All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Dalak]

Ships actually pollute a lot. A lot. They have horrible gas mileage and create more human waste.
One of the big cruise lines just got fined, again, for dumping tons of trash into the ocean, again.

I said Sail instead of Cruise for that exact reason. Cruise ships for all their filth and disease still travel faster than your average sailboat.

Y'know, considering the complaints about how wind power might cause problems for the wind itself it never seemed to have a problem with thousands of sailboats back in history.

[GindyPosts]

I said Sail instead of Cruise for that exact reason. Cruise ships for all their filth and disease still travel faster than your average sailboat.

Y'know, considering the complaints about how wind power might cause problems for the wind itself it never seemed to have a problem with thousands of sailboats back in history.

Cruise ships seem like a big waste of money. I get that people want to enjoy warm weather and tour exotic destinations, but the idea of hundreds of people trapped on a vessel where disease can spread easily always turns me off.

[PwrdOn]

Cruise ships seem like a big waste of money. I get that people want to enjoy warm weather and tour exotic destinations, but the idea of hundreds of people trapped on a vessel where disease can spread easily always turns me off.

The problem with those exotic, colorful destinations is that they tend to be filled with exotic, colorful people whom the average American tourist may not be too keen on interacting with.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump Lawyer John Dowd Demanded ‘Heads Up’ On Flynn Cooperation In Disturbing Audio

“You know we need some kind of a heads up ... just for the sake of protecting all our interests,” Dowd calmly tells Flynn’s attorney in the voicemail recording. Sounds like the sort of request a consigliere would make for his Mafia don.

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Rex Tillerson Concerned That China Will Wait For New President To Make A Trade Deal

“Mutual respect, win-win solutions. These are things they want to hear, and they’re not hearing those,” the former secretary of state said at Houston conference. Can't say I'm surprised, it's a smart move on the part of China.

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Texas Republican Says Women Should ‘Absolutely’ Be Jailed For Having An Abortion

Rep. Ron Wright likened abortion procedures with “committing murder.” But, Republicans continue saying there's no 'War on Women'. Yeah, right.

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Trump Supporter Arrested After Allegedly Threatening To Kill Members of Congress

Scott Brian Haven of Utah is accused of making over 2,000 phone calls to the U.S. Capitol over a three-year period about Democrats threatening Trump’s presidency. And what do Republicans say about that? *crickets*

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Oregon May Allow Victims Of Racist 911 Calls To Sue

The state is attempting to curb racially fraught incidents by making it a crime to call the police on someone with the intent to discriminate. I'm all this this! Hell, such a law should be put on the books nationwide!

[worstblogever]

In both 2015, as well as 2016, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Jacqueline Schaffer, a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives who won two terms in office without ever being challenged by a Democrat in both 2012 and 2014. She first gained some notoriety for sponsoring a sex-selective abortion ban (in spite of the practice not existing), and then after co-sponsoring an anti-Sharia Law bill a few months later, decided it wasn’t conservative enough and amended the legislation to include the sex-selective abortion ban again. In her first term in office, she also voted for North Carolina’s rigid Voter ID Law, the “motorcycle safety/anti-abortion” law, and voted to drug test welfare recipients. In her second, she sponsored North Carolina’s first attempt at a “religious freedom” law, HB 348, to allow for the discrimination of LGBT citizens based on one’s supposed deeply held faith, and was a co-sponsor of the state’s highly discriminatory HB 2 law. But perhaps her most outrageous moment came after she sponsored HB 465, a bill to stretch the medically unnecessary waiting period for an abortion in North Carolina from 24 to 72 hours, where she advocated for the measure by comparing women’s bodies to real estate. She did not run for re-election in 2016, and decided to resign because of “business responsibilities” she was having trouble staying on top of.


In both 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of Mississippi State Senator Jenifer Branning, emerging from a 4 candidate Republican primary by touting her involvement in her Pentecostal Church, winning with 43% of the vote, and then facing no Democratic challengers in the general election. She very quickly made an impression upon the state, taking LGBT bigotry to a new level by filing HB 1523, a “religious freedom” law that makes North Carolina’s HB 2 look like an invitation to a gay pride parade. Not only would it allow legalized discrimination towards the gay and transgendered communities, but it also stated that marriage should be recognized as the union between one man and one woman, and that sexual relations should be reserved for marriage only (!), and that someone’s gender is limited to whatever it is listed at the time of their birth. In spite of the obvious amount of legal discrimination in the bill, Branning had the unmitigated lack of conscience to claim it wasn’t discriminatory at all:

"It gives protection to those in the state who cannot in a good conscience provide services for a same-sex marriage. I don't think this bill is discriminatory — It takes no rights away from anyone."

When Branning’s bit of extremism was criticized widely online, she deleted her Facebook page rather than answer for what she was trying to do. And of course, after its passage, the bill was almost immediately blocked by the courts, because large portions of it are obviously contradictory to the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.That may have had something to do with the fact that the state tried defending the law with the logic that Christians have a right to challenge the freedoms of gay people. So there’s that.

