Russians are now sending weapons to Fiji in an effort further to destabilize the region. It’s crucial for Russia that there is as much instability as possible everywhere in the world.
Prissy tone-policing is not just a Liberal thing. See Christie flip out over an innocent touch of levity on Rubio’s part.
An anti-Semitic history professor might have been an ISIS recruiter.
How can anybody trust economics if it’s such an ideological field?
In spite of the sentimental idealization they are so often subjected to, hunter-gatherers were just as violent as later civilizations.
[Russian] Russian racists have a bizarre fixation on antibellum South.
There are many annoying things about Rod Dreher, not the least of which is his pathological hatred of women, but this is good, insightful writing: “It frustrated me to no end that reason was useless; “ideologically unmoored cultural passions” weren’t just something, they were the only thing. This was a tribal conservatism, one that had very little to do with ideas, and everything to do with nationalism and a sense of us-versus-them. To be a conservative is to agree with Us; to disagree with us means you must be a liberal.” Of course, the same can be said about Liberals.
“21.5 percent – The probability that a white, middle-age, college-educated American is a millionaire.” And still, people whine and moan and feel massively sorry for themselves. Truly, a wondrous country.
Rapist Holtzclaw has been sentenced to 263 years in jail. I hope all the losers who belly ached about “the all-white jury” that was supposedly eager to acquit at least have the decency to feel some shame.
People are so incredibly superstitious. Superstition allows them to use all the positives of religious belief without having to do any work of personal growth, improvement and self-awareness. Superstition is the religion of consumerist societies. And self-help drivel is their Bible.
“Less than 2% of the people in America hold Ph.Ds. Those with doctorates are regularly asked their opinion on societal issues. When Ph.Ds. speak, people listen. Regardless of what discipline your degree is in, people believe that you should know the answer to everything, no matter how absurd that may sound. You have forfeited your right to say “I don’t know.” Once you graduate you will be looked upon by many people as a member of society’s elite.” All true. It’s both flattering and scary, and I totally dig it.
The so-called “holistic admissions criteria” suck! They are a horrible idea!
Clarissa's Blog 
The 15-year-old Palestinian who murdered Dafna Meir outside her home in Otniel told Shin Bet investigators that he decided to commit the attack after watching Palestinian TV, it was cleared for publication on Sunday.
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Dafna Meir, a mother of six, was outside her house painting her door when the teenage attacker assaulted her, stabbing her several times. She fought him off in an effort to keep him away from her children. Her daughter’s screams scared him away and he fled towards Khirbet el-Karmil, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Yatta.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4757144,00.html
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God, I just saw this and have no words:
How Switzerland surrendered to Palestinian terrorism
In the wake of a wave of terror perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists in the 1970s, including aircraft hijackings, the Swiss government arranged secret negotiations with senior PLO officials.
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The Swiss allegedly suggested a proposal to the Palestinians in the meeting: Stop committing terrorism in our country, and we will support you in political and diplomatic matters.
Contact was made between the two sides with the help of Jean Ziegler, a left-wing Swiss politician who is still a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council.
…
Italy had also reached a similar surrender agreement with the Palestinians. In an interview with the paper in 2008, former Italian President Francesco Cossiga acknowledged that his country “allowed Palestinian terrorists to carry out terror attacks against Jews and Israelis in its territory, in return for refraining from attacking Italian targets.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4756533,00.html
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This is good news, in a way: they are not anti-Semitic, just cynical.
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I have been reading this Russian blog for a while and she sometimes has interesting posts. I also like her writing. For instance,
Дружба народов.
http://algalagan.livejournal.com/281961.html#comments
О связи цвета тв-“мыла” и окружающей действительности.
http://algalagan.livejournal.com/277866.html
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This is really great, thank you!
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Echidne may write something about Cologne, after all. Will be curious to read it since all other feminist sites I visit are still silent:
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.co.il/2016/01/when-feminist-ideals-clash-with-other.html
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I honestly don’t see wherein lies this much talked about clash. I’m both a feminist and doing all I can to speak out against racism and anti-Muslim bigotry. I’m encountering no difficulties with any of this. Maybe that’s because my beliefs are sincere and not a pose. I sincerely don’t believe Muslims are evil or inferior to me. As a result, I have no problem naming the instances of some Muslims messing up in major ways.
