of 120 hours. Check out the images rotated by the regional station L1.
The chair came just before the right to the ground. The father was put out of the courtroom by the police.
The accident, including the grandfather (67) and grandmother (64) of the child were killed, occurred last May in a gentle curve to the Heldense Dijk Meijel.
The court considered it proven that the man had his car out of control, went swinging and eventually ended up on a bike and rode the victims death. Unproven find the court that he has a lot of driving too fast.
The prosecutor, who had two weeks ago demanded fifteen months, has appealed. That protects the police investigation gives the impression that the man has certainly driven 120 kilometers. Spot a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour applies.

School board which proselytizes during meetings dares the FFRF to sue them ...

... The FFRF has obliged. 

After giving them multiple chances to stop breaking the law, the Chino Valley School District is being sued by the Freedom From Religion Foundation:
School board meetings open with a prayer, and often include bible readings and proselytizing by board members. Board President James Na injects christianity into many of his official statements, FFRF's legal complaint notes. At one typical meeting, Na "urged everyone who does not know jesus christ to go and find Him," and closed with a reading of Psalm 143.
Students often attend the meetings to receive awards, speak about issues affecting their schools, attend disciplinary hearings and do performances. Student attendance is mandatory in some instances, and a student representative is a member of the board.
Courts have consistently held that organized prayer in the public schools is unconstitutional, the complaint charges. Two federal appellate courts, the Third and Sixth Circuits, have specifically held school board prayer unconstitutional.

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New Zealand: The Country That Doesn’t Exist

You’ve probably heard of New Zealand. You may have watched Xena: Warrior Princess, which is set there. But, like Xena, New Zealand is just pretend. It’s not real, which is why it commonly doesn’t appear on maps.
World Maps Without New Zealand is a Tumblr blog devoted to maps that show all of the nations and large islands around the world . . . except New Zealand. For some reason artists and, occasionally, actual mapmakers, leave it off.

Half-naked Winnie-the-Pooh no longer candidate for being public face of children's playground

Councillors in Poland have blocked a plan to have Winnie-the-Pooh used as the public face of a children's playground because the British bear is of "dubious sexuality" and "inappropriately dressed" for children because he is "half naked". Officials in the small town of Tuszyn, in central Poland, were meeting to decide upon a new patron for a children’s playground when Winnie-the-Pooh was brought up. But the suggestion was quickly rounded on by more conservative members. Councillor Ryszard Cichy, 46, said: "The problem with that bear is it doesn’t have a complete wardrobe.
"It is half naked which is wholly inappropriate for children." He then suggested a Polish fictional bear, saying: "Ours is dressed from head to toe, unlike Pooh who is only dressed from the waist up." The meeting, which was recorded by one of the Councillors, then turned on Winnie-the-Pooh’s sexuality. One official was heard saying: "It doesn’t wear underpants because it doesn’t have a sex. It’s a hermaphrodite."
Councillor Hanna Jachimska then began criticizing the Winnie-the-Pooh author Alan Alexander Milne. She said: "This is very disturbing but can you imagine! The author was over 60 and cut his [Pooh's] testicles off with a razor blade because he had a problem with his identity." The Councillors have yet to make a formal decision about which bear will be the patron of the children’s playground. But Winnie-the-Pooh is not a candidate, they said.

Grandmother called nutcase during clash with police still traumatized

A grandmother in Australia who was labelled a 'nutcase' and told 'she had no rights' by police during a roadside confrontation says she is still traumatized by the incident. Linda Milazzo refused to stop at a police roadblock in South Yarra, Victoria, in May 2012. Instead, the 63-year-old drove through the roadside operation, clipping an officer as she passed. Three police officers pursued her vehicle and a screaming match broke out when she refused to turn her engine off and get out of her car.

The run-in was recorded on an officer's vest-mounted camera, later presented as evidence at the County Court. In the video, a police officer demands Mrs Milazzo, who had recently suffered a heart attack, step out of the car, but she refuses, claiming she is having another cardiac arrest, to which the officer replies: 'You don't look like you're having a heart attack'. Threatening Mrs Milazzo with an attempted murder charge, an officer continues: 'You have just attempted to run over a policeman.

YouTube link.

'You just attempted to run down a policeman'. An officer then turns to a colleague, labelling Mrs Milazzo a 'f*cking nutcase', followed by laughter. Mrs Milazzo received a $1,000 fine and was disqualified from driving for six months, but it was the actions of police that concerned her most. "I'd like to see them go and do some courses on how to deal with people," she said.
Two years on, Mrs Milazzo said police conduct must change. "I want them to learn from it. I want them to learn that this is not acceptable behaviour." Embarrassed by the video, Victoria's senior police say they will investigate the incident, with the officers involved facing possible disciplinary action. "We don't condone that sort of behaviour and we continually instruct our officers and guide our officers about being as polite as possible and courteous to the public when they're executing their duties," said Deputy Police Commissioner Graham Ashton.

