Current Events - Actual things on the News

[RocDoc]

fwiw there WAS another of ^these^ at a walgreens store at michigan and chicago avenues about 10 days ago. 20-30 'kids' trashed the place.
and in ahem, UNrelated news, the numbers at the 'taste of chicago' here were down to numbers not seen since 1886.

give due credit to the economy and then ALSO to privatization of parking fees which chicago gave away 'in perpetuity' for a couple billion fast bucks to offset some SERIOUS red ink..
price jump faster than you can say jack robinson.
shorter-than-short sighted stupid motherfuckers.

~

Analysis: Arab silence at Syria crackdown speaks volumes


<sub>By Tom Pfeiffer and Shaimaa Fayed | Reuters – 56 mins ago

CAIRO (Reuters) - Arab governments were swift to condemn Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in February when he tried to crush a popular uprising with machineguns and heavy artillery.

Now, as Syria's Bashar al-Assad uses tanks and live bullets to smash a wave of street protests, the relative silence from Arab capitals speaks volumes.

Such contrasting reactions may seem inconsistent. Syria and Libya are both police states built by former army officers who set themselves up as rivals to oil-producing Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia.

Gaddafi derided the Gulf's conservative monarchies. Assad struck up an alliance with Saudi foe Iran and helps it fund Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But collapse of the Assad government would suggest the domino effect that toppled leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen has spread from North Africa into the heart of the Middle East, raising the risks for Syria's neighbors.

"The fall of the Syrian regime, along with a fall of the Yemeni regime, would mean a shift of the revolution to a region very close to the Gulf area," said Nabil Abdel Fattah of Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

It seemed easier to abandon Gaddafi after Libya burned its bridges with many Arab governments and he turned his attentions south, having himself named King of Kings of Africa.

Syria has used a mixture of direct intervention and quiet diplomacy toward its neighbors to counter multiple threats in a volatile region.

The result is that a future balance of power in the Middle East is hard to imagine without a Syria ruled by Assad.

"Assad may not be the most well-liked of Arab leaders but he's someone who many Arab governments have a working relation with, and in some cases a close relationship," said Shadi Hamid, Director of Research at Brookings Doha Center.

MELTING POT

The Assad clan has spent decades cajoling events in the region in its favor through a combination of funding for sympathetic groups abroad and sanctions on others.

That game of influence is starkest in Lebanon, where opponents say it closely manipulates the country's politics in to fit its agenda.

Saudi Arabia accuses Damascus of ordering the assassination of Lebanon's Sunni former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

The head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, voiced "worry" in June about the months-long clashes in Syria, but signaled divisions in the 22-member body over how to proceed.

He said Arab states were trying to agree a common position.

"Even Saudi, which has been at loggerheads with Syria for decades, has stayed quiet because if Assad was overthrown that would be another victory for Arab publics that could spill over into the peninsula," said Laleh Khalili, Senior Lecturer at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Like many of his neighbors, Assad sits atop an autocratic state that contains a melting pot of religious and tribal groups, many of which traverse boundaries set in colonial times.

Syria's 20 million population is mostly Sunni Muslim but Assad and many senior army figures belong to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. The country also contains Christians and ethnically is made up of Arabs and Kurds.

Opponents say Assad increasingly relies on loyalist Alawite troops and irregulars known as 'shabbiha' to put down the protests.

For countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, an overthrow of Assad could be one Arab revolution too many.

"The fall of the Syrian regime would mean the sectarian and religious balances in the southern region would completely collapse," said Abdel Fattah.

SUBHEAD

Fear of ending up on the losing side may also be encouraging Syria's neighbors to stay neutral.

Gaddafi had already lost control of eastern Libya when the Arab League came out in support of a United Nations resolution authorizing western-led military action to protect civilians.

Assad's opponents have predicted a national uprising unless the government ends the bloodshed, but some of the demonstrators seem to want reforms, not a revolution, and there is little sign of a reformist government in waiting being formed.