If you feel like you need to walk on egg shells around people, how genuine is your respect for them?, that’s my question.
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More likely, it’s simply because this isn’t a “feminist” website in the narrowly focused sense that “Feministing” and “Echidine” are, and you don’t have the same type of readers that those sites do. (I do occasionally read those sites for amusement.)
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Of course, compared to them, I’m a real feminist. They are just poseurs.
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Just found that feministing did publish one piece on Cologne. In short, they say:
Statistics by the German Federal Police count more than 7,300 reported rapes and sexual assaults in Germany every year. If Merkel’s response was grounded in concern for violence against women, she would do something about pervasive rape culture—but as usual, as Penny notes, “white supremacist patriarchy only concerns itself with women’s safety and women’s dignity when rape and sexual assault can be pinned on cultural ‘outsiders’.”
http://feministing.com/2016/01/13/quick-hit-after-cologne-we-cant-let-the-bigots-steal-feminism/
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According to a survey conducted by the Sampling, Consultation and Research Center, a majority of Israelis endorse the idea of offering new immigrants more economic and employment benefits, even at the expense of native Israelis, in light of the alarming wave of anti-Semitism that has stricken Europe.
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approximately two thirds of Israelis are concerned for the safety of Jews living in the Diaspora. Thirty-nine percent of Israelis believe that European Jews should escape the growing anti-Semitism in Europe by immigrating to the Jewish homeland. At the same time, 46 percent of Israelis recognize that many of their Jewish brethren in Europe continue to live on the continent for social and economic reasons.
Of noteworthy mention was the percentage of Israelis who supported granting more special benefits to new immigrants. A whopping majority of 83 percent of Israelis in the survey expressed their belief that the State of Israel should take actions in the labor market that would grant special privileges to new immigrants.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4757462,00.html
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Immigrants always want everybody to join them to prove the correctness of their choice. 🙂
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\ Immigrants always want everybody to join them to prove the correctness of their choice.
Not always. There are American immigrants of the kind “we arrived – close the gates!” 🙂
\ It’s like a reflex that exists on a physiological level always to see everything through the lens of women’s rights first.
According to this definition, I may not be a feminist. I see things through the lens of f.e. not wanting to have religion forced on me (only religious marriage and divorce in Israel 😦 ) and it is connected to my rights, but I am not sure it’s a purely feminist concern, even though religious laws make women vulnerable and I hate that.
Or, when we talk about Muslim immigration to Europe, I see it through the lens of “what will Muslim immigration to Europe mean for European Jews” much more than “what it will mean for women in general.” I think Jewish women (and men) have much more to fear because of our nationality than because of somebody’s gender.
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Yes, that’s precisely what I mean. In sociology, it’s called “salient identity.” You see yourself as Jew first and woman second. And that’s perfectly fine.
I find it very interesting to see what people’s salient identities are and how one identity becomes more salient than others.
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Btw, Clarissa I read about storm in USA. Did you have lots of snow? You wrote of loving winter, but supposedly not horrible storms.
In other news – I am unsure how it compares to powers of American police:
‘Frisking bill’ on path to approval
Knesset committee votes 7-6 in favor of passing bill on for final approval; bill would permit police to search people’s bodies if they suspect they are about to commit violent acts.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4757517,00.html
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With some exceptions set nation-wide by the U.S. Supreme Court (such as the Miranda Rights law), the degree to which local police forces in America can be pro-active/aggressive in dealing with suspected felons is determined by the local municipal governments.
Frisking, for example, was allowed in New York City until the city elected an extremely liberal mayor who halted the practice. Critics of frisking stated that the policy was racist because it was done mostly in minority neighborhoods (which is where the crime rates were highest); proponents stated that firsking had substantially reduced the violent crime rate.
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We should be so lucky. But no, we had no snow here. Maybe there will be some rain next week. Otherwise, it’s all stupid sun.
