News Stories

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Basically, she just proved herself to be a poster child for the "pot==kettle" adage. She's just as "primitive and savage" because basically she's asserting "only her tribe are the People" and the rest are edible or something.

Soylent Green is... Muslims?

[Urzu 7]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Soylent Green is... Muslims?

And it goes great with hummus. >.>

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Soylent Green is... Muslims?

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

And it goes great with hummus. >.>

I wonder if that's halal.

[Urzu 7]

You know, on second thought, I shouldn't have made that joke. Now I just falafel about it.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Mmm... I think I might cook kebabs for dinner. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Haak]

Oh you people...



Burma Elections:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17571989

[ganbaru]

Trayvon Martin shooting: It's not George Zimmerman crying for help on 911 recording, 2 experts say
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/...ific-certainty

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Haak

Oh you people...



Burma Elections:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17571989

C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

And it goes great with hummus. >.>

Ha! LOL!
Very nice Urzu 7...very funny.

[Dhomochevsky]

This is freaking awesome!

Swiss hunt German tax men for 'spying'

The story so far:
- Rich Germans love to hide their fortunes in Switzerland, the next door tax haven. Germany considers this illegal tax evasion.
- In 2010 german tax investigators obtained a CD with a huge amount of data on swiss bank accounts from an inside source. This data was being used to go after german tax(non)payers.
- Switzerland considers this an act of espionage. Consequentially they filed an arrest warrant for those investigators (who were acting on behalf of the german government, mind you )
- Now Germany and Switzerland have treaties that enable the international persecution of criminals. On behalf of these treaties, Switzerland has now asked for assistance from Germany to go after the wanted german tax officials.
- German government is in trouble. But Switzerland too. Their ongoing talks about a bilateral tax agreement with Germany just blew up with this. What will happen next?

Muahaha *popcorn*

[ganbaru]

Switzerland and their Banking Secret, as important for them as State Secret ...

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

This is freaking awesome!

Swiss hunt German tax men for 'spying'

The story so far:
- Rich Germans love to hide their fortunes in Switzerland, the next door tax haven. Germany considers this illegal tax evasion.
- In 2010 german tax investigators obtained a CD with a huge amount of data on swiss bank accounts from an inside source. This data was being used to go after german tax(non)payers.
- Switzerland considers this an act of espionage. Consequentially they filed an arrest warrant for those investigators (who were acting on behalf of the german government, mind you )
- Now Germany and Switzerland have treaties that enable the international persecution of criminals. On behalf of these treaties, Switzerland has now asked for assistance from Germany to go after the wanted german tax officials.
- German government is in trouble. But Switzerland too. Their ongoing talks about a bilateral tax agreement with Germany just blew up with this. What will happen next?

Muahaha *popcorn*

Shouldn't this be in the Silly News thread?

EDIT :

Beef processor files for bankruptcy amid "pink slime" uproar

Congrats. You Yanks won the first round.

[Rising Dragon]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...ity-bill.shtml

Looks like Congress is gifting us with another cybersecurity bill with absolutely no oversight...

[Reckoner]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/wo...ions.html?_r=1

China Sees U.S. as Competitor and Declining Power, Insider Says

By JANE PERLEZ
Published: April 2, 2012

BO’AO, China — The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst.

China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country, according to the analyst, Wang Jisi, the co-author of “Addressing U.S.-China Strategic Distrust,” a monograph published this week by the Brookings Institution in Washington and the Institute for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.

Mr. Wang, who has an insider’s view of Chinese foreign policy from his positions on advisory boards of the Chinese Communist Party and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contributed an assessment of Chinese policy toward the United States. Kenneth Lieberthal, the director of the John L. Thornton Center for China Studies at Brookings, and a former member of the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, wrote the appraisal of Washington’s attitude toward China.

In a joint conclusion, the authors say the level of strategic distrust between the two countries has become so corrosive that if not corrected the countries risk becoming open antagonists.