Unhappy cyclist arrested after being rejected at Taco Bell drive-through for not being in a car

A drunken cyclist in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, whose drive-through order at Taco Bell was rejected because he wasn't in a car refused to leave the restaurant then tussled with police.

Gabriel Harris, 33, was charged with resisting an officer with violence in the late-night incident and was out of the Volusia County Branch Jail on $1,000 bail. Taco Bell workers called police at 3:10am on Sunday after Harris and a woman, both intoxicated, would not leave the restaurant.
Police found Harris on a bicycle by the menu speaker. Aron Tobler, the employee, said he refused service to Harris and Sarah Haliburton because “they placed an order on bicycles” in the drive through window. Haliburton was not charged. Police said Harris got to the restaurant after it closed at 3am.
As police were asking Harris to leave, they spotted a red Swiss Army knife on Harris' belt loop and tried to reach for it. Harris grabbed the officer's wrist and Harris was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed. Harris suffered a scraped forehead, police said.

Man became violent when asked to share his eggnog

An Upper East Tennessee man who was allegedly driven to violence by an unwelcome request to share his eggnog on Sunday evening is to appear in Hawkins County Sessions Court charged with two counts of domestic assault. Dennis Joseph Saxe, 45, of Mount Carmel, has been held in the Hawkins County Jail without bond since his arrest on Monday morning. At around 6:23pm Police Department Officer Luke Jarnigan was dispatched to Saxe's residence which he shares with his girlfriend Christina Wyant.

Wyant told Jarnigan that Saxe became violent when her teenage daughter asked for a glass of his eggnog. "Mr. Saxe got mad and punched a hole in the wall, screaming at (the daughter) for wanting some eggnog," Jarnigan said. "Christina stated she told Saxe to stop, and that it was just eggnog. (The daughter) stated she went into the living room and told Saxe that if he did not want her to have the eggnog, she wouldn't get any."
Saxe then allegedly ran up to the daughter, "got in her face," and started screaming at her. Wyant reportedly tried to get Saxe to stop, at which time Saxe allegedly pushed her down onto a couch. When Wyant got back up, Saxe allegedly began choking her. "Christina stated that at some point they all ended up on the floor, and Christina was yelling for Saxe to stop because he had his arms around (the daughter)," Jarnigan said. "Saxe stood up to punch Christina, and (the daughter's boyfriend) pushed Saxe onto the couch."
The daughter then called 911, and Saxe left the residence. MCPD Officer Cody Bussell arrested Saxe on Jarnigan's warrant for two counts of domestic assault after Saxe returned to his home. Jarnigan said there was no indication that anyone in the household was under the influence at the time of the alleged assaults, nor was the incident preceded by any other arguments or altercations. "Based on the witness accounts, she (Wyant's daughter) asked for a glass of eggnog, and he (Saxe) went off," Jarnigan said. "He didn't want to share his eggnog." >

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The Irish: The Forgotten White Slaves

They came as slaves: human cargo transported on British ships bound for the Americas. They were shipped by the hundreds of thousands and included men, women, and even the youngest of children.
Whenever they rebelled or even disobeyed an order, they were punished in the harshest ways. Slave owners would hang their human property by their hands and set their hands or feet on fire as one form of punishment. Some were burned alive and had their heads placed on pikes in the marketplace as a warning to other captives.
We don’t really need to go through all of the gory details, do we? We know all too well the atrocities of the African slave trade.
But are we talking about African slavery? King James VI and Charles I also led a continued effort to enslave the Irish. Britain’s Oliver Cromwell furthered this practice of dehumanizing one’s next door neighbor.
The Irish slave trade began when James VI sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies.
By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.
From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade.
Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.
During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia.
Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.
Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.
As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.
African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (£50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than £5 Sterling). If a planter whipped, branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African.
The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce.
Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. Thus, Irish mothers, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their children and would remain in servitude.
In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls (many as young as 12) with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves.
This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.
England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat.
There is little question the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more, in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is also little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry.
In 1839, Britain finally decided on it’s own to end its participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded this chapter of Irish misery.
But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong. Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.
But, why is it so seldom discussed? Do the memories of hundreds of thousands of Irish victims not merit more than a mention from an unknown writer?
Or is their story to be the one that their English masters intended: To completely disappear as if it never happened.
None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot.

