Trump statues. Hilarious!
UN peacekeepers in South Sudan ignored the rape and assault of aid workers.
Will local authorities subsidize Uber instead of creating public transit systems?
A transcription of one of Trump’s sentences. Garcia Marquez’s dictator characters would be jealous!
A Soviet commercial for corn. Bonus points for those who know why there was this sudden obsession with corn in the USSR.
A weird name for a radio station.
Italy aims to outlaw raising kids as vegans. Finally!
Everything is fucked: the syllabus. Hilarious!
Clarissa's Blog 
Hell Hath No Fury Like A Handshake Scorned
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Actually, Russian athletes are being so booed, insulted and humiliated at the current Olympics that some athletes are beginning to suffer mental breakdowns. It’s on the Russian news a lot. Of course, Russians do like feeling persecuted but the booing and the insults from audiences are real.
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When journalism actually effects positive change.
Mother Jones had this huge story about their reporter who went undercover and signed up to be a prison guard at a hellish private prison.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/06/cca-private-prisons-corrections-corporation-inmates-investigation-bauer
It made enough noise that today the Justice Department announced that they’re ending use of private prisons.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/18/justice-department-says-it-will-end-use-of-private-prisons/
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They are ending the use of private prisons??? Really? Wow, I despaired of ever seeing the day!
I’m so happy, I can’t tell you. We fought against Yale investing in private prisons back in the day and it seemed like they would only mushroom some more.
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The U.S. Justice Department is ending use of private prisons for federal prisoners only. The vast majority of people in private prisons in the U.S. are in state prison systems, which aren’t affected at all by this ruling.
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It’s a good beginning. Once a precedent is set it becomes possible to hope the whole sorry thing gets rolled back into insignificance.
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This? http://backstoryradio.org/2013/10/06/corn-diplomacy-and-the-cold-war/
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Good job!
My readers literally know everything in the world.
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In other news, the Corsican burqini riot was not caused primarily by someone taking a picture of a woman in a burqini after all.
Three Moroccan brothers were claiming a large portion of a public beach and insulting and throwing stones at anyone who got too close. Things escalated.
It’s not even clear if anyone took a picture of a woman in a burqini though someone was taking pictures of other stuff which infuriated the Moroccans.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/701599/Beach-brawl-blamed-Burkini-ban-blamed-Muslim-mem-trying-claim-beach
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One thing is for sure: a burqini ban is long overdue. That this barbarity was allowed to exist for this long is already a disgrace. I’m glad people are waking up.
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I don’t think we should ban burkinis in beaches and pools.
This is different than banning hijabs and religious ostentation among government workers (which I support), since these violate the work environment’s dressing code.
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I know, men don’t understand how degrading and painful it is for women to be subjected to these scenes. I am yet to meet a single man who’d understand this. It’s like, white people never fully get racism.
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Well, I have said that even if I’m very offended by all that burkini and hijab crap. This is very degrading especially in Québec where radical Catholicists were the government in La Grande Noirceur not a long time ago.
This is very normal to be offended by this, but being offended is not necessarily a crime.
If N. would force you to wear a hijab or any piece of cloth, what would you do?
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There are laws prohibiting the payment of wages lower than the minimum wage. Most people seem to have accepted that and even welcome it. I’m not seeing much difference, to be honest.
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I agree. (Although I’m against the minimum wage)
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At least, you are consistent.
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What do you think about the following? My view is below.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/701556/German-Asylum-seekers-refuse-to-work-insisting-We-are-Merkel-s-GUESTS
I would have refused to toil for free in the refugees’ place too. First, they are forbidden to work normally and become at least a little financially independent by German laws, and then told to do some (most likely unnecessary ) work for free for some PR for Germans supporting mass migration .
Of course, after learning about German minimum wage laws, they refused to continue working for less. It’s like Germans are toying with those people, the traditional Christian charity of “I will give you a little money for the right to fully control your life.”
