MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt says Rand Paul getting assaulted “might be one of my favorite stories”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2tY7lD3TAw
Philadelphia councilwoman Cindy Bass introduces bill that would force Asian shopkeepers to remove their bulletproof glass
Despite the fact that bulletproof glass has saved the lives of Asian shopkeepers, Philadelphia councilwoman Cindy Bass has introduced a bill that would force them to remove it.
The Asian shopkeepers claim the bill is racist. Bass says they are mistaken.
But Bass hasn’t offered any other explanation for her proposal, other than to say that she wants to “control” these stores, which she claims are a “source of trouble.”
I’d say the real “source of trouble” is the criminals who try to shoot and stab the employees of these stores.
And banning bulletproof glass will make that problem bigger, not smaller.
Controversial bill would force business owners to take down bulletproof glass
November 27, 2017
PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) – A controversial bill is currently working its way through city hall designed to regulate ‘stop and go’ liquor stores. One part of the bill would force business owners to take down bulletproof glass inside their stores. But at what cost to their safety?
Broad Deli sits on the corner of the 2200 block of North Broad, inside a wall of bulletproof glass separates customers from workers.
“The most important thing is safety and the public’s safety,” owner Rich Kim said.
Rich Kim’s family has run the deli, which sells soda, snacks, meals and beer by the can for 20 years. He says the glass went up after a shooting and claims it saved his mother-in-law from a knife attack. Now, he may be forced to take some of the barrier down.
“If the glass comes down, the crime rate will rise and there will be lots of dead bodies,” he said.
A bill moving through city council reads: “No establishment shall erect or maintain a physical barrier.”
It’s called the ‘Stop and Go’ bill and is being offered by city councilwoman Cindy Bass.
“Right now, the plexiglass has to come down,” she said.
She wants to put some controls on these small stores that she says sell booze, very little food and are the source of trouble in her district.
Rich Kim resents the charge stores like his attract loiters and argues calls to police are often met with a slow response.
Mike Choe runs a non-profit supporting Korean-owned businesses. He plans on raising $100,000 to fight the measure.
“I do think it’s a bad bill that will endanger Korean Americans,’ he said.
Bass says she’s battling for her constituents.
Kim argues as a Korean-American he’s being targeted.
“This bill targets Korean Americans,” Cole asked. Bass responded, “Absolutely not. I find that offensive.”
I am thankful for being a middle class person today instead of the richest person in the world 200 years ago
I am thankful for being a middle class person today instead of the richest person in the world 200 years ago.
I can have a real time conversation with someone who is 1,000 miles away.
I have light bulbs.
I can get from New York to California in hours instead of weeks.
Antibiotics will save my life if I step on a rock and cut my foot.
I don’t have to worry about getting smallpox, measles, or polio.
I can eat ice cream in July, without having to hire an expedition to climb a mountain to bring back ice.
I could buy an air conditioner if I wanted one (although I don’t actually have or want one. I live in Pittsburgh, and don’t think it’s necessary). But think about being a rich person living in Atlanta in July before air conditioning was invented – that would have sucked.
I can listen to just about any music, watch just about any movie, or watch just about any episode of just about any TV show, whenever I want.
My access to information online is bigger than any library that the richest person owned in the past.
I have a flush toilet.
I can take a hot shower whenever I want.
I don’t have to worry about my drinking water being infected with deadly bacteria or parasites.
My clothing is more comfortable than any that existed in the past.
I have zero problem with the fact that there are some people today who have thousands of times as much money as me.
I am grateful for what I do have. I am not resentful for the fact that other people have way more money than me.
Injured defector’s parasites and diet hint at hard life in North Korea
Here is another example of how communists are incompetent when it comes to farming.
Using human waste for fertilizer is perfectly safe as long as it’s properly treated to kill any parasites, bacteria, and viruses.
Even in the U.S., there are people who use human waste from their compost toilets to grow their own food – but they process it properly before they use it.
Not so with the idiot communists in North Korea. They just toss it – raw and full of dangerous parasites – on to their crops.
This article also talks about the substantial differences in height and weight between children in North Korea and South Korea, as well as the lack of sufficient essential fatty acids and protein in the North Korean diet.
Injured defector’s parasites and diet hint at hard life in North Korea
November 17, 2017
SEOUL (Reuters) – Parasitic worms found in a North Korean soldier, critically injured during a desperate defection, highlight nutrition and hygiene problems that experts say have plagued the isolated country for decades.