Electron Beam Points to Origins of Teotihuacan Stone Faces

New microscope analysis of artifacts from the ancient city also can find fakes in museums

by Josh Fischman

Dramatic stone masks, iconic finds in the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan, were supposed to be made from a jade-like stone. Many researchers also thought the large faces were made on the site of the pre-Columbian metropolis. Instead, they seem to have been made in workshops a great distance to the south of the city. And they are made of softer stone like serpentinite and polished with quartz. Quartz does not appear around Teotihuacan, bolstering the notion that the masks were made far away. “Almost everything that has been written about the making of the Teotihuacan masks is untrue,” says Jane Walsh, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.New details about the manufacture of these old and valuable masks are coming to light, thanks to modern technology: a special analytical scanning electron microscope that can identify the atoms and minerals that make up the stone, and show miniscule marks left by the artisans who carved them. Timothy Rose, a geologist at the Smithsonian, presented the results of microscope studies last week at the annual meeting of the American Vacuum Society, a group of material scientists, in Baltimore. “We examined about 150 of these masks with good provenance, from several museum collections,” says Rose, who works with Walsh.
Within that group he found about three fakes, uncovered because the microscope showed the telltale marks of modern tools. “We were pleased the number was so small,” he adds. “But it is important to have this technology to tell what is real, because many masks, in both museum and private collections, don’t come with good documentation about their origins.”
There is plenty of other evidence that Teotihuacan had far-flung connections, notes Geoffrey Braswell, an anthropologist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies Mesoamerica. Other imports have been found in the city, he said in an email. Walsh and Rose, however, note that the mask-makers have not been traced.
At its peak of power, in the first half of the first millennium A.D., Teotihuacan, which is just north of present-day Mexico City, was the largest city in the New World. It had with more than 100,000 inhabitants, tall pyramids, multistory apartment buildings, broad avenues and ceremonial structures. The society dominated even the Maya of that time who lived to the east in what is now southern Mexico and Guatemala. The city collapsed, for unknown reasons, in the seventh century A.D. and its buildings were sacked.
More than 600 of the stone masks now are held in museum collections throughout the world. Walsh says that researchers thought they were made of jadeite, a hard rock. But no one had really analyzed their composition.
Rose did, using a special scanning electron microscope. Usually such microscopes require samples to be coated with particles like carbon or gold in order to produce images. That cannot be done with valuable archaeological artifacts because it would damage them. But Rose uses a low-vacuum microscope, which surrounds the specimen with water vapor instead. The microscope’s beam hits electrons in the vapor, which interact with electrons on the sample surface to produce a detailed image. It also produces a signature from the atoms in the sample. “We can tell what kind of atoms are in any material, and therefore identify any minerals and rocks,” he says.
The masks turned out to be made of minerals such as serpentinite, limestone and travertine rather than jadeite. The scientists also identified harder grains of quartz on the surface. Quartz makes a good abrasive for stone polishing. It is not found near Teotihuacan but it does appear about 150 kilometers south in the state of Puebla. In Puebla, archaeologists have found remains of workshops used to make ceramic objects that are characteristic of Teotihuacan. “We think the masks were manufactured by artisans in Puebla, carved and polished there, and then brought a long distance to the city,” Walsh says.
More support for this interpretation comes from other material found on the masks: Skeletons of diatoms, a kind of algae. “They sort of look like hair rollers,” Rose says. These skeletons form diatomaceous earth, a soft type of sediment that would be a good final polish for the stone masks. Again, such earth is not found near Teotihuacan but does appear in Puebla.
Because the scanning electron microscope reveals fine details, as small as one micron in diameter, the scientists were able to see the tool marks of the mask makers. (A micron is one millionth of a meter, or about 40 millionths of an inch.) That turns out to be a good way of telling old, real masks from modern fakes. “A pre-Columbian carver would use a stone file with sand to help it cut,” Walsh says. “What that leaves is a straight rut on the surface of the mask.” Modern forgers—spurred by the $150,00 to $250,000 such masks can fetch at auctions—use rotary cutters, which are much faster but leave a very different signature. “You can see curvature in the cuts,” she says. The modern blades are also studded with diamonds, which leave telltale parallel grooves.
It is reassuring, the researchers say, that most museum holdings appear to be genuine. And moving forward, as excavations at Teotihuacan continue and more masks surface, it is even more comforting to have a tool at hand that can spot the occasional frauds.

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Early Neanderthal Site Endangered

The Baker’s Hole site in Kent is known for its 250,000-year-old Neanderthal remains. Francis Wenban-Smith of the University of Southampton is working to survey it and examine paleo-environmental remains before the site is lost to erosion, animal burrows, and plant roots. “These biological remains can tell us a lot about the environment early Neanderthals lived in. We can tell if the climate was warm or cold, whether the area was wooded or marshland, and other factors that help us to see the context in which they lived. They can also help date the site accurately,” he said. The new information will help to create a management plan that could ensure the site’s survival. To read about research into Neanderthal diet and technology, see "Neanderthal Medicine Chest."