And you know how I can’t help feeling about Muslims and their culture, being at cold peace or/and hot war with all of them, but here they are fully in the right.
And it’s funny how Germans are sad about money spent on uniforms. Naturally, they never considered talking to newcomers first and check the uniforms will be needed. And I am unsure regarding German concent to work for free in a similar situation.
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“I would have refused to toil for free in the refugees’ place too.”
Then if you were a refugee I’d argue against taking you in.
The minimum wage applies to people whose entire existence isn’t already being paid for.
This is not about work as work that absolutely needs to be done. It’s work as a show of gratitude for the country that’s keeping them from starvation and homelessness.
It’s a symbolic gesture that they feel gratitude to the country for spending so much money on them and a gesture that they want to increase their employability and usefulness.
The work culture and language skills that they would gain would also seem fair recompense for the minimal effort they would put in.
On another note: How is the refugee industry from any other human trafficking scheme?
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2016/08/15/twin-falls-idaho-refugee-contractor-needs-volunteers-they-have-a-cash-value/
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Which language skills, cliff? I thought about Israeli Jewish immigrants while reading this article, btw. They were given half a year language course for free and during that time were paid monthly. It let people concentrate on learning Hebrew and then really integrate into the workforce.
Educated people were also given additional courses to receive permission to practice as a teacher, a doctor, etc. And not already educated also sometimes were sent to a course to become a kindergarten worker or a nurse. During the time of being at those courses, they were paid too.
Cleaning toilets and sweeping streets gave zero language skills in Israel, and I am sure it is true for Germany too.
Those migrants should be at a language course, studying German day and night right now. And then really integrate, the way it was done in Israel. Not play games of “showing gratitude.”
And unintegrated people are usually the opposite of grateful in the long term. My mother in Israel was not asked to volunteer to show gratefulness. Instead, she was allowed to integrate and has paid it back in taxes long ago.
Integration like that is the only healthy show of gratefulness a normal Israeli society asked. But then, we were brought to Israel to make us part of the Jewish Israeli people, part of the mainstream society, not to entertain some do-gooders.
And why do you think those men do not have a work culture? Who supported their families in their poor home country then?
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“Which language skills”
Depends on the job, if not with the public then with other people like coordinators or supervisors. Toilet cleaning and street sweeping were not mentioned in the article.
“I thought about Israeli Jewish immigrants while reading this article,”
And that led you astray.
If I seriously thought that these people were devoting their full time to language and culture learning then I’d say no, let them do that first then try to find a job. But all the accounts are they’re not doing any legal work (though some have integrated themselves into the local drug marketing community). IINM they don’t even qualify for much in the way of language training until they receive refugee status which can take months (or maybe years).
Basically this conflict boils down to those who want a Guaranteed Basic Income for doing nothing (which is what they have now) vs busy Potemkin work which at least keeps the idea that working on a schedule is a good thing. Part of keeping a job involved life skills that the long-term unemployed mostly don’t have (like getting up and going to work when it’s raining or you’d really, really, rather not do that). After a very long time as a ward of the state, becoming an employee is a huuuuge struggle (beyond getting a job).
All the evidence so far as that the great majority of the Merkeljugend do not intend to work now or ever. This is just one more piece of evidence that Merkel’s folly is the single worst political decision in living memory (making W’s Iraqi invasion just seem kind of dumb by comparison).
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It’s so true about long-term unemployed. People begin to require special efforts of getting integrated into the workplace after a year out of a job. It’s precisely what Cliff says: the very basic skills of getting themselves out of the house on time, doing what they are told and not what they want, time management, all that becomes very hard. It’s incomprehensible to people who haven’t had the experience but just expecting long-term unemployed to get a job and how work at it is a waste of time.
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The only way one will be successful in learning a language is if one genuinely loves the culture represented by the language. If the culture feels alien and unattractive, there will be no language mastery beyond the very primitive.