The United States is no longer seen as “that awesome, nor is it trustworthy, and its example to the world and admonitions to China should therefore be much discounted,” Mr. Wang writes of the general view of China’s leadership.

In contrast, China has mounting self-confidence in its own economic and military strides, particularly the closing power gap since the start of the Iraq war. In 2003, he argues, America’s gross domestic product was eight times as large as China’s, but today it is less than three times larger.

The candid writing by Mr. Wang is striking because of his influence and access, in Washington as well as in Beijing. Mr. Wang, who is dean of Peking University‘s School of International Studies and a guest professor at the National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army, has wide access to senior American policy makers, making him an unusual repository of information about the thinking in both countries. Mr. Wang said he did not seek approval from the Chinese government to write the study, nor did he consult them about it.

It is fairly rare for a Chinese analyst who is not part of the strident nationalistic drumbeat to strip away the official talk by both the United States and China about mutual cooperation.

Both Mr. Wang and Mr. Lieberthal argue that beneath the surface, both countries see deep dangers and threatening motivations in the policies of the other.

Mr. Wang writes that the Chinese leadership, backed by the domestic news media and the education system, believes that China’s turn in the world has arrived, and that it is the United States that is “on the wrong side of history.” The period of “keeping a low profile,” a dictum coined by the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1989, and continued until now by the outgoing President Hu Jintao, is over, Mr. Wang warns.

“It is now a question of how many years, rather than how many decades, before China replaces the United States as the largest economy in the world,” he adds.

China’s financial successes, starting with weathering the 1998 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, the execution of events like the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Shanghai Expo in 2010, contrast with America’s “alarming” deficit, sluggish economic recovery and polarized domestic politics, Mr. Wang says.

He does not address head on the far superior strength of the United States in military weaponry. But he notes that Beijing has developed advanced rocketry and space technology and sophisticated weapons systems without the “United States or the U.S.-led world order.”

In the face of China’s strengths, and worries that the United States will be displaced from its premier position in the world, Washington is engaged in a host of activities, including stepped up spying by American planes and ships along China’s borders that anger the Chinese, particularly its military, Mr. Wang writes.

Promotion of human rights in China by American supported nongovernmental organizations are viewed as an effort to “Westernize” the country and directly undermine the Communist Party, a stance the party will not stand for, he says.

That China is increasingly confident that it will prevail in the long run against the United States is backed, in part, by Mr. Lieberthal’s appraisal of American policy toward China.

Mr. Lieberthal cites findings from American intelligence based on internal discussions among crucial Chinese officials that these officials assume “very much a zero-sum approach” when discussing issues directly and indirectly related to United States-China relations.

Because these are privileged communications not intended for public consumption, American officials interpret them to be “particularly revealing of China’s ‘real’ objectives,” Mr. Lieberthal writes.

In turn, American law enforcement officials see an alarming increase in Chinese counterespionage and cyberattacks against the United States that they have concluded are directed by the Chinese authorities to gather information of national interest.

At a seminar last week at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where Brookings finances a study center, Mr. Lieberthal said there was an increasing belief on both sides that the two countries would be “antagonistic in 15 years.”

That would mean major military expenditures by both countries to deter each other, and pushing other countries to take sides. “The worst case is that this could lead to actual armed conflict, although that is by no means a necessary consequence of mutual antagonism,” Mr. Lieberthal said in an interview.

Well it certainly would not be pretty to see the US and China become open antagonists.

[ganbaru]

Oikos University Shooting: Suspect Detained; At Least 6 Dead
http://abcnews.go.com/US/christian-u...4#.T3oD8u0TuqQ
When was the last US school shooting? It feel like it was not long ago because of the one than happened in France.

[Dhomochevsky]

I think we should distinguish between a school schooting committed by a student and a murderer from outside targeting a school, because it is an aggregation of possible targets.