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Jupiter's moon Europa, as you've never seen it before

NASA has issued a new image of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

Scientists have produced a new version of what is perhaps NASA's best view of Jupiter's ice-covered moon, Europa. The mosaic of color images was obtained in the late 1990s by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. This is the first time that NASA is publishing a version of the scene produced using modern image processing techniques.

More at nasa.gov about this stunning new view of one of the most fascinating elements in our solar system.

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Roaming the Island of India

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The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, this means you ...!

 

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Today in History

1248   The city of Seville, France, surrenders to Ferdinand III of Castile after a two-year siege.  
1785   John Hancock is elected president of the Continental Congress for the second time.  
1863   Union forces win the Battle of Orchard Knob, Tennessee.  
1863   The Battle of Chattanooga, one of the most decisive battles of the American Civil War, begins (also in Tennessee).  
1903   Italian tenor Enrico Caruso makes his American debut in a Metropolitan Opera production of Verdi's Rigoletto.  
1904   Russo-German talks break down because of Russia's insistence to consult France.  
1909   The Wright brothers form a million-dollar corporation for the commercial manufacture of their airplanes.  
1921   President Warren G. Harding signs the Willis Campell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill. It forbids doctors to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.  
1933   President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalls the American ambassador from Havana, Cuba, and urges stability in the island nation.  
1934   The United States and Great Britain agree on a 5-5-3 naval ratio, with both countries allowed to build five million tons of naval ships while Japan can only build three. Japan will denounce the treaty.  
1936   The United States abandons the American embassy in Madrid, Spain, which is engulfed by civil war. 1941   U.S. troops move into Dutch Guiana to guard the bauxite mines.  
1942   The film Casablanca premieres in New York City.  
1943   U.S. Marines declare the island of Tarawa secure.  
1945   Wartime meat and butter rationing ends in the United States.  
1953   North Korea signs 10-year aid pact with Peking.  
1968   Four men hijack an American plane, with 87 passengers, from Miami to Cuba.  
1980   In Europe's biggest earthquake since 1915, 3,000 people are killed in Italy.  
1981   US Pres. Ronald Reagan signs top secret directive giving the CIA authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.  
1990   The first all-woman expedition to South Pole sets off from Antarctica on the part of a 70-day trip; the group includes 12 Russians, 3 Americans and 1 Japanese.  
1992   The first Smartphone, IBM Simon, introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2005   Ellen Johnson Sirleaf elected president of Liberia; she is the first woman to lead an African nation. 2006   In the second-deadliest day of sectarian violence in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 war, 215 people are killed and nearly 260 injured by bombs in Sadr City.  
2011   Yemeni President Ali Abullah Saleh signs a deal to to transfer power to the vice president, in exchange for legal immunity; the agreement came after 11 months of protests.

Woman opens professional cuddling shop – gets 10,000 customers in first week

Hair strokes, hand-holding, caressing and conversation is also available

by Christopher Hooton

Professional cuddler Samantha Hess has opened a pro cuddling shop, where for $60 customers can get an hour's worth of spooning and "the level of human contact that we want or need in order to be our optimal selves."

Located in Portland, Oregon, the shop is called Cuddle Up To Me and is already very busy.
"This business has taken off," Hess told Fox 12. "I've gotten as many as 10,000 emails in a week."
Hour-long sessions cost $60 dollars and include hair strokes, hand-holding and a plethora of different cuddle positions.
Hess says the business is in no way adult-orientated, and that she got the idea for it during a low point in her life. Samantha Hess previously cuddled at customers' houses Where the magic happens Hand-holding is included
"I was at a place where I thought paying someone to hug me and not have ulterior motives sounded like a great idea," she added. "I decided why can't this be a thing that we can easily and safely reach for?"
Sessions are taped to ensure the safety of both cuddler and cuddlee.
"After meeting Samantha Hess, I feel so much better," said Steve from Vancouver in a testimonial on the Cuddle Up To Me website.
"Our cuddle time gave me a different outlook on life. I had no idea what I was missing. I am a big fan now and look forward to our next session. She is encouraging, kind and sincere."
The shop is open Monday to Saturday. Talking is optional and pajamas are encouraged.