Even I never managed to start speaking French in Quebec- in spite of the paid courses and in spite of already knowing the language- because I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy about the culture. Instead, I learned Spanish without a paid course and from scratch because I did feel warm and fuzzy about the culture. Language learning is funny in this sense. A very strong emotional component is involved.
Of course, I mean actual learning not memorizing a few basic sentences.
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I first learned Hebrew and only then truly became part of Israeli culture. 🙂
Before I neither loved it nor not. I wanted to learn Hebrew to succeed at school. Still remember returning home in tears because of not understanding one word on usual 7 grade lessons.
Your position in Quebec where you could live well without French was very different from mine in Israel or those migrants’ in Germany.
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Like I don’t know the kind of brainwashing prospective immigrants to Israel undergo before and right after arriving. Let’s be serious here. People who come to rejoin their own and finally live in the only place that’s home of their own are motivated like nobody else on the planet.
You are also wrong about the ease of living in Quebec without French. What, do you think people switch to English for you if you don’t understand? Ha ha. Governmental organizations especially stick to French-only and fuck you if you don’t understand.
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\Like I don’t know the kind of brainwashing prospective immigrants to Israel undergo before and right after arriving. Let’s be serious here. People who come to rejoin their own and finally live in the only place that’s home of their own are motivated like nobody else on the planet.
I was a young teen when we immigrated and knew zero about Israel or any religion. If you don’t know anything, how can you be brainwashed? In our small town in Ukraine there were hardly any Jews and no sochnut. Getting even the most necessary information needed for immigration was quite hard.
Who brainwashed us right after arriving? Israeli society was welcoming with professional and language courses (and with generally being glad to see us), but I do not call that brainwashing. Of course, being accepted as a Jew and treated as the first class citizen helped me feel myself at home after a few years.
And I believe that had my relatives moved to Germany \ France, I would have learned German \ French as well.
In general, brainwashing is defined as “the attempt to change the thoughts and beliefs of another person against their will.” If my relatives decided to immigrate and then did so, who forced us?
In truth, it sounded a little hurtful. As if I, as an Israeli Jew, can’t help being a brainwashed one, while only Jews from other states may claim to be enlightened. I believe I see both good and bad in my country with quite clear eyes.
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Unfortunately, I have seen way too many relatives and friends get transformed into somebody completely different when they came in contact with the Israeli propaganda machine both while being recruited for immigration and after emigrating. It’s a painful topic because you know somebody your whole life, you like them, and then they start glowing like they have seen the light and saying things like “The only good Arab is a dead Arab.” And that’s the end of the long relationship because what else can you talk about after something like that?
Thus is a very sore issue for me. I lost a best friend, a less important but still a good friend, and I had my first marriage poisoned by these Israeli propagansists.
I don’t mean to hurt your feelings and I’m sorry if I did. But I’ve seen things, including 8 and 9-year-old kids being taught to hate their friends by these Israeli organizations, and I don’t think I’m likely to get over this.
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I continue to feel like this is a bad comedy show.
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Here is an interesting take on Merkel as a 2005 American W supporter (at least as regards European immigration)
http://www.unz.com/isteve/merkel-dismisses-link-between-islamic-extremism-refugees/#comment-1533623
I also like the description of “multiculturalism” as after-the-fact-rationalization and not an original goal.
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“She has encouraged church going, bible study and faith as an effective political solution. Generous asylum policy and post-nationalism is part of “our values” to her. She is a George Bush with an internal focus. More emphasis on “invite the world” rather than “invade the world”. If we do all this, then the Muslims will adopt our views and reform Islam into a kind of christian denomination.”
Seriously? I didn’t know about the religious angle. With every new iteration, the story becomes more bizarre.
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\She has encouraged church going, bible study and faith as an effective political solution.
Church going of whom was encouraged exactly? Does the writer mean mosque going of Muslim arrivals or church going of ethnic Germans? If the latter is meant, would church going supposedly make Germans more tolerant or what?