At a briefing on Wednesday, lead surgeon Lee Cook-jong displayed photos showing dozens of flesh-colored parasites – including one 27 cm (10.6 in) long – removed from the wounded soldier’s digestive tract during a series of surgeries to save his life.
“In my over 20 year-long career as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a textbook,” Lee said.
The parasites, along with kernels of corn in his stomach, may confirm what many experts and previous defectors have described about the food and hygiene situation for many North Koreans.
“Although we do not have solid figures showing health conditions of North Korea, medical experts assume that parasite infection problems and serious health issues have been prevalent in the country,” said Choi Min-Ho, a professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine who specializes in parasites.
The soldier’s condition was “not surprising at all considering the north’s hygiene and parasite problems,” he said.
The soldier was flown by helicopter to hospital on Monday after his dramatic escape to South Korea in a hail of bullets fired by North Korean soldiers.
He is believed to be an army staff sergeant in his mid-20s who was stationed in the Joint Security Area in the United Nations truce village of Panmunjom, according to Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker of South Korea’s ruling party, briefed by the National Intelligence Service.
North Korea has not commented on the defection.
While the contents of the soldier’s stomach don’t necessarily reflect the population as a whole, his status as a soldier – with an elite assignment – would indicate he would at least be as well nourished as an average North Korean.
He was shot in his buttocks, armpit, back shoulder and knee among other wounds, according to the hospital where the soldier is being treated.
‘THE BEST FERTILIZER’
Parasitic worms were also once common in South Korea 40 to 50 years ago, Lee noted during his briefing, but have all but disappeared as economic conditions greatly improved.
Other doctors have also described removing various types of worms and parasites from North Korean defectors.
Their continued prevalence north of the heavily fortified border that divides the two Koreas could be in part tied to the use of human excrement, often called “night soil.”
“Chemical fertilizer was supplied by the state until the 1970s, but from the early 1980s, production started to decrease,” said Lee Min-bok, a North Korean agriculture expert who defected to South Korea in 1995. “By the 1990s, the state could not supply it anymore, so farmers started to use a lot of night soil instead.”
In 2014, supreme leader Kim Jong Un personally urged farmers to use human faeces, along with animal waste and organic compost, to fertilize their fields.
A lack of livestock, however, made it difficult to find animal waste, said Lee, the agriculture expert.
Even harder to overcome, he said, is the view of night soil as the “best fertilizer in North Korea,” despite the risk of worms and parasites.
“Vegetables grown in it are considered more delicious than others,” Lee said.
LIMITED DIETS
The medical briefing described the wounded soldier as being 170 cm (5 feet 5 inches) and 60 kg (132 pounds) with his stomach containing corn. It’s a staple grain that more North Koreans may be relying on in the wake of what the United Nations has called the worst drought since 2001.
Imported corn, which is less preferred but cheaper to obtain than rice, has tended to increase in years when North Koreans are more worried about their seasonal harvests.
Between January and September this year, China exported nearly 49,000 tonnes of corn to North Korea, compared to only 3,125 tonnes in all of 2016, according to data released by Beijing.
Despite the drought and international sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the cost of corn and rice has remained relatively stable, according to a Reuters analysis of market data collected by the defector-run Daily NK website.
Since the 1990s, when government rations failed to prevent a famine hitting the country, North Koreans have gradually turned to markets and other private means to feed themselves.
The World Food Programme says a quarter of North Korean children 6-59 months old, who attend nurseries that the organization assists, suffer from chronic malnutrition.
On average North Koreans are less nourished than their southern neighbors. The WFP says around one in four children have grown less tall than their South Korean counterparts. A study from 2009 said pre-school children in the North were up to 13 cm (5 inches) shorter and up to 7 kg (15 pounds) lighter than those brought up in the South.
“The main issue in DPRK is a monotonous diet – mainly rice/maize, kimchi and bean paste – lacking in essential fats and protein,” the WFP told Reuters in a statement last month.
I’m not sure if I agree or disagree with Trump for rescuing the UCLA shoplifters from China
I understand why Trump rescued these guys.
But I’m not sure if I agree, or disagree, with what Trump did.
If they hadn’t been famous athletes, would Trump still have rescued them?
What kind of a message does this send? That’s it’s OK to break the law because you won’t have to pay the price?
And how dumb would someone have to be to shoplift in China, where the punishment is far more severe than in the U.S.?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/ucla-basketball-players-admit-shoplifting-china-trump/story?id=51164270
UCLA basketball players admit to shoplifting in China, thank Trump
November 15, 2017
The three UCLA basketball players detained in China last week have admitted to shoplifting and thanked President Donald Trump for helping them return to the U.S.