Teeth and Bones

Mass Abduction Reveals a Decaying Mexican State

by Marian Blasberg and Jens Glüsing

Most murders don't even make the front page in Mexico anymore. But the recent abduction of 43 students has infuriated the country. The story has exposed the tight relationship between politics, law enforcement and organized crime. And it shows how weak the state has become.  More

• Photo Gallery: Mexico's Killing Fields

Soon-To-Be Nevada Speaker Said Democrats Are The “Master” Of The “Simple Minded Darkies”

Assemblyman Ira Hansen was selected earlier this month to be Assembly Speaker once the new legislative session begins. He has a long history of making bigoted and offensive…

One of the results of the repugican ‘wave’ during the recent midterm elections was that a number of state legislatures flipped over to repugican majorities. Nevada is one such state where this occurred. The repugicans stole 10 seats on Election Day, therefore taking control of the state’s Assembly. Instead of choosing current Minority Leader Pat Hickey to be Speaker, the caucus instead voted for Assemblyman Ira Hansen. Hickey was also bypassed as Majority Leader. Nevada repugicans claimed that Hickey wasn’t wingnut enough. This is the first time since 1929 that Nevada’s governor and two chambers have been repugican.

Well, they need not worry about Hansen’s wingnut bona fides. After the repugican caucus announced Hansen as the incoming Speaker, a weekly alternative magazine, the Reno News & Review, decided to comb through Hansen’s writing history. For over 13 years, Hansen wrote a column for his local newspaper, the Sparks Tribune. The News & Review combed through each one of his articles and found some shockingly racist, sexist, homophobic and just plain offensive statements. Most of the articles are not online, so writers and researchers had to rely on microfiche.

Regarding the topic of race in America, Hansen wrote a number of inflammatory columns. He pointed out that when he wrote his columns, he made sure there was a Confederate flag hanging in the room. His reason:  “I fly it proudly in honor and in memory of a great cause and my brave ancestors who fought for that cause.” Hansen also spent a lot of time regurgitating unproven rumors about the personal life of Martin Luther King, Jr., obviously as a way to discredit his accomplishments and teachings. At one point, Hansen wrote, “King’s private life was trashy at best. … King Jr. is as low as it gets, a hypocrite, a liar, a phony, and a fraud.”

However, the worst may have been in an article where Hansen was discussing public education and teachers unions. He claimed that the NAACP and Democrats were using education as a way to enslave blacks. He then referred to the Democratic Party as “the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple minded darkies.”

“The Democratic coalition would split asunder if the NAACP & co. actually promoted what black Americans truly desire—educational choice. The shrewd and calculating [black] ‘leaders’ are willing to sacrifice the children of their own race to gratify their lust for power and position. The relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple minded darkies. For American blacks, being denied choice and forced to attend the failing and inferior government school system is a form of involuntary servitude. Let’s call it what it truly is—educational slavery.”

He also wrote that blacks are not grateful enough to white people for ending slavery.

“The lack of gratitude and the deliberate ignoring of white history in relation to eliminating slavery is a disgrace that Negro leaders should own up to.”

Of course, Hansen didn’t limit his bigotry to blacks during his column’s history. Hispanics and Latinos were targeted quite a bit as Hansen constantly complained about gang violence and laid the blame on the Latino community. He also claimed, without any evidence, that an increase in Hispanics at a high school was causing more tuberculosis cases in the area. As far as women, Hansen blamed the “women’s liberation movement” on society’s ills.

“So what happened between 1960 and 2001? Major social changes that negatively affected the family. Childbearing was reduced to an average of two kids. … Divorce rates skyrocketed. ‘Child care’ became an industry. Child abuse skyrocketed. Thanks to the ‘sexual revolution’ and the ‘women’s liberation movement,’ women chose to act as foolishly as men, and illegitimacy also went through the roof. … Abortions get about one out of every four children conceived.”

And the hits go on and on. The News & Review pointed out that the Sparks Tribune’s Andrew Barbano will feature much of Hansen’s writing in his column during the upcoming legislative session. Barbano says he’s always believed that Hansen is “an overt bigot, racist and homophobe.”

Alas, this is what the repugican ‘wave’ brought us — more of the crazy, especially at the state and local level.

St. Louis Cop Who Killed Black Teenager Identified As Obama-Hating Gun-Loving Racist

The St. Louis police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers, Jr. last month was inadvertently identified by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department when his name was included in an evidence envelope when Myers’ body was delivered to the funeral home. The police department had intended to keep the officer’s name a secret in the aftermath of the shooting, claiming safety concerns. A lawyer for the Myers family publicly identified the officer as 32-year-old Jason H. Flanery, a six-year veteran of the force.

Jermaine Wooten, the lawyer who revealed Flanery’s name, spoke with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Wednesday regarding Flanery’s online history. It appears that many of the posts and comments Flanery has made on Facebook, YouTube and other websites reflect a right-wing ideology, with specific anger directed at the President and First Lady. He’s also made statements reflecting a desire to fire a large number of shots at anyone who may have shot first.