The indicent in France was of the latter type. It isn't clear from the article, what this case is...

[GundamFan0083]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Oikos University Shooting: Suspect Detained; At Least 6 Dead
http://abcnews.go.com/US/christian-u...4#.T3oD8u0TuqQ
When was the last US school shooting? It feel like it was not long ago because of the one than happened in France.

Here is the list from InfoPlease on worldwide school shootings since 1996.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html

[Vexx]

There goes those five "activist judges" again aka Scalia, Roberts, etc...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us...y-offense.html

The procedures endorsed by the majority are forbidden by statute in at least 10 states and are at odds with the policies of federal authorities. According to a supporting brief filed by the American Bar Association, international human rights treaties also ban the procedures.

So... now if you're arrested for jaywalking or peaceful protest or because you pissed off a cop - they now have automatic access to deep body inspection. whee....

... people may be strip-searched after arrests for violating a leash law, driving without a license and failing to pay child support. Citing examples from briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer wrote that people have been subjected to “the humiliation of a visual strip-search” after being arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell. A nun was strip-searched, he (Breyre) wrote, after an arrest for trespassing during an antiwar demonstration. So were victims of sexual assaults and women who were menstruating.

[flying ^]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Turns out there was video shot of Zimmerman's arrival at the Sanford PD. He looks essentially uninjured without any evidence of the broken nose or head wounds that have been previously alleged.

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

I came here to post that. This makes me very mad. He said in his latest claim that Martin attacked first, threw him to the ground, and was smashing his head into the pavement. He said he had blood and grass stains on his clothes, a broken, bloody nose, a fat lip, and a bloody gash on the back of his head. In this video of him, there is NONE of that. Zimmerman has lied twice about what happened that day (he gave one story, and then changed it a few days ago). We CAN'T believe his accounts. Also, some eyewitness accounts claimed to see Martin hurting Zimmerman while he was on the ground. Yeah, those are people covering for Zimmerman. For what ever reason, some people felt the need to lie for Zimmerman.

Not only does this mean that Zimmerman lies about his accounts, in the altercation, he was doing more than fine. Not a scratch is on him. So was Zimmerman ever screaming for help? Not likely. Trayvon probably did all the screaming. And this shows that the police department screwed up yet again. Zimmerman made claims of being bloody after an altercation, and the police department knew about those false claims; whenever Zimmerman made them, and never brought him back in for questioning.

I'm actually not just mad about this video, but a bit happy, in a way. After reading many articles on this case, I just didn't trust that Zimmerman's accounts were correct. This shows he is a huge liar. Also, this is a huge blow to the jerks doing a smear campaign against Trayvon Martin and his reputation. I bet some of them forced themselves into denial, saying "Well, it probably isn't really Zimmerman in the video!".

Originally Posted by Rahan

To be fair, you can see a cop briefly checking out the back of Zimmerman's head at 0:50, so there should be something to see. (although broken noses tend to be bloody and there is no blood here)

That same ABC clip may have the potential to change the narrative and public perception... in favor for Z, and (hopefully) embarrass race-hustler-industry calling Z guilty and to be locked up posthaste

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/geor...artin-16053206

ABC's Matt Gutman said the network re-digitized the video to reveal what appears to be "a pair of gashes or welts" on the back of Zimmerman's head. This discovery is more consistent with Zimmerman's account of what happened the night of Feb. 26. According to a police report first described by the Orlando Sentinel, Zimmerman told investigators that Martin jumped him from behind, punched him in the nose and pounded his head into the sidewalk.

[Dhomochevsky]

The discussion shouldn't be about wether he is guilty or not.
Leave that to be decided by a court.

But to not even try him in court after he shot someone dead under unknown circumstances, that is just rediculous.

What does it matter what kind of evidence bits the media comes up with?
If there is even the slightest doubt in this case, it has to be brought before a court. Someone was shot ffs... you can't solve this by popular media. What kind of legal system is this?