An organised rebel leadership emerged in Libya in just days. Syria's opposition groups are divided over the way forward.

Western governments led by France have condemned the bloodshed in Syria but have shown no appetite for military intervention that could tip the scales away from the government.

"Western powers see Syria as far too central for their stability, which ends up mattering more than their rhetoric on liberalization and democratization," said Khalili. "That is why Israel is also quite silent."

Libya's uprising came weeks after revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and suggested a democratic tidal wave had began to sweep the region.

That sense of the inevitable took a hit when Bahrain's monarchy smothered a popular uprising with the help of Saudi Arabia's army.

"Arab leaders are still not sure which way the wind is blowing," said Hamid at the Brookings Doha Center. "Assad might still find a way to survive and they don't want to undermine their relationship with him and the people around him."

(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

news.yahoo.com/analysis-arab-silence-syria-crackdown-speaks-volumes-161105450.html</sub>

[RocDoc]

1986, not 1886...

[RocDoc]

semantics alert:

‘Haboobs’ Stir Critics in Arizona

<sub>By MARC LACEY

Published: July 21, 2011

PHOENIX — The massive dust storms that swept through central Arizona this month have stirred up not just clouds of sand but a debate over what to call them.

The blinding waves of brown particles, the most recent of which hit Phoenix on Monday, are caused by thunderstorms that emit gusts of wind, roiling the desert landscape. Use of the term “haboob,” which is what such storms have long been called in the Middle East, has rubbed some Arizona residents the wrong way.

“I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob,” Don Yonts, a resident of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote to The Arizona Republic after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?”

Diane Robinson of Wickenburg, Ariz., agreed, saying the state’s dust storms are unique and ought to be labeled as such.

“Excuse me, Mr. Weatherman!” she said in a letter to the editor. “Who gave you the right to use the word ‘haboob’ in describing our recent dust storm? While you may think there are similarities, don’t forget that in these parts our dust is mixed with the whoop of the Indian’s dance, the progression of the cattle herd and warning of the rattlesnake as it lifts its head to strike.”

Dust storms are a regular summer phenomenon in Arizona, and the news media typically label them as nothing more than that. But the National Weather Service, in describing this month’s particularly thick storm, used the term haboob, which was widely picked up by the news media.

“Meteorologists in the Southwest have used the term for decades,” said Randy Cerveny, a climatologist at Arizona State University. “The media usually avoid it because they don’t think anyone will understand it.”

Not everyone was put out by the use of the term. David Wilson of Goodyear, Ariz., said those who wanted to avoid Arabic terms should steer clear of algebra, zero, pajamas and khaki, as well. “Let’s not become so ‘xenophobic’ that we forget to remember that we are citizens of the world, nor fail to recognize the contributions of all cultures to the richness of our language,” he wrote.

Although use of the term often brings smirks, Mr. Cerveny said the walls of dust could have serious consequences, toppling power lines and causing huge traffic accidents. Although ultradry conditions in the desert are considered one cause for the intensity of this year’s storms, Mr. Cerveny pointed to another possible factor: the housing bust that left developments half-finished and unmaintained, creating more desert dust to be stirred up.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 22, 2011, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Haboobs’ Stir Critics In Arizona.

www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/us/22haboob.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB</sub>

this shit looks crazy.

[Ayinger]

The one time I was in AZ 30-some years ago we flew into Pheonix and then drove to Wickenburg. I'll never forget on the return drive being some 30 miles out of Pheonix and seeing where it was on the horizon with what looked to be a gigantic cloud sitting on the ground encompassing the city. Wasn't a storm as such but just the damn bad air/smog brewed up within its borders.

