All-purpose news and politics thread

[Jabare]

lets keep things civil here people

[beetlebum]

posters here seem to want to pick fights....I wasn't trying to start anything, just have a conversation

No, you just slandered a bunch of people in the region by promoting half-truths.

Do you work for Invisible Children?

lets keep things civil here people

Please, as far as heated goes, this is a lot more tame compared to some of the debates we've had in the past.

I'll also never understand how saying something is 'stupid' is somehow akin to being more 'uncivil' than promoting Arabs as uniquely violent.

Going after someone for making an unintelligent, uninformed statement is nowhere near as bad as bigoted slander.

[Iangould]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/11/world/...c=world&page=1


Speaking off middle east violence ... From Gaza to Israel.

Speaking of prejudice:

Israel bombs Gaza repeatedly; kills around 30 people; asserts without offering any proof that some of them were involved in planning undefined acts of violence against Israel; Palestinian factions respond with largely symbolic and futile rocket attacks on south Israel; ignorant jackass talks about violence "from Gaza to Israel".

But, you know, if you start from the assumption that Arabs are uniquely violent it saves you having to actually think about who's at fault.

[Goggindowner]

I'll also never understand how saying something is 'stupid' is somehow akin to being more 'uncivil' than promoting Arabs as uniquely violent.

Going after someone for making an unintelligent, uninformed statement is nowhere near as bad as bigoted slander.

It's one thing to call people for saying something stupid, and another to draw wild conclusions from comments that clearly are well beyond what was ever intended or implied.

[Cavemold]

A. I wasn't taking sides or calling out anyone
B. I was making the simply connection of violence between the two groups......
C. Do you enjoy putting racial spins on topics? I didn't mention one thing about race.

[Matt Algren]

No, you just slandered a bunch of people in the region by promoting half-truths.

Do you work for Invisible Children?



Please, as far as heated goes, this is a lot more tame compared to some of the debates we've had in the past.

I'll also never understand how saying something is 'stupid' is somehow akin to being more 'uncivil' than promoting Arabs as uniquely violent.

Going after someone for making an unintelligent, uninformed statement is nowhere near as bad as bigoted slander.

Plus one.

[Matt Algren]

You obviously haven't read Cavemold's comments about incidents involving Afghanis killing US personnel and how they prove it's a filthy shithole of a country full of subhuman savages.

Or faggots!

[Charles RB]

Back in the late 1980's and early 90's I was studying Asian Studies. Day after day, very intelligent and very well-educated academics - people who were senior advisers to both the Australian and US governments - would tell us that democracy was "inconsistent with East Asian cultural values"

What the hell reasons did they give for that? (And for that matter, how did they account for bloody Japan?)

[Charles RB]

There've been anti-federalism rallies in Tripoli and Benghazi, following the declaration of semi-autonomy for Barqa/Cyrenaica. Benghazi's the significant one since that's the main city of Barqa - pro-federalism rallies are bigger but it's still a sign of dissent.

Though as this article points out:

several towns and cities are already forging ahead with their own democratic experiments. In February, the city of Misrata unilaterally held elections to a local council.

Libya's third-largest city already runs itself as a virtually independent city-state. No one is demonstrating.

The difference is that the Misratans are simply getting on with it, while in Benghazi they announced their autonomy to great fanfare.

In these politically embryonic times, public gestures like the declaration of "semi-autonomy" in Benghazi are significant.

The fact Barqa's got most of the oil has something to do with it too.

Acting-President Jalil has said that military force is not going to be used though - a backtrack from saying he'd defend unity with "force", since how else would you take that statement?

[Gryphon]

Anyone read about the latest Doonesbury controversey?

[Spike-X]

No.
.

[Cavemold]

Anyone read about the latest Doonesbury controversey?

No, what's so conservertial about it.

[Gryphon]

No.
.

No, what's so conservertial about it.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/03/...vaginal-exams/

I’ve often told people that I learn what’s going on in America by alternatively watching Fox News and The Daily Show. That’s not quite true. I also read Doonesbury.

And it seems that this augist strip will be tackling a topic covered by both of those other institutions, Texan legislation supported by Governor and Presidential candidate Rick Perry, that demands that women undergo a transvaginal exam and ultrasound scan before they have an abortion. Basically confronting the patient with the reality of the stage of their pregnancy in an invasive manner, no matter what the context. Basicaly trying to shame them into not having an abortion and continuing the pregnancy, at a time when the patient may be in a very vulnerable mental state.

The strip will tackle this topic through the next week, in which a woman is guided through the process by a Republican state lawmaker before being asked to sit in the “shaming room.”

As a result, and as expected, a number of newspapers have pulled the strip for a week, running reprints instead. But one newspaper has come up woth a different solution, running the controversial strip online, but the replacement strip in the paper, citing different audience expectations for each.

The last time Trudeau tackled the topic in the eighties, parodying the anti-abortion video The Silent Scream, the syndicate pulled the strip from newspapers – though I remember reading it as a twelve year old in the British newspaper, the Guardian. This time the syndicate is fully behind the strip, though offering alternatives to sensitive marketplaces.

[Gryphon]

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/03/...vaginal-exams/

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/03/...sbury-cartoon/

This is the first of a series of Doonesbury cartoons running this week in… slightly less newspapers than usual. Targeting legislation in a number of states that those seeking an abortion must have a transvaginal scan, something that has been mocked as much as it has been criticised of late, Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury seems unlikely to pull any punches. Especially considering the Republican Presidential candidate debates of late, and the role of Texan governor Rick Perry.

The first cartoon above, is relatively tame. One line from an upcoming cartoon “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape” is likely to cause considerably more fuss, as will the questionnaire line “How long have you been a slut?”


But with other satirical sources such as The Colbert Report and Saturday Night Lice, able to topically turn on a sixpence, this legislation appears to already have been amended, under ridicule, in Virginia. The comic strip, as traditionally syndicated, just can’t react quickly enough…

[Spike-X]

As a result, and as expected, a number of newspapers have pulled the strip for a week, running reprints instead. But one newspaper has come up woth a different solution, running the controversial strip online, but the replacement strip in the paper, citing different audience expectations for each.

That's a shame (but not really a surprise). Because the only people who are going to be offended by these cartoons, it seems like, are the ones who should be.