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Thanks for the info, Dreidel.
And Clarissa, I think I have found one real German feminist you will like:
Alice Schwarzer, the leading second-wave German feminist, and editor of Emma.de magazine [told] “Many feminists have remained silent from the outset regarding the problem of Islamist agitation, out of fear they will be accused of racism. It’s the old hierarchy of victims, that we already knew in [the student protests of] 1968. Then it was called class struggle before the battle of the sexes. Today it is called anti-racism against feminism.”
…
Schwarzer, who works in Cologne, became a lightning rod for feminist and anti-racist anger after New Year’s Eve when she condemned the attacks on women as a “gang bang” designed to terrorize women.
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/01/19/cologne-attacks-this-is-sexual-terrorism-directed-towards-women/
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Yay! They do exist! This is great news.
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\ Yay! They do exist! This is great news.
I read the entire article (which is not only about this woman at all) with great interest. Recommended.
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“As the extreme right exploits mass assaults in Germany to mobilize against refugees, European feminists are in a battle over where their sympathies should lie”
This simply means they are not feminists. For a feminist, this cannot even be a question. It’s like a reflex that exists on a physiological level always to see everything through the lens of women’s rights first.
It’s ok not to be a feminist. It’s not like everybody needs to be one. But a feminist without this reflex is like an illiterate professor of linguistics.
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Yes, a brilliant article! I’m glad they are starting to appear.
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Remember I was recently wondering about receiving unaccompanied migrant children (claiming to be between 14 and 17 )? Of course, I am influenced by 15-year-old Palestinians murdering Jews in Israel, so view teens too as a threat to Jews. Especially when they won’t be teens in a few years. Just saw this:
Swedish asylum worker, 22, is stabbed to death ‘in frenzied attack’ at a CHILD migrant centre as refugee boy, 15, is arrested for murder amid rising tensions over violence and sex assaults
Alexandra Mezher, 22, fatally stabbed at migrant centre where she worked
Her family, who are originally from Lebanon, described her as ‘an angel’
Boy aged 15 living at the centre has been arrested on suspicion of murder
Incident comes as Swedish police demand more resources to stem rising violence in the country which they say is linked to the migrant crisis
Number of Swedish women have reported being assaulted by migrants
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3416343/Sweden-asylum-worker-22-stabbed-death-frenzied-attack-CHILD-migrant-centre-refugee-boy-15-arrested-murder.html
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As deaths from mental illness swell, panel urges all U.S. adults be screened
All American adults should be screened for depression as part of their normal health-care routine, an influential panel recommended on Tuesday. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force also singled out maternal mental illness for the first time by suggesting that women be screened during pregnancy and after childbirth….The World Health Organization recently predicted mental illness would jump from the fifth leading cause of death and disability to second place by 2020.
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Christ. What wouldn’t the disgusting pharmaceutical companies do to get more poor fools on their poisons?
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Actually, basic mental health screening with routine periodic medical check-ups is a VERY good idea. The overall rate of depression and other mental illnesses in the U.S. and around the world isn’t increasing — it’s simply coming out into the open more, rather than being hidden as a stigma.
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Is there anything anybody will be able to offer these people but drugs? Obviously not. So what’s the point other than let pharmaceutical companies make money by zombifying the poor idiots?
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YES. Drugs can be a useful adjunct to mental health therapy, but not all mental health patients are on medication. Believe it or not, talk therapy and counseling works with many patients.
And when properly prescribed along with counseling for appropriate mental health conditions, anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication doesn’t “zombify” anybody.
Neuroleptic medication (strong anti-psychotic medication for severe conditions like schizophrenia) can severely blunt the affect of patients who would be actively psychotic (and in some cases helpless and a danger to themselves or other people) if left untreated.
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There are many places online where pill popping is glorified and gushed about. But this is not one of those places. I can’t prevent people from drugging themselves to the gills but I reserve the right to have an opinion about them. And that opinion is very unflattering, to put it mildly.