[RocDoc]

late 70s early 80s must've been around the time when some sort of critical mass was reached in terms of numbers of people driving gas-guzzler smoke-belcher cars that you could SEE smog forming over some cities. before that it seemed like it wasn't even on peoples' radar...johnny carson would joke about LA's smog on the freakin' tonight show like it was no big deal.
i saw it the 2 times when i flew into los angeles. oh yeah, it was scary looking. and alarming. like some huge fart hanging in the air.
saw it flying into denver too. 'inversion effect' due to the cities being down in some sort of a geographic depression, not letting the cars' exhaust and factories' air pollution escape. i'm not familiar with phoenix' geography, but there's likely some sorta ridge(s) blocking prevailing winds from clearing the shit out.
mexico city's real bad because it's IN a volcano and mile-high (like denver) where the thinner air doesn't dissipate pollution as well either, in addition to it being trapped.
~
in other news, i wonder if norwegian doom and death metallistes extreme behavior with respect to X-tianity had any effect on that fundy asshole's insane 'statement' that's now got about 97 people dead?
holy fuck what a piece of shit.

[Ayinger]

Like I said: that imaige from 1979 is VERY stuck in my mind..even as a teen. Like,how could we be chocking ourselves like that? If I lived in a city prone to that condidtion, you bet your ass I'd be calling up Mayflower or somebody....


As for the Norwegian shooter...... The media pegs him as right-wing fanaticle. My mind wants to just call him sick. All being "in general" I suppose. Meaning I suppose a just as sick Leftist could carry out a similar attack. People wanting to get a message across....and this is what it's come down to.

[RocDoc]

wtf on that haboob article, for sure.

~

so is this sort of an 'asian-thing'? political brawls, physical shows of dominance?
it's happened more than once in the koreas, japan...not UNheard of in europe, but kinda rarer than 'the east'.

Did Biden’s loquaciousness spark a fight in China?

<sub>Political Reporter
By Rachel Rose Hartman | The Ticket – 23 hrs ago

Vice President Joe Biden, known for his public-speaking stamina as well as for off-the-cuff comments that have landed him in trouble, sparked a brawl last night between the press and Chinese officials during a long-running speech.

During a meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jingping Thursday in China, Biden followed up on Xi's remarks by giving his own speech. And as Biden delivered his stem-winder, the White House pool reports that a "larger Chinese official" attempted to force the reporters out of the room, causing a near brawl.

"Stern shooing turned into forceful shoving," pool reporter Michael Memoli later wrote for the Los Angeles Times. "As reporters tried to stand their ground, Chinese officials locked arms and pushed forward in a show of overwhelming force."

"Officials said Biden was going on too long, though he at that point had not spoken for more than 5-6 minutes, including the consecutive translation," according to the pool report.

Reporters had difficulty hearing the speech due to the "fisticuffs" as Memoli described it, and gave up when it was clear Biden was finishing up.

Chinese officials attempted to clear the room early at a second event Thursday, though the pool report for that gathering doesn't indicate that any altercation broke out.

Apparently, reporters had been warned of potentially over-aggressive behavior from their Chinese hosts, but Memoli noted that reporters and staff said they had never witnessed that level of "aggressive force" at such an event.</sub>


i just remembered i heard about a 'friendly' game between georgetown university and the chinese national team had some brawling just a couple-3 days ago, IN china as well...maybe these guys were just sports fans responding to that.
OR maybe this was after biden made some stupid 'nyah-nyah' comment about it, in this apparently super loquacious 3 minute outburst?
_{(*3 for the comments, 3 for the chinese translation)}

[RocDoc]

it was actually thursday night, china time...so then, what, wednesday our time?

Georgetown basketball exhibition in China ends in brawl


<sub>By Gene Wang, Published: August 18

BEIJING — What began as a goodwill trip to China for the Georgetown men’s basketball team turned violent Thursday night when its exhibition game against a Chinese professional club deteriorated into a benches-clearing melee in which players exchanged blows, chairs were thrown and spectators tossed full water bottles at Hoyas players and coaches as they headed to the locker room.

Georgetown Coach John Thompson III pulled his players off the Olympic Sports Center Stadium court with 9 minutes 32 seconds left in the game and the scored tied at 64 after a chaotic scene in which members of the Georgetown and Bayi Military Rockets teams began swinging wildly and tackling one another.