I do not see how church going will stop Germans from secluding themselves from the newcomers. It’s not like Muslims will be in the church too, or will they? Do German churches offer help to refugees?
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” If the latter is meant, would church going supposedly make Germans more tolerant or what?”
That’s the idea, she’s trying to say (probably) that those who doubt her policy are sinners and need to recognize their sin through renewed religious dedication.
She’s a believer. The question is…. in what?
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According to RIA Novosti, one of the pre-recorded texts played via the propaganda loudspeakers during a recent CSCO [Russia and its allies – V] military exercise under Pskov was: “Soldiers of NATO, you have been lied to! You are no peacekeepers! Lay down your weapons! You’re waging war on foreign soil! With your treacherous attack you’ve invaded a peaceful country. Just retribution will find you, along with the ire of the people that has never been defeated in a war. Drop your weapons, stop being puppets in the hands of your leaders!” Transmitted in female voice in several European languages, including English and German.
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Christ Lord. Seriously?
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https://lenta.ru/news/2016/08/19/nato/
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Freaks.
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The Soviet obsession with corn in the 1950s was due to Khrushchev’s visit to Iowa. He became a kukuruznik and wanted to plant it all over Kazakhstan during the Virgin Lands Campaign to provide animal fodder. Like most Soviet agricultural plans it was an abject failure.
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Exactly. :-))) And he became the butt of every joke from then on. He’s memorable for that and the khruschevki apartments.
It’s great to talk to a specialist. 🙂
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Hey Khrushchevki apartments are a great deal here in Bishkek. They may look ugly on the ouside but inside they are often a lot better than a lot of the newer much more expensive stuff being built.
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Oh, I agree that they were a great thing compared to what was there before. Just like corn.
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Someone pointed out on facebook that if someone put up naked statues of Hillary like this, there would be massive outrage. I lean neither this way or that and am finding it hard to see why Trumps statues are hilarious while Hillary’s would be outrageous.
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Hillary’s statues would have pornographic value while Trump’s don’t. 😃
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LOL, don’t be so sure of that. See rule #34 of the internet.
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http://deadspin.com/baylor-receiver-caught-on-video-beating-dog-1785508101
‘Student-Athlete’ caught on video whipping his dog with a belt. Won’t suffer consequences because he plays college football. But then, it’s the same college that did nothing when its star football player raped a student.
College sports should suffer a horrible death. Fuck the NCAA and anyone who defends this corrupt institution.
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“College sports should suffer a horrible death. Fuck the NCAA and anyone who defends this corrupt institution.”
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“Who brainwashed us right after arriving? ”
I don’t know. You’d have to tell us. But know this: anyone calling their country’s army the ‘most moral army in the world’ unironically is a brainwashed, gullible idiot.
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\But know this: anyone calling their country’s army the ‘most moral army in the world’ unironically is a brainwashed, gullible idiot.
I don’t remember doing that.
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A bad memory is probably a psychological coping mechanism to help you sleep at night.
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\A bad memory is probably a psychological coping mechanism to help you sleep at night.
Unless you show a link, you should stop most likely imagining my words. I checked the discussion in which you wrongly thought I claimed “Netanyahu-is-better-for-kids-than-their-own-mothers” and I made no such claims there.
What I really think about the matter is that Israeli army is definitely not worse than Western countries’ armies on the subject of morality. And IDF is definitely better in not killing civilians during operations than Russian army and numerous Arab ones.
I can not find good statistics now, but considering the political pressure and the world’s attention on us, IDF has every reason to minimize civilian casualties among Palestinians. I read once that we are better than Americans in that matter and it won’t surprise me, but can’t find good statistics. Wiki says “The civilian casualty ratio for U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan is notoriously difficult to quantify,” so finding some article may be unreliable.
Wiki lists statistics under “Civilian casualty ratio” entry, but again it may be unreliable so I don’t mention them here. But may be even you will believe the bit about Israel investing in smart weapons to lower the ratio though.