What kind of bigotry will Jenifer Branning stand against? Will you believe that she voted for a bill to classify attacking law enforcement as a hate crime? You heard that right, people are born gay, but they don’t have rights… but people who choose to be a cop, they do, based off of their jobs.

Anyway, we’re not just going to chalk up Branning’s obsession with LGBT rights as our only complaint with her, as she also has already voted to try and block state funding of Planned Parenthood, and for someone who’s so adamant that she’s pro-life, she also voted not just to maintain capital punishment in Mississippi, but allow the state to bring back the electric chair and firing squads as lethal methods of execution. No hypocrisy there, either, no sir. She furthered that disconnect about what “pro-life” means this year as she co-sponsored legislation that if passed, would have Mississippi to ban abortion at 15 weeks, and followed that up by voting for a fetal heartbeat bill that would effectively ban abortion a 6 weekshttps://votesmart.org/bill/26101/663...detected#66372, flying in the face of the Roe v. Wade ruling,


Branning is up for re-election in 2019, but no candidates filed to run against her, guaranteeing that she’ll be in office to continue her social crusade for another two years.

[SquirrelMan]

I said Sail instead of Cruise for that exact reason. Cruise ships for all their filth and disease still travel faster than your average sailboat.

Y'know, considering the complaints about how wind power might cause problems for the wind itself it never seemed to have a problem with thousands of sailboats back in history.

There is a company that transports organic chocolate bars via sailboats around the world as a sustainable, climate friendly snack. It seems to take a while:

https://www.grenadachocolate.com/its...ble-transport/

The Tres Hombres arrived in Portsmouth, England and we unloaded 22,000 chocolate bars in perfect condition after three months at sea all the way from Grenada, about 4600 miles! The ship is on the way to Holland right now and we will be unloading abou 18,000 bars in Amsterdam on June 14th onto a caravan of cycles to bring them sustianably, pollution-free to shops all over Holland and Belgium! See video about it all: here

[PaulBullion]

Jobs creation slows dramatically with payrolls up just 75,000 in May, much worse than expected

Economists had expected a gain of 180,000.
March’s job count was revised lower from 189,000 to 153,000 and the April number was lowered to 224,000 from 263,000, for a total reduction of 75,000.

Not that worried about Trump being reelected because the economy.

[Iron Maiden]

Ships actually pollute a lot. A lot. They have horrible gas mileage and create more human waste.
One of the big cruise lines just got fined, again, for dumping tons of trash into the ocean, again.

Yeah, I really have no interest in going on one of those. They are notorious polluters. In addition, you can't always assume that you have a competent crew. Remember that captain that was showing off and then ran his ship aground by hitting a rocky outcropping? 32 people died while he left his post and went ashore? Or the recent voyage off of Sweden where they didn't do a simple weather forecast check and ended up in a bad storm? It's a wonder nothing really serious happened. I still remember the cruise ship that was in the news because while it was sinking, the captain and some senior staff left the ship on the rescue helicopter and it was the ship's entertainers that helped evacuate the passengers

[Iron Maiden]

Active duty troops will be spending the next month doing fence beautification duties Allegedly a secondary purpose is to prevent border crossers from being camouflaged by painting the barrier fencing white

[jetengine]

So $150,000 wasted on painting a wall ?

[Gray Lensman]

Cruise ships seem like a big waste of money. I get that people want to enjoy warm weather and tour exotic destinations, but the idea of hundreds of people trapped on a vessel where disease can spread easily always turns me off.

I've been on a few cruises (My parents love the things) and they can be entertaining, but expensive. I'm glad I never had to pay the full thing for myself, although there are a couple cruises I would love to do still. My favorites are still Bermuda (the ship basically becomes a hotel when it reaches the island) and Alaska - most of the stops in Alaska are too small to warrant a long stay, and it's about the only way to see Glacier Bay - which is vanishing due to the ocean warming up the ice. Not exactly climate change according to the Park Service - there used to be a thin strip of land between the glaciers and the ocean but that got broken by the advancing ice a couple hundred years ago and the glaciers have been receding ever since.

I likely won't take many more as I don't have the budget to do it very often, but one of the keys is to avoid the lower end lines, in addition to making sure you want to go to the places the ship stops at.

[JCAll]

So $150,000 wasted on painting a wall ?

Maybe we can scare off the refugees if we paint a big scary face on the wall. Maybe a spider, or a bear...or the president.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Active duty troops will be spending the next month doing fence beautification duties Allegedly a secondary purpose is to prevent border crossers from being camouflaged by painting the barrier fencing white

I’m sure those troops weren’t told about painting fences at the recruiting station when they signed up. Christ on a crutch, what a mess!

[Gray Lensman]

I’m sure those troops weren’t told about painting fences at the recruiting station when they signed up. Christ on a crutch, what a mess!

Sure they were. If it moves, move it. If it doesn't move, paint it. It's the unofficial Army motto!

[shooshoomanjoe]

I can't help but feel frustrated at how stupid trump is. This is the leader of the free world?

He's latest Tweet:

"For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon - We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!:"