There were an estimated half-dozen individual altercations on the court, and eventually some Chinese onlookers joined the fracas, including one wielding a stanchion. As the brawl spilled beyond the baseline, an unidentified Bayi player pushed Georgetown’s Aaron Bowen through a partition to the ground before repeatedly punching the sophomore guard while sitting on his chest.

Georgetown senior center Henry Sims had a chair tossed at him by an unidentified person, and freshman forward Moses Ayegba, who was wearing a brace on his right leg, limped onto the court with a chair in his right hand. According to Georgetown officials, Ayegba had been struck, prompting him to grab a chair in self-defense.

The brawl occurred one night after Vice President Biden, who is in Beijing on a four-day visit to discuss U.S.-Chinese economic relations, attended a Georgetown game against another Chinese club at the Olympic Sports Center. That game, which was won by Georgetown, passed without incident.

The turbulent ending to Thursday night’s contest marred what had been billed as the second game of a two-day “China-U.S. Basketball Friendship Match” in Beijing. Georgetown intended for the team’s 10-day trip to China to be an athletic, cultural and educational exchange designed to promote the school internationally.

It was unclear whether the brawl would affect similar ventures in the future. The Georgetown delegation, which included university President John DeGioia, other school officials and prominent alumni and boosters, was scheduled to fly to Shanghai on Friday. Thompson said the team would continue with the remainder of its itinerary.

A State Department official and a Chinese Embassy spokesman in Washington both called the melee “unfortunate.”

“We look to these types of exchanges to promote good sportsmanship and strengthen our people-to-people contact with China,” said the U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak for attribution.

“We believe the organizers of the matches and the two teams will address the issue properly, the sportsmanship and people-to-people friendship the matches are meant to represent will prevail,” said the Chinese spokesman, Wang Baodong, in an e-mail.

Xinhua News Agency, China’s official news service, did not have an immediate account of the game, and although other prominent Chinese Web sites such as 163.com and sina.com posted stories, government censors shortly thereafter took them down

www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/fight-ends-georgetown-basketball-exhibition-in-china/2011/08/18/gIQAs1zeNJ_story.html</sub>

chinese professional players who'd barely tied the GU team while the refs (chinese) had given them serious advantages calling fouls 28-11 against georgetown...good way for the chinese to make sure the game had not gone to the eventual shitty (for them) conclusion.

[RocDoc]

THIS is fucking cool.....

Imagining the Downside of Immortality

<sub>Stephen Cave is the author of the forthcoming book “Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization.”

Berlin

IMAGINE nobody dies. All of a sudden, whether through divine intervention or an elixir slipped into the water supply, death is banished. Life goes on and on; all of us are freed from fear that our loved ones will be plucked from us, and each of us is rich in the most precious resource of all: time.

Wouldn’t it be awful?

This is the premise of the TV series “Torchwood: Miracle Day,” a co-production of Starz and the BBC that has been running over the summer and ends in September. The “miracle” of the title is that no one dies anymore, but it proves to be a curse as overpopulation soon threatens to end civilization. The show is a nice twist on our age-old dream of living forever. And it is right to be pessimistic about what would happen if this dream were fulfilled — but for the wrong reasons. Materially, we could cope with the arrival of the elixir. But, psychologically, immortality would be the end of us.

The problem is that our culture is based on our striving for immortality. It shapes what we do and what we believe; it has inspired us to found religions, write poems and build cities. If we were all immortal, the motor of civilization would sputter and stop.

Poets and philosophers have long been attuned to the fact that the quest for immortality drives much of humanity’s peculiar ways. But only in recent decades has scientific evidence backed this up.

In a study that began in 1989, a group of American social psychologists found that just briefly reminding people that they would die had a remarkable impact on their political and religious views.