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My favorite Soviet commercial remains this post modern nightmare fuel from Estonia for ground chicken meat…. In so many ways it seems 20 years ahead of its time.
kana kana kana HAKKLIHA!
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Uri’s latest column is interesting as usual:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1471611894
And, as usual, I disagree with one of his central claims:
\The idea was that making no distinction between a Jew in Berlin and a Jew in Tel Aviv made it easier for Jews around the world to go to Israel. Nobody thought about the fact that this bridge had two directions. If it was easy to go from Berlin to Tel Aviv, it was equally easy to go from Tel Aviv to Berlin. That’s what is happening now. THIS MIGHT well not have happened, if the new nation created by Zionism had been called by a new name.
Calling Israeli Jews “Hebrews” would not have made them forget they are “Jews”. And would not have prevented the weakening of nation states and globalization. It’s not like only Israeli Jews immigrate to other places. And, as I recently read, the number of leaving is very small, approximately equal to the number of arriving to Israel, which is also small after the end of the large 90ies wave from FSU.
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“And, as I recently read, the number of leaving is very small, approximately equal to the number of arriving to Israel”
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\Israeli media routinely misrepresent the enormous figures of those who leave the country.
The latest news in Israeli press are that emigration is at its low point. Surely, if numbers were truly enormous, they would not claim that. Our press is not like Russian press yet, fortunately. 🙂
I checked now both in Hebrew and English. Literally every estimation I’ve seen, whether made by Israeli Jews in academia or by foreign orgs, shows that the figures are very far away from enormous and that Israeli young mobile people are no different from such youth from other countries. See quotes below. The most interesting, informative and recent study by a foreign scholar is in the third quote.
Also, Israeli government is obsessed with bringing Jews and, considering the first paragraph in the second quote, if enormous numbers were living, Israeli free press would shout about that from morning till night. Left wing Jews would write 1001 pages explaining why Right-wing policies were the cause, for instance. 🙂
QUOTE 1 (From “Yerida” in wiki)
\The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development calculated an ‘expatriate rate’ of 2.9 persons per thousand, putting Israel in the mid-range of expatriate rates among the 175 OECD countries examined in 2005
QUOTE 2
\ As in any country, emigration is a process symmetrical in some respects to immigration, but in Israel yeridah has been usually discussed from an ideologically charged perspective rather than a more matter-of-fact one. According to the United Nations world review of national population policies, Israel’s government has consistently perceived immigration levels as too low, and emigration levels as too high (United Nations, 2009).
…
While population size steadily increased, the average number of emigrants remained remarkably stable, thus implying a decreasing rate of emigrants per 1000 inhabitants. The latter has been estimated in recent years at 3-4 per 1000, which is considered by many as too high. It is important to note, however, that very similar levels of mobility characterizes the frequency of migration from a country like Switzerland to Israel, which is generally deemed to be quite low. Therefore the definition and perception of high and low is clearly more related to normative perceptions than to objective criteria.
…
Overall, Israel’s retention rate of new immigrants has been high. At the end of 2009
there lived in Israel 1,141,290 residents who had immigrated since 1989, as against a total number of 1,248,712 new immigrants during the same period (Israel CBS, 2009). Ths means that the total of those who re-migrated or died was 107,422, or 8.6% of total immigrants. This is a remarkably low rate of attrition considering that the percentages of ethnic Germans who immigrated to Germany between 1954 and 1999 and left was above 60% (Münz, 2002).
Click to access Migration_from_Israel.pdf
QUOTE 3 (I advise to read the entire article, if you’re interested in the subject)
Israel’s Migration Balance
Demography, Politics, and Ideology
by Ian S. Lustick
Click to access Lustick_Emigration_ISR_11.pdf
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Teen Trump fan, ejected from Charlotte rally, says he was profiled
An 18-year-old Charlotte college student who was ejected from Thursday’s Donald Trump rally says he went from avid backer to disillusioned opponent after Trump’s security accused him of being a known protester.
