Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

I will leave this here for your amusement.

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* Greece is now known as Green Laser Country

Seriously Greece. I can't watch a single news broadcast from the square without being lasered. It's fucking juvenile. If only you devoted as much time and effort into a bipartisan solution to the political and economic crisis in your country as you do to lasering foreigners. Greeks, you have no money. Spend less. Don't use all your money to buy green lasers. On the upside, Greece shows us all how futile the common currency is. Instead of a unifying force to create a USE it drives wedges between the prisoners of the currency. In plain english, it doesnt work. Let's hope they leave. I'd also like to see the german and french banks that lended the money to Greece take the hit for what they did. It'd be refreshing to see banks take responsibility for once.
 
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I would like to see the banks take the hit here, and currently some have little exposure anyway, so they could take it, while other would have major issues.
Here is a table with the exposures across Europe.
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Note that Dexia has written down its greek holdings to next to nothing, while Postbank is owned by Deutsche Bank, so no big issues there either. The french may face some problems, but for the banks I guess a default is better than participating in another bailout. Why would you give someone who is broke more money anyway?
 
I read somewhere (I thought it was posted here) that a guy was taken off a flight a few days ago for wearing his pants low and having his under wear showing. But a few days before that, a guy flew dressed like this:

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Man flies US Airways in women's underwear


Six days before a college football player was arrested at San Francisco International Airport in a dispute that began when a US Airways employee asked him to pull up his sagging pants, a man who was wearing little but women's undergarments was allowed to fly the airline, a US Airways spokeswoman conceded Tuesday.

A photo of the scantily clad man was provided to The Chronicle by Jill Tarlow, a passenger on the June 9 flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Phoenix. Tarlow said other passengers had complained to airline workers before the plane boarded, but that employees had ignored those complaints.

US Airways spokeswoman Valerie Wunder confirmed she'd received the photo before last week's incident in San Francisco and had spoken to Tarlow, but said employees had been correct not to ask the man to cover himself.

"We don't have a dress code policy," Wunder said. "Obviously, if their private parts are exposed, that's not appropriate. ... So if they're not exposing their private parts, they're allowed to fly."

So, does that mean Deshon Marman, the University of New Mexico player yanked from an Albuquerque-bound flight June 15 at SFO, was displaying his private parts when his pajama pants sagged to mid-thigh level?

Wunder declined to comment on the incident directly. Police have said only that Marman's boxer shorts were exposed, and his attorney said surveillance video would prove Marman's skin had not been visible.

Police arrested Marman, 20, who grew up in San Francisco, after he allegedly refused an US Airways employee's request to pull up his pants to keep his underwear from showing. Marman's later refusal to comply with the pilot's orders to get up from his seat led to his arrest on suspicion of trespassing, battery and resisting arrest, police said. The San Mateo County district attorney has not determined whether he will charge Marman.

Marman's attorney, Joe O'Sullivan, said his client had been stereotyped by US Airways as a thug, and that the airline was guilty of racial discrimination for asking Marman to adjust his clothes. Marman is African American.

"It just shows the hypocrisy involved," O'Sullivan said after he viewed the photo of the cross-dressing passenger. "They let a drag queen board a flight and welcomed him with open arms. Employees didn't ask him to cover up. He didn't have to talk to the pilot. They didn't try to remove him from the plane -- and many people would find his attire repugnant."

O'Sullivan added, "A white man is allowed to fly in underwear without question, but my client was asked to pull up his pajama pants because they hung below his waist."

Tarlow, 40, who was returning home to Phoenix after helping her mother move, said she had been shocked when she noticed the older man in blue underwear and black stockings standing in the Fort Lauderdale terminal. Tarlow said the man had obliged when she asked to take his photo.

"No one would believe me if I didn't take his picture," Tarlow said. "It was unbelievable. ... And he loved it. He posed for me."

Wunder reiterated the airline's stance that Marman had not been removed from the US Airways flight last week because of his clothing, but because he had failed to comply with an employee's request.

"The root of the matter is, if you don't comply with the captain's requests," Wunder said, "the captain has the right to handle the issue because it's one of safety."
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Sorry for the double Post, but vastly different topic.

Toronto police swear off G20 kettling tactic


Toronto police will never again use the controversial crowd control technique known as kettling, which was employed for the first and last time in the city?s history during last year?s G20 summit.

The decision was revealed to the Star in a police statement Tuesday, along with the information that two Toronto police superintendents were ?responsible? for commanding and controlling G20 policing in the city outside the security fence.

On June 27, the final day of the G20 summit, some 300 protesters and bystanders were boxed in, or kettled, by riot police at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. for about four hours.