In their first experiment, the researchers recruited court judges from Tucson. Half the judges were reminded of their mortality (via an otherwise innocuous personality test) and half were not. They were then all asked to rule on a hypothetical case of prostitution similar to those they ruled on. The judges who had first been reminded of their mortality set a bond nine times higher than those who hadn’t (averaging $455 compared to $50).

These psychologists — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski — were testing the hypothesis that we have developed our cultural worldviews in order to give us the sense that we might defy death. They reasoned that if this were not the case, when faced with reminders of mortality, people would cling more fiercely to their beliefs and be more negative about those who threatened them. This is just what happened with the judges: when reminded that they would one day die, they were more severe in punishing those who violated their worldview.

Social psychologists have since tested this hypothesis in more than 400 experiments that aim to explore different aspects of our worldview, from patriotism to religion. So far, their results consistently support a thesis — known as Terror Management Theory — that particular aspects of our outlook are governed by our need to manage our fear of death. In other words, our cultural, philosophical and religious systems exist to promise us immortality.

Every civilization has had such systems. They are embodied in the pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of Europe and even the skyscrapers of modern cities. Odds are that you too, dear reader, subscribe to at least one such system — a set of beliefs that motivates you and somehow promises life’s continuance. Perhaps you believe that if you attend church or a synagogue or a mosque, your soul will endure in another realm. Perhaps you are encouraging your children’s confidence that something of you will live on in them; or perhaps you are taking vitamins and jogging in the hope that you can outrun the Reaper.

Some of these systems overtly flaunt their death-defying promise: Christianity and Islam, for example, make a great deal of the prospect of eternal bliss. As do the arts, in particular cinema and its accompanying celebrity culture — as the film star James Dean acknowledged when he said that “the only success, the only greatness, is immortality.” But when we look deeper we also find the promise of deathlessness in places where it is not at all explicit: in the accumulation of wealth, with its attendant aura of life-sustaining power; through immersion in a greater whole, whether a nation or a football team; or even in the pursuit of scientific research, with its claim to enduring truth.

The real question posed by the “Torchwood” scenario is: what would happen to all our death-defying systems if there were no more death? The logical answer is that they would be superfluous. We would have no need for progress or art, faith or fame. Suddenly, we would have nothing to do, yet in the greatest of ironies, we would have endless eons in which to do it. Action would lose its purpose and time its value. This is the true awfulness of immortality.

Let us be grateful that the elixir continues to elude us — and toast instead our finitude.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 28, 2011, on page SR5 of the New York edition with the headline: Imagining the Downside of Immortality.

www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/opinion/sunday/torchwood-gives-glimpse-of-eternal-life.html?_r=1</sub>

...even if i did NOT watch torchwood...cool show fwiw.

[RocDoc]

pleeeease fuck off with this bullshit:

Was the Associated Press transcription of Obama’s CBC speech ‘racist’?

Posts| The Cutline – Mon, Sep 26, 2011

<sub>By most accounts, President Obama gave a fiery speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, telling blacks to "quit crying and complaining" and support him in the fight for jobs, according to the Associated Press. But was the AP transcription of Obama's remarks racist?

That's the subject currently being debated after the issue was raised on Chris Hayes' MSNBC show on Sunday.

On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama's speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did--specifically including the "dropped g's."

Via the AP version:

"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."

Hunter called the AP's version "inherently racist," sparring with New Republic contributing editor and noted linguistics expert John McWhorter, who argued the g-less version "is actually the correct one," noting that the president's victory in the 2008 election was due, in part, to how effortlessly "he can switch into that [black] dialect."


Whatever the reason, Hunter found it offensive. "I teach a journalism class, and I tell my students to fix people's grammar, because you don't want them to sound ignorant," she said. "For them to do that, it's code, and I don't like it."

It's worth noting that the same sorts of arguments arose during George W. Bush's presidency, with the White House cleaning up the president's speeches to make him sound smarter, and news outlets sometimes not doing so.

According to Mark Smith, the AP reporter who filed the story, Obama was making a point by dropping his g's, making the transcription a no-brainer.