Jake Anantha, who registered as a Republican and planned to cast his first presidential vote for Trump, was wearing a Trump shirt when police removed him from the Charlotte Convention Center before the rally began. He and his father, Ramesh Anantha, say they believe he was profiled because of his dark skin….
Anantha says he arrived at the Convention Center around 3:30 p.m., and when the crowd was admitted around 4:30 he took a position near the stage. He says he was standing there when a security staffer tapped his shoulder and asked him to come with him. He says the staffer said, “We know who you are. You’ve been at many other rallies.”
Despite Anantha’s protests that this was his first Trump rally and he was a supporter, police escorted him out. Because the event was private, the Trump staff could choose who was allowed to stay, and Anantha says police warned him not to cause a fuss and get arrested….
Anantha says he stood outside the Convention Center watching a stream of white people enter.
“I thought (Trump) was for all people. I don’t believe he is for all people anymore,” he said. “Why are all these white people allowed to attend and I’m not?”
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The lines’ ends in the comment above disappear, so I reposted it:
\Israeli media routinely misrepresent the enormous figures of those who leave the country.
The latest news in Israeli press are that emigration is at its low point. Surely, if numbers were truly enormous, they would not claim that. Our press is not like Russian press yet, fortunately.:)
I checked now both in Hebrew and English. Literally every estimation I’ve seen, whether made by Israeli Jews in academia or by foreign orgs, shows that the figures are very far away from enormous and that Israeli young mobile people are no different from such youth from other countries. See quotes below. The most interesting, informative and recent study by a foreign scholar is in the third quote.
Also, Israeli government is obsessed with bringing Jews and, considering the first paragraph in the second quote, if enormous numbers were living, Israeli free press would shout about that from morning till night. Left wing Jews would write 1001 pages explaining why Right-wing policies were the cause, for instance.:)
QUOTE 1 (From “Yerida” in wiki)
\The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development calculated an ‘expatriate rate’ of 2.9 persons per thousand, putting Israel in the mid-range of expatriate rates among the 175 OECD countries examined in 2005
QUOTE 2
\ As in any country, emigration is a process symmetrical in some respects to immigration, but in Israel yeridah has been usually discussed from an ideologically charged perspective rather than a more matter-of-fact one. According to the United Nations world review of national population policies, Israel’s government has consistently perceived immigration levels as too low, and emigration levels as too high (United Nations, 2009).
…
While population size steadily increased, the average number of emigrants remained remarkably stable, thus implying a decreasing rate of emigrants per 1000 inhabitants. The latter has been estimated in recent years at 3-4 per 1000, which is considered by many as too high. It is important to note, however, that very similar levels of mobility characterizes the frequency of migration from a country like Switzerland to Israel, which is generally deemed to be quite low. Therefore the definition and perception of high and low is clearly more related to normative perceptions than to objective criteria.
…
Overall, Israel’s retention rate of new immigrants has been high. At the end of 2009
there lived in Israel 1,141,290 residents who had immigrated since 1989, as against a total number of 1,248,712 new immigrants during the same period (Israel CBS, 2009). Ths means that the total of those who re-migrated or died was 107,422, or 8.6% of total immigrants. This is a remarkably low rate of attrition considering that the percentages of ethnic Germans who immigrated to Germany between 1954 and 1999 and left was above 60% (Münz, 2002).
Click to access Migration_from_Israel.pdf
QUOTE 3 (I advise to read the entire article, if you’re interested in the subject)
Israel’s Migration Balance
Demography, Politics, and Ideology
by Ian S. Lustick
Click to access Lustick_Emigration_ISR_11.pdf
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История с французской дуростью
http://lynx9.livejournal.com/1152187.html
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The degree of worldwide hysteria over a tepid effort of a couple of tiny French municipalities to defend the rights of women is truly stunning.
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