Wooten noted online posts attributed to Flanery that call President Barack Obama “Nobama” and say that in a speech by Michelle Obama, “She looks drunk, high, and dumb as hell.” The lawyer said repeated disparaging remarks about blacks in Flanery’s postings reflected a “strong negatively biased view of African-Americans.”

He also cited Flanery’s online criticism of liberals and homosexuality. The lawyer complained that “lunatic fringe wingnuts” have not traditionally been “the friendliest” to people such as Myers.

…

He said online pictures showed “a guy who is actually in love with weaponry.” More problematic, Wooten said, are comments on YouTube videos. In those, Flanery criticizes liberals and posts comments such as, “wingnuts are better. At everything.”

…

Flanery, 32, on the force for six years, also posted comments on videos of police actions, including a shooting in New York. One comment: “And the moral of the story is … if you shoot at men with guns they are going to shoot you back. And probably a lot.”

Wooten said, “That says to me, if someone has a gun … he is going to continue to fire shots at that person until he is dead. Meaning if you fire one shot at me, I’ll fire 100 at you.”

Another thing that was noted by Wooten is that Flanery, while a teenager, was charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon. Flanery was stopped by Chesterfield Police in 2001 when a teacher noticed him tossing a beer can out of a moving car. The police found a wooden baton, two throwing knives and other unopened beer cans. Eventually, Flanery pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and paid a $300 fine and attended alcohol counseling.

Wooten pointed out the parallels between Flanery, a white teenager living in an upper-middle-class suburb at the time, and Myers and other black teenagers being confronted by white police officers. He stated that Flanery got to move on with his life while Myers was essentially tried and executed for his crimes by Flanery on the street. Brian Millikan, the attorney for Flanery, dismissed that comparison claiming Myers made his decision when he pulled a gun and shot at Flanery.

St. Louis police claim that Myers was carrying a gun and shot at Flanery when Flanery pulled up next to Myers while Myers was walking in the Shaw neighborhood in St. Louis on October 8th. Flanery was off-duty, but wearing his uniform, while working security for a neighborhood association when he stopped Myers and two of his friends for a “pedestrian check.” Per Flanery’s account, Myers and the others ran off. Flanery states that when he chased after Myers, the teen ambushed him from behind some bushes on a small hill and began shooting at him. Myers was then shot dead during this confrontation as Flanery shot his gun 17 times, hitting Myers at least six times.

There have been some inconsistencies in the police department’s story. First, the officer initially said Myers hid behind some bushes. However, there are no bushes where the confrontation took place, prompting police to amend the story. Also, police have states that a gun was found near the scene and gunpowder residue was found on Myers. On the other hand, Myers’ DNA was not on the gun that he supposedly shot. Also, a few minutes before the confrontation with Flanery, Myers went into a nearby store to purchase a sandwich. The store owner has contended that Myers did not have a gun on him when he entered the store. Also, a private autopsy indicates that Myers was likely incapacitated by a shot to the leg prior to Flanery delivering a kill shot.

The neighborhood and City of St. Louis experienced protests in the immediate aftermath of Myers’ death. It is expected more protests will occur in the area if Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson is no charged in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Pregnant, and No Civil Rights

With the 'success' of repugicans in the midterm elections and the passage of Tennessee's anti-abortion amendment, we can expect ongoing efforts to ban abortion and advance the "personhood" rights of fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses.But it is not just those who support abortion rights who have reason to worry. Anti-choice measures pose a risk to all pregnant women, including those who want to be pregnant.
Such laws are increasingly being used as the basis for arresting women who have no intention of ending a pregnancy and for preventing women from making their own decisions about how they will give birth.
How does this play out? Based on the delusion that he had an obligation to give a fetus a chance for life, a judge in Washington, D.C., ordered a critically ill 27-year-old woman who was 26 weeks pregnant to undergo a cesarean section, which he understood might kill her. Neither the woman nor her baby survived.
In Iowa, a pregnant woman who fell down a flight of stairs was reported to the police after seeking help at a hospital. She was arrested for "attempted fetal homicide."
In Utah, a woman gave birth to twins; one was stillborn. Health care providers believed that the stillbirth was the result of the woman's decision to delay having a cesarean. She was arrested on charges of fetal homicide.
In Louisiana, a woman who went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding was locked up for over a year on charges of second-degree murder before medical records revealed she had suffered a miscarriage at 11 to 15 weeks of pregnancy.