"Normally, I lean toward the clean-it-up school of quote transcribing—for everyone," Smith told Mediaite. "But in this case, the President appeared to be making such a point of dropping Gs, and doing so in a rhythmic fashion, that for me to insert them would run clearly counter to his meaning. I believe I was respecting his intent in this. Certainly disrespect was the last thing I intended."

"The AP Stylebook counsels against using spellings like gonna or wanna--or in this case, complainin' and cryin'--'in attempts to convey regional dialects or informal pronunciations, except to help a desired touch or to convey an emphasis by the speaker,'" Tom Kent, the AP deputy managing editor for standards and production, said in a statement to The Cutline. "In this case, our reporter, who was there in person, felt the spellings were appropriate to convey a particular touch that President Obama appeared to be intentionally making use of."

Conservative bloggers agree--mainly because the story showed Obama pandering to a black base.

"The first job of a journalist is to report a story as accurately as possible," Howard Portnoy wrote on HotAir.com. "Part of the job of reporting Obama's speech last night was to highlight his obvious pandering, which is borne of desperation. The only element missing from the story is whether any of the listeners were offended by the president's 'blaccent.'"

"The AP did not print the words as written for the president," Mike Opelka wrote on Glenn Beck-owned TheBlaze.com, "instead choosing to transcribe the speech with what might be considered a bit more accuracy."

"He was specifically, and intentionally, using an African-American linguistic style to emphasize his message," a conservative blog called the Last Refuge noted.

"Now that the presidential campaign season has begun," Courtland Milloy wrote in an op-ed column for the Washington Post, "it's okay for President Obama to openly court black people again."

news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/associated-press-transcription-obama-cbc-speech-racist-173438340.html</sub>

ok, howard portnoy with his 'borne of desperation' was a dick as well, but this black 'educator', karen hunter - what an idiot.
and as a post beneath this yahoo story wrote:

_{Green Bay Fan 11 Yesterday
This is insane. First off I was taught in Journalism classes that you should write a quote down the way it was said. I was specifically told NOT to clean it up. If it needs that much cleaning up, don't use it and paraphrase. It goes against the very definition of a quote.
Second: By saying that this has anything to do with race is completely ignorant. I grew up in Vermont. I only knew one African American growing up. We ALL dropped our g's when speaking. (Well, almost all.)
Third: By saying that quoting Obama speaking in "the black dialect" and then saying that it "made him look ignorant" this woman is, herself, being racist. She is implying that if you speak in this mythical "black dialect" you are ignorant. What a freakin' tool!}

especially the point #3 - IF dropped Gs defintely connote a black dialect aka ebonics (which it doesn't because EVERYONE uses the dropped G on occasion) as she insists it does, she's characterising the way 'her people' talk as being ignorant.
lady, come on.
listen to what you're sayin'...

[Ayinger]

Does this mean that if Herman Cain grabs the nomination, when debate time comes around that they'll have to be sub-titled? The AP writers will have to study up on those scenes from "AIRPLANE"....<i> my mama no raise no dummies!</i>

Anyhow, it's a little splash trying to be made into something (sumthin'!)....reading it either way would make little difference to me. I so VERY often type with bad grammer and do it CONSCIOUSLY because it's how I do talk at times or I'm trying to just come across in a certain manner...just depends how I'm feeling/thinking at the moment. And sometimes I DO wonder if someone may read it and think, "gee, he sounds dumb" but I pretty much don't give a rat's ass --- if ya know me, ya know me.

[RocDoc]

interesting maps:

[strat-0]

Lol!

So, who are these Republican guys anyhow? 50 words on each or less.

[RocDoc]

the reagan one?

i like the canadian one...'shitty hockey players', across europe.

[RocDoc]

headlines today in news.yahoo.com:

"Obama's Iran Dilemma : How to respond to a plot seemingly designed to provoke escalation?"

"Analysis: Why set US troops on Africa militants?"