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Revealed: Migrant boy, 15, arrested on suspicion of murdering Swedish social worker is from Somalia – as family blame politicians for her death and police warn they cannot cope with rising violence
…
ALLEGED TEENAGE KILLER TO BE TRIED AS AN ADULT, SAY POLICE
a Gothanburg Police spokesman: there is always a variable of uncertainty about these kids identity. ‘We don´t know anything about the boy family. We have not even established his identity with a 100% certainty yet.’
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Miss Mezher had only worked at the centre in Mölndal for a few months.
It is is home to ten unaccompanied children aged 14-17, who arrived in Sweden seeking asylum without a parent or a guardian and has provoked unrest.
Neighbourhood-watch groups have reportedly been sent out to prevent teenage girls from being sexually harassed on their way home from the commuter trains from Gothenburg.
Parents have also spoken out against having their children in the same classes as the immigrants.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3416343/Sweden-asylum-worker-22-stabbed-death-frenzied-attack-CHILD-migrant-centre-refugee-boy-15-arrested-murder.html
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As I said about the children at the US border, these kids who arrive alone are the hardest to integrate.
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\ As I said about the children at the US border, these kids who arrive alone are the hardest to integrate.
For all we know, that child is 20+ years old. Many falsely claim to be teens.
I saw this now and thought that Sweden or any other country can not permit the creation of “no go” zones. In Israel, such zones are some of all Arab, Jew-free places. In Sweden, apperantly creating a migrant camp is enough:
Police flee for their lives at Swedish migrant camp after they are surrounded by screaming mob as they try to relocate ten-year-old boy ‘who had been raped multiple times’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417669/Police-flee-lives-Swedish-migrant-camp-surrounded-screaming-mob-try-relocate-ten-year-old-boy-raped-multiple-times.html
What’s the point of saving (often “saving”) somebody by letting them into Europe, if they are going to be attacked in Europe too, while local police is impotent to help?
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Dying’ of laughter:
Neil DeGrasse Tyson on a diss track versus a rapper who believes the earth is flat among other conspiracy theories
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Italy has covered up some of its most iconic nude statues so as not to upset the visiting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
A wooden box was placed around several pieces, including a Venus dating back to the Second Century BC, at Rome’s Capitoline Museum.
Both Rouhani and Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi spoke at the museum after a signing ceremony which saw Italian companies tie up £12.5billion worth of business with Iran.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3417870/No-nudes-good-news-Italian-PM-covers-classical-naked-artworks-ahead-visit-Iran-s-president-avoid-offending-signing-12billion-deal.html
My first thought: Does not Rouhani feel himself treated as a savage from whom classical statues should be hid? I guess he liked seeing Italians bending to Iran’s power.
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Very pathetic. And it’s hard to say who’s being more ridiculous here.
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Regev to submit culture bill- no loyalty, no funding
The bill entitled ‘loyalty in culture’, to be submitted on Wedensday, ensures that state funding is denied to state cultural institutions that, among others, attack or disgrace state symbols, incite to terrorism or deny Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4758047,00.html
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I looked at pictures of the storm and 🙂
http://www.boredpanda.com/finally-the-streimel-this-fur-hat-hassidis-wear-on-shabbat-comes-in-handy/
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I am surprised he found group B to attack:
FBI: US terror suspect planned to attack Israelis
Samy Mohamed Hamzeh initially planned to attack Israelis in the West Bank but due to financial reasons decided to attack a Masonic Temple in Milwaukee; he hoped to show that ‘nobody can play with Muslims’.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4758421,00.html
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The contrast is amazing:
Story A
A US Shakespeare expert who was locked up for ten days without warning because the government saw him as an ‘illegal immigrant’ is due to be freed this afternoon – but is still being deported to his native country.
…
despite receiving no instruction to leave the UK, Dr Hamilton was unexpectedly arrested earlier this month and held behind bars at Morton Hall immigration removal centre, Lincolnshire, for ten days.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3418704/American-academic-working-Shakespeare-s-400th-anniversary-arrested-held-cells-student-visa-lapsed.html
Story B
The head of the Swedish police has sparked outrage by expressing sympathy with the teenage asylum seeker accused of murdering social worker Alexander Mezher.