More

Utah may cut off NSA's water in protest of mass surveillance

In Utah, where the largest National Security Agency data center is located, a state legislative committee will soon consider a bill that could cut off millions of gallons of water for the NSA facility south of Salt Lake City. The bill is sponsored by Marc Roberts (r), is as a protest against the mass collection of Americans’ data, and would prohibit any Utah municipality from providing “material support or assistance in any form to any federal data collection and surveillance agency.”
From the Associated Press:

Marc Roberts of Santaquin said he wants use a Wednesday afternoon hearing to explore whether the data center is getting any sweetheart deals on municipal water and power.
Lawmakers opted to hold off on Roberts’ bill to cut off the water to the facility during the last legislative session and study it during the interim.
The $1.7 billion facility, the NSA’s largest data-storage center in the U.S., was built in Utah over 37 other locations because of open land and cheap electricity. The center sits on a National Guard base about 25 miles south of Salt Lake City in the town of Bluffdale.

More: Washington Post.

The 7 most mindblowingly stupid arguments against net neutrality

by S.E. Smith

We’re all in love with net neutrality, except for those of us who are not. The problem is that most of the arguments against it are mindblowingly ridiculous: They betray a fundamental lack of understanding about what net neutrality is, how it works, how the Internet works, and how regulatory agencies operate.

Read on for a greatest hits edition of the worst of the worst of anti-net neutrality sentiment.

1) Ted Cruz: “Net Neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet”

It looks like the moron doesn’t understand Obamacare or the Internet. In a Facebook post, he suggested that net neutrality was “the biggest regulatory threat to the Internet.” The post compared net neutrality to the Affordable Care Act, arguing that: “It puts the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service, and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities, and higher prices for consumers.”

Someone should probably let Cruz know that the goal of net neutrality is to effectively do the exact opposite: To ensure that the Internet remains freely accessible to all, without differential pricing structures and limited access to sites and hosts that cannot afford to pay for the “fast lanes” proposal. Moreover, the White House specifically opposes government involvement in rate regulation, something that radically distinguishes it from Obamacare. Obamacare was a fundamental overhaul of the American health care system; net neutrality proposals seek to uphold the status quo.

In fact, some people already are telling him, including conservatives in the comments on his Facebook post, and Senator Al Franken, who was unimpressed by his logic. “This is about reclassifying something so it stays the same,” Franken explained. “This would keep things exactly the same that they've been.”

2) Net Neutrality Threatens Free Speech Rights

This is a serious accusation in a nation where free speech rights are paramount and a fundamental cornerstone of national identity. In an op-ed published at the Washington Post last week, Senator Cruz informed readers that “the threats from Washington to stifle freedom, entrepreneurship and creativity online have never been greater." Cruz continued, "Washington politicians want the money, and they want more and more control over our speech.”

He echoes other Congressional repugicans in the refrain that new neutrality will ruin the economy and restrict freedom of speech. It’s an odd choice of argument, given the reference to money; numerous repugicans are pocketing large amounts of money from companies like Comcast, which are opposed to net neutrality, and those very same repugicans are pushing against the proposed regulatory change to classify broadband as a utility. If free speech is important, people shouldn’t have to pay to exercise that right, which is precisely what will happen if we do not protect it.

Net neutrality enshrines free speech rights by ensuring that anyone with access to the Internet can start a blog, comment online, use social media, and communicate widely with the public. There’s no greater expression of personal freedoms than that.

3) This Is a Liberal Vs. Wingnut Battle

This refrain comes up repeatedly from wingnuts: Liberals want to regulate you right out of your free-market enterprise on the Internet, interfering yet again with the rights of law-abiding (and really, there should be fewer laws) Americans, while wingnuts oppose net neutrality, preferring to let the Internet sort itself out.

Someone should probably let these wingnuts know that support for net neutrality is bipartisan, with voters, regulators, and some members of Congress largely supporting net neutrality. Their support actually comes in no small part from their belief in the free market: The market isn’t free if some companies are given preferential treatment, which is exactly what will happen if some companies can buy their way into faster loading times and other benefits. Actually, free market advocates and critics have discussed, in detail, the case for net neutrality.

But what about all those polls saying that repugican and wingnut voters don’t like net neutrality? The answer is simple: Push polling works. When wingnuts are asked if they support net neutrality, their responses are far more likely to be confused or unfavorable. If the question is reworded (“should ISPs be able to ‘influence content’ online”), their responses change. Change the poll language, change the results. That’s because some wingnuts have made net neutrality a partisan issue, tagging the term with negative associations for wingnut voters. They tried the same trick with the Affordable Care Act, and it backfired: Now, Obamacare is more like an affectionate nickname than a slur, with even the President endorsing the name.

4) Net Neutrality Would Promote the Interests of China, Iran, and Other Enemies

Koch-backed lobbying cabal un-American Commitment has been whipping up sentiments over net neutrality, claiming that it will create a political situation akin to that in Russia. Meanwhile, as U.S. News and Tech Daily writer Roslyn Layton suggests, “Obama’s announcement could not be a better present to the leaders of China, Iran, and Russia.” Her argument, repeating claims that net neutrality will somehow restrict free speech and increase government regulation, is that any protection of net neutrality will serve as catnip for nations interested in cracking down on their own Internet freedoms.