Not long after the enclosure, rain began to fall in torrents as some stood shivering in summer dresses and tank tops.

?The crowd control technique implemented at Queen & Spadina on June 27 will not be used again by the Toronto Police Service,? spokeswoman Meaghan Gray said in the statement, a response to a list of G20-related questions sent by the Star.

The incident, broadcast live on TV, was the dramatic climax of the summit weekend, which saw black-clad rioters rampaging through downtown Toronto and the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.

The vast majority, if not all the people detained at Queen and Spadina, were released without charge shortly after 10 p.m.

It has been unclear since the summit whether kettling would still be on the table as a Toronto police tactic. It is among the many issues being investigated internally and in a Toronto Police Services Board review.

Asked whether it?s fair to say police have decided it was wrong to kettle people at Queen and Spadina, Gray said, ?No, I don?t think that was the answer I provided.?

Gray refused to provide more information on why and when the decision was made until the release of the police internal review?s report.

The report is in its final stages and ?will be released as soon as practical,? said Gray.

Nathalie Des Rosiers, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, was heartened to hear Toronto police have ditched kettling.

?It is a violation of Section 9 of the Charter, which provides and guarantees the freedom from arbitrary detention,? she said.

?It rounds up, detains and prevents from moving large groups of people for which the police have no evidence that they have done anything wrong.?

For Justin Stayshyn, a 36-year-old freelance writer caught up in the kettle on his way home to Queen and John Sts., the effects still linger.

Stayshyn said he doesn?t put much stock in the police statement because they have done nothing to engender his trust following the summit.

?That?s the big issue here, not whether they?re going to kettle again.?

Stayshyn said Toronto police have lost all credibility on G20 issues, citing officers? reluctance to cooperate with the Special Investigations Unit and the removal of name tags during the summit, among other issues.

?When it comes to the G20, I don?t trust anything they say.?

Instead, Stayshyn would prefer police come out in support of a full public inquiry and airing of all policing actions that weekend.

?They need to provide something that will actually make us trust them again and then we can talk,? he said. ?Nobody can make any promises about what they?ll do next time, because we don?t know what they did this time.?

In April, the British High Court deemed the kettling of G20 protesters during a 2009 summit illegal.

The ruling said that while police were working in ?good faith,? corralling 4,500 demonstrators inside a Climate Camp protest for three hours was an overreaction.

?The police may only take such preventive action as a last resort catering for situations about to descend into violence,? the decision stated. ?The test of necessity is met only in truly extreme and exceptional cases.?

Thousands of people may now sue Scotland Yard for false imprisonment in relation to the London kettling incident, according to The Guardian newspaper.

Toronto lawyer Murray Klippenstein is heading up a $45 million class action suit against the Toronto Police Services Board over police actions during the G20.

?This is a fairly momentous decision and recommendation by the police,? said Klippenstein of the choice to never use kettling again.

?Maybe we have all learned something from what happened during the G20. But maybe we should have figured this out before then.?
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Great. Kettling is a stupid, inhumane, futile, dangerous and probably illegal mean outside a police state.

Police should never arbitrarily arrest, detain or 'punish' large crowds of people like in this case.

It is utterly ludicrous.
 
katwalk said:
I don't like the "everyone is a pedophile" mentality. Oh no, a person who is not a kid or having a kid was at a playground. It's not like anyone ever finds playing children cute or anything like that. Have people forgotten how to supervise a kids?
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Agreed. And yes, judging by the stuff I see when I shop or go anywhere in public, people have forgotten how to supervise their kids. I wouldn't have dared to do some of the things I see, because I knew my grandma didn't play when it came to stuff like that.
 
Well apparently my mother is a murderer then as my birth was predated by a miscarriage. :|


I am in favor of sterilizing myself.
 
I'm in favor of carpet bombing Mississippi.

Where's the 8th air force when you need them? Send some bloody Liberators over the state capitol. Demolish it. And then make them pay the bill.
 
The cases mentioned sound extremely weak on the prosecution side, especially considering the Mississippi law saying that no person other than a mother can cause an abortion. The way I see it, though, if there is a conviction, it is great grounds for an appeal, and I'm thinking that appeal would quickly involve Roe v. Wade if it made it up to the State or US Supreme Court. If that were the situation, it could lead to a monumental decision grounding the precedent and legality of abortion.
 
True.

But I'd still like to carpet bomb the Capitol.
 
...and then I see jingoists from that very area of the US bashing other countries for handing out sentences to rape victims. Fucked up world.
 
GRtak said:
It is not just Mississippi though, Alabama and Indiana are in that article too. It is truly disgusting that these woman are subject to this.
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I am sure we can carpet bomb them as well, all in good time. I think it might be a deterrent.
 
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