The players are suspended indefinitely as UCLA reviews the situation, Coach Steve Alford said, adding they will not travel with the team and will not suit up for home games.
Last week, while in China for a game against Georgia Tech, the three players, LiAngelo Ball, Jalen Hill and Cody Riley, were detained for questioning following shoplifting allegations. The rest of the UCLA team returned home without them on Saturday. Ball, Hill and Riley returned to Los Angeles on Tuesday.
At today’s press conference Riley said he takes “full responsibility for the mistake I have made — shoplifting,” and said he is “embarrassed” and “ashamed.”
Riley thanked the Chinese police and government for taking care of them and he also thanked Trump and the U.S. government for intervening “on our behalf.”
“We really appreciate you helping us out,” he said.
“I will never do anything again to jeopardize UCLA’s reputation,” Riley said.
Ball apologized for “stealing” from the stores in China, calling it a “stupid decision.”
Ball said he “didn’t exercise my best judgment,” adding, “I’ve learned my lesson.”
He also thanked Trump and the U.S. government for helping and said he takes “full responsibility” for his actions.
Hill admitted to shoplifting and thanked the president as well, describing his actions as “stupid” and “childish.”
Alford called the players “good young men” who “exercised an inexcusable lapse of judgment.” The coach, who also apologized on their behalf, said he’s “extremely disappointed” and said the players “let a lot of people down.”
The shoplifting took place on Nov. 6, UCLA athletic director Dan Guerrero said.
On Nov. 7, police arrived at their hotel to interview students and search bags and the team bus, and once the three suspects were identified, they were escorted to a police station, Guerrero said.
On Nov. 8, the students were released on bail and surrendered their passports, he said.
On Tuesday, local authorities confirmed the students were free to leave the country, and the charges were withdrawn, he said.
Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement Tuesday that “the matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the Chinese authorities.”
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said Tuesday, “Our primary concern remains the safety and well-being of all members of our community, particularly our students. I am grateful they are headed home.”
Block added, “When members of the UCLA family fail to uphold these values, we review these incidents with fair and thorough processes. In this particular case, both Athletics and the Office of Student Conduct will review this incident and guide any action with respect to the involved students. Such proceedings are confidential, which limits the specific information that can be shared.”
Trump on Tuesday said he personally appealed to China’s President Xi Jingping to help resolve the case. The president said Xi was “terrific” in response to his request and indicated he would intervene.
Today, hours before that players’ press conference, Trump tweeted, “Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!”
Federal jury rules that you’re not allowed to remove graffiti from your own building
In New York City, the owner of a building gave graffiti artists permission to put graffiti on his building, with the understanding that the owner would eventually tear the building down.
However, after the owner did tear the building down, the artists filed a lawsuit, and a jury actually agreed with the artists.
A judge will be ruling on this in the future. But as it stands right now, the concept of private property has just been eroded by a huge amount.
And this is a federal ruling, so it applies to the entire country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/nyregion/5pointz-graffiti-jury.html
Brooklyn Jury Finds 5Pointz Developer Illegally Destroyed Graffiti
November 7, 2017
Ending a trial that explored the question of whether graffiti, despite its transient nature, should be recognized as art, a jury found on Tuesday that a New York City real estate developer broke the law when he tore down the so-called 5Pointz complex in Queens three years ago. Along with the buildings nearly 50 swirling, colorful murals that had been spray-painted on its walls were lost.
The finding by the jury, in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, will serve as a recommendation to the judge who presided over the case and who will render a final verdict.
For the better part of 20 years, 5Pointz, a complex of buildings in Long Island City, was a New York rarity: an aesthetic collaboration between the developer, Jerry Wolkoff, and a scrappy crew of graffiti artists that not only became an offbeat tourist destination, but also helped transform the neighborhood into a thriving residential enclave. Though it eventually became what a lawyer for the artists called the “world’s largest open-air aerosol museum,” its existence was always predicated on Mr. Wolkoff tearing it down and turning the buildings into luxury apartments, which he ultimately did in 2014.
When the artists learned about the demolition, they filed suit against Mr. Wolkoff in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, accusing him of violating the Visual Artists Rights Act, which has been used to protect public art of “recognized stature” created on someone else’s property. During the trial, the artists’ lawyer, Eric Baum, claimed that Mr. Wolkoff had failed to give his clients the proper 90-day notice before he destroyed their work by sending in a team of workers one night to cover it in a coat of white paint.
Mr. Wolkoff’s lawyer, David Ebert, had argued at the trial that V.A.R.A. was irrelevant in the case because it was intended to protect art, not his client’s building. Mr. Ebert also maintained that the 21 artists who had joined the suit had known for years that 5Pointz would eventually come down and contended that they had destroyed more graffiti themselves by constantly changing their paintings than Mr. Wolkoff had in demolishing the structures. In the last decade or so, Mr. Ebert said, about 11,000 murals had come and gone on the walls of the complex.
Even though the jury rendered its decision after hearing three weeks of testimony, near the end of the trial both Mr. Baum and Mr. Ebert agreed that Judge Frederic Block, who presided over the case, should take its verdict only as a recommendation. Judge Block has asked both sides to submit court papers in the coming weeks about the validity of the verdict, at which point he will issue a final decision and, if warranted, force Mr. Wolkoff to pay the artists damages.
Despite this legal quirk, Mr. Baum claimed victory on Tuesday night. “The jury sided strongly with the rights of the artists,” he said. “This is a clear message from the people that the whitewashing of the buildings by its owner was a clear and willful act.”
Mr. Ebert declined to comment on the case.
Snopes falsely claims that Sutherland Springs church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley was not an atheist
Devin Patrick Kelley is the evil scumbag thug who murdered 26 people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
According to the New York Times and CNN, Kelley was an atheist.
However, snopes writes:
Claim: The Texas church shooter was an atheist and was also on the payroll of the Democratic National Committee.
Rating: False
In math, logic, and computer science, (TRUE and FALSE) = FALSE.
However, in journalism, the two statements must be judged separately.
It is indeed false to say that Kelley was on the DNC payroll.
But it is true to say that he was an atheist.
Shame on snopes for treating this as if it were a problem in math, logic, or computer science, instead of treating each claim separately.
Here are some other things I’ve written about snopes’s false claims:
Snopes falsely says the reason that Sweden recently banned Christmas lights on street poles is because of “safety concerns”
Snopes falsely says it’s a “total falsehood” that Black Lives Matter protestors in Memphis, Tennessee, caused a child to delay getting emergency medical care
Snopes falsely says, “The Obama administration didn’t sue on behalf of Muslim truck drivers who refused to transport alcohol.”
Another fake hate crime on a college campus
A black student wrote those racist messages that shook the Air Force Academy, school says
November 8, 2017
In late September, five black cadet candidates found racial slurs scrawled on message boards on their doors at the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School. One candidate found the words “go home n‑‑‑‑‑‑” written outside his room, his mother posted on social media, according to the Air Force Times.
The racist messages roiled the academy in Colorado Springs and prompted the school to launch an investigation. They led its superintendent to deliver a stern speech that decried the “horrible language” and drew national attention for its eloquence.
Surrounded by 1,500 members of the school’s staff, Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria told cadets to take out their phones and videotape the speech, “so you can use it . . . so that we all have the moral courage together.”
“If you can’t treat someone with dignity and respect,” Silveria said, “then get out.”
The speech, which the academy posted on YouTube, went viral. It was watched nearly 1.2 million times, grabbed headlines nationwide, and was commended by former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
But on Tuesday, the school made a jolting announcement. The person responsible for the racist messages, the academy said, was, in fact, one of the cadet candidates who reported being targeted by them.
“The individual admitted responsibility and this was validated by the investigation,” academy spokesman Lt. Col. Allen Herritage said in a statement to the Associated Press, adding: “Racism has no place at the academy, in any shape or form.”
The cadet candidate accused of crafting the messages was not identified, but the Colorado Springs Gazette reported that the individual is no longer enrolled at the school. Sources also told the Gazette the cadet candidate “committed the act in a bizarre bid to get out of trouble he faced at the school for other misconduct,” the newspaper reported.
The announcement thrust the Air Force Academy Preparatory School onto a growing list of recent “hate crime hoaxes” — instances in which acts of racism or anti-Semitism were later found to be committed by someone in the targeted minority group.
On Monday, police in Riley County, Kansas, revealed that a 21-year-old black man, Dauntarius Williams, admitted to defacing his car with racist graffiti as a “Halloween prank that got out of hand.” Scrawled in washable paint were racist messages telling blacks to “Go Home,” “Date your own kind,” and “Die.” The incident provoked controversy and concern at nearby Kansas State University, especially after Williams spoke with the Kansas City Star, claiming to be a black student who was leaving the school because of the incident. He was not, in fact, a student.
Officials decided not to file criminal charges against Williams for filing a false report, saying it “would not be in the best interests” of citizens of the Manhattan, Kan., community, police said in a news release. They said Williams was “genuinely remorseful” for his actions and published an apology on his behalf.
“The whole situation got out of hand when it shouldn’t have even started,” Williams said in the statement. “I wish I could go back to that night but I can’t. I just want to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the pain and news I have brought you all.”
When reports circulated last week about the racial slurs on the car, African American students at the nearby Kansas State University campus held a meeting to talk about the incident.
Andrew Hammond, a journalism student at Kansas State, told the Kansas City Star Monday he was “outraged and hurt” to learn the crime was fake.
“As a black student who has witnessed racist incidents first-hand around Manhattan this hurts the credibility of students who actually want to step out and say something about it,” Hammond said. “I’m not sure what type of human being does this kind of thing as a prank.”
About three weeks earlier, police announced that a 29-year-old black man, a former student named Eddie Curlin, had been charged in connection with three racist graffiti incidents at Eastern Michigan University: “KKK” sprayed on a dorm wall, messages ordering blacks to leave scrawled on a building, and a racist message left in a men’s restroom stall.
It’s unclear exactly what prompts people to commit these hoaxes, stunts and false reports. But such revelations have become a major concern for civil rights activists who document racist and anti-Semitic incidents, particularly amid a rise in reported hate crimes since the 2016 general election.
“There aren’t many people claiming fake hate crimes, but when they do, they make massive headlines,” Ryan Lenz, senior investigative writer for the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project, told ProPublica. All it takes is one false report, Lenz said, “to undermine the legitimacy of other hate crimes.”
These reports have also energized many right-wing commentators and President Trump supporters, who argue that reports about hate speech and racist graffiti are often fake accounts disseminated by liberal media.
“Anyone (including the lapdog media) who was surprised by this hate crime hoax hasn’t been paying attention,” Jeremy Carl, a research fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution at Stanford University, tweeted early Wednesday in response to the news about the Air Force Academy Preparatory School. “The stream of fake hate crimes became a flood after Trump’s election.”
“HATE HOAX: Air Force Academy Cadet Candidate Wrote Fake Racist Messages Himself,” read a headline in the conservative Daily Caller.
There is even a website — fakehatecrimes.org — committed to listing hate crime hoaxes.
In August, Sebastian Gorka, then-deputy assistant to Trump and his spokesman on national security matters, appeared on MSNBC to explain why the president hadn’t condemned the bombing of a mosque in Bloomington, Minn. He suggested it was because the attack may have been a “fake” hate crime.
“There’s a great rule: All initial reports are false,″ Gorka said. “We’ve had a series of crimes committed, alleged hate crimes, by right-wing individuals in the last six months, that turned out to actually have been propagated by the left.”
Despite the string of frauds, experts on hate crimes say that false accounts are still relatively rare.
Brian Levin, director for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino, told Talking Points Memo that hoaxes do appear in hate crime reports, just as they do in reports of other criminal offenses. But these fakes are a “tiny fraction” of the hundreds of hate crimes reported to law enforcement every year.
“These hoaxes have become symbols for some who want to promote the idea that most hate crimes are hoaxes,” Levin said. “That’s important to rectify.”
And indeed, scores of these incidents are cropping up across the country, particularly on college campuses.
Using a ProPublica database, BuzzFeed News found 154 total incidents of hate speech at more than 120 college campuses nationwide. More than two-thirds promoted white supremacist groups or ideology, while more than a third cited Trump’s name or slogans, BuzzFeed News reported.
Yet authorities caught fewer than 5 percent of perpetrators in cases of vandalism or threats. In at least three instances, college officials determined the incident was a hoax, according to BuzzFeed News.
On Tuesday, Silveria, the Air Force general who gained national fame for his speech condemning the September incidents at the preparatory academy, stood by his original remarks.
“Regardless of the circumstances under which those words were written, they were written, and that deserved to be addressed,” Silveria told the Colorado Springs Gazette in a Tuesday email. “You can never over-emphasize the need for a culture of dignity and respect — and those who don’t understand those concepts, aren’t welcome here.”
Edy’s/Dreyer’s frozen custard was awesome during its brief existence
Edy’s (or Dreyer’s, depending on where you live) started selling a line of frozen custard in supermarkets about two and a half years ago.
It may have been the best supermarket ice cream I’ve ever had.
But recently, it’s no longer available at Giant Eagle (Pittsburgh supermarket chain where I shop) or at Target (which used to have it too). A google search shows that Wal-Mart is always