National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson, who has already admitted police cannot cope with the wave of migrant crime, said he has concerns about the ‘horrors’ and trauma the accused murderer may have witnessed.
He said he was ‘distraught’ on behalf of Miss Mezher’s family but also for the killer, saying: ‘What has that person been through? Under what circumstances has he grown up? What is the trauma he carries?’
[ Background info: Migrant Somali boy, 15, who ‘murdered Swedish social worker’ is being held in secure psychiatric hospital amid fears he will destroy evidence and flee the country. Papers show police don’t know boy’s true identity and could be an adult.]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3419094/Who-knows-horrors-Police-chief-sparks-anger-sympathising-Somali-boy-stabbed-refugee-worker.html
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Yes, this is out of this world insane. I’d get extremely confused whenever I encountered this kind of thing here in the US and Canada (among people of a certain political persuasion) but now I’m used to it. People build their entire identities on despising and condescending to immigrants. Any immigrant who dares not to be pathetic is hated by them deeply and profoundly.
All practical considerations fall away as long as they can maintain the belief in their superiority to immigrants.
If the Somalian boy grows up, gets a PhD in computer science and starts making good money, they will turn on him and find a million of reasons to kick him down.
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Muslims are ‘not like us’ and we should just accept they will never integrate, says former racial equalities chief Trevor Phillips
He says it’s disrespectful to assume Muslim communities will change
Mr Phillips claims Muslims ‘see the world differently from the rest of us’
Muslim Council says demanding change has promoted discrimination
PM thinks integration failures have helped extremist ideas gain traction
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3418620/Muslims-not-like-just-accept-never-integrate-says-former-racial-equalities-chief-Trevor-Phillips.html
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I have never thought our bodies could be so effective:
While moderately active people burned about 200 more calories each day than most sedentary people, those who did higher levels of exercise saw no extra benefit.
‘The most physically active people expended the same amount of calories each day as people who were only moderately active,’ Dr Pontzer said.
The research suggests there is a ‘sweet spot’ for physical activity.
While too little is unhealthy, too much causes the body to make big metabolic adjustments in order to adapt.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3421330/Why-jogging-lose-weight-WON-T-work-long-term-Fat-burning-effect-exercise-reduces-time-bodies-used-strain.html
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As I discovered to my enormous surprise, exercise is in no way related to weight loss. But it’s great for blood pressure and other things. Weight loss, though, forget about it. It’s 100% about food.
Sucks but true.
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Yep, totally depends on dietary intake. Exercise can give you a more attractive figure as you lose weight through dieting, but won’t affect your poundage unless you’re a serious “body-builder” (muscle tissue is denser and heavier per volume than fat).
In the long run, most people end up weighing pretty much what they’ve been genetically programmed to weigh, no matter what they try to do about it. Oprah’s currently in the news because she lost 26 pounds on her new Weight Watchers’ Diet, and the company’s stock value went up 10% with her praising the program. But she’s been on well-publicized yo-yo diets for decades now, and has probably lost — and gained back, and lost, and — at least 1,000 pounds over the last 40 years.
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I thought nightclubs always had selectors at their entrance, deciding whom not to admit. Why is having a bouncer legal, but the following – not?
A Danish nightclub boss facing prosecution for banning all migrants who don’t speak his language says he would rather go to jail than back down – because they ‘need to learn a smile isn’t an invitation for sex’.
Tom Holden Jensen has excluded all men from Syria and Afghanistan who cannot speak Danish, English or German from his Buddy Holly club in Søenderborg after a number of women said they felt threatened and intimidated by sexually aggressive men who groped and ‘raped them with hands’ on the dance floor.
The problem was compounded by no one being able to explain to the men that what they were doing was wrong – which led Mr Jensen to ban the men, for the good of his female customers.
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he could face as long as six months behind bars for breaching Denmark’s racial discrimination laws, yet he has vowed to uphold the controversial policy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3420023/A-smile-isn-t-invitation-sex-Danish-nightclub-boss-facing-prosecution-banning-groping-migrants-says-jail-down.html
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