A statement with suspiciously similar language from Broadband for America argues:

Further, the President's directive discredits US efforts to prevent countries like Russia and China from destroying the current international multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance and replacing it with government regulatory control.  It is ironic that the President made his announcement while in China, which has long sought greater government control over the Internet and surely will be encouraged by the President's statement.   

Evidently, the U.S. can no longer comment on Internet freedoms if it passes a law to protect Internet freedoms.

5) Net Neutrality Will Target Wingnut Media

Donald Trump wants us to know that net neutrality is anything but neutral. Instead, it’s a sneaky scheme to undermine wingnut media. He seems a bit unclear on how, exactly, this will happen, but he took to Twitter (ah, the sweet breath of irony) to inform his followers of the issue. Michael Cantrell at the commentary site Young wingnuts echoes the claim: “The Internet is the only true haven of free speech where conservatives can voice their thoughts and opinions without fear. If Obama has his way, this will no longer be the case.” 

Other insane wingnuts like Lush Dimbulb have also joined this particular charge against net neutrality. In fact, tellingly, as the Daily Dot’s Kevin Collier revealed last week, numerous anti-net neutrality op-eds have been sponsored by anti-neutrality groups or appeared in papers with financial connections to ISPs resisting the proposed regulation; hardly an unbiased expression of public speech. That’s a sure sign of a nervous industry lining up to shoot down arguments against it, and it’s telling that it’s doing so through conservative media outlets.

Someone probably out to inform these critics that in fact just the opposite is true: Net neutrality will ensure that people continue to have access to any and all media they wish to see. Search results, promotions, and other techniques people use for finding media will not be affected by protecting equal access to the Internet. If anything, net neutrality will ensure that even the smallest of conservative sites, with a limited budget for server space, advertising, and media contacts, can be found right alongside bastions of those famous liberal elites like the Guardian and Socialist Worker.

6) Net Neutrality Will Kill the Economy

“An open, vibrant ‪#‎Internet‬ is essential to a growing economy,” says  John Boehner, which I wholeheartedly agree with. The U.S. economy wouldn’t be what it is today, and wouldn’t have tremendous room for growth, were it not for the Internet. But here’s where he loses me: “‪#‎netneutrality‬ is a textbook example of the kind of Washington regulations that destroy innovation and entrepreneurship.”

Someone should probably inform Boehner that, by contrast, a free, open, and vibrant Internet will stimulate the economy much more than one in a chokehold, held hostage to which companies can pay for premium access and which cannot. One reason the Internet was and has remained such a powerful tool for entrepreneurship is that anyone can access it, and all ideas are free and readily available; maintaining that status quo is critical for protecting the economy. At the Daily Beast, Joshua DuBois notes:

Over the last five years, the Obama administration has done a stellar job of investing in opportunity for our nation's young people, working at each stage of a child's development to ensure that kids have the ability to succeed and thrive. But—for at least the sizable segment of the next generation that desires to move into science, technology, engineering and math fields—these new FCC rules [the proposed fastlane approach] could waste a substantial portion of that investment, stifle innovation, and create a two-tiered opportunity structure with big companies on the top and future innovators left behind.  

7) Net Neutrality is a “Power Grab” (and “Media Marxist Conspiracy”)

Ever-despised wingnut site Breitbart believes that any net neutrality vote would be a “power grab” for Democrats on the basis of the belief that the FCC lacks the power to regulate. repugican Steve Scalise echoes the sentiment, though he fails to articulate how net neutrality benefits the Obama Administration specifically. In fact, a press release from the White House notes that: “That's what President Obama believes, and what he means when he says there should be no gatekeepers between you and your favorite online sites and services.” That’s pretty much the opposite of a power grab.

Someone should probably let the fact checkers and team over at Breitbart know that the FCC is a regulatory agency, as in, one empowered to regulate telecommunications in the United States, including but not limited to the Internet. It is empowered to do so by Congress and develops regulation with the assistance of public comment, internal regulatory meetings, and reports from other government agencies. Congress can also pass what are known as “legislative rules” on its own, directing the FCC to perform certain tasks or to reconsider existing regulatory rules; in other words, Congress could ask the FCC to revisit net neutrality, thus creating a strong check against any abuse of powers.

We’re a little unclear on how regulating equal access to the Internet is a sneaky political move, given that proponents of net neutrality are just asking for our currently free and open Internet to remain free and open. That means that Breitbart should load as easily and readily as Greenpeace.

With arguments against net neutrality so easily deconstructed, why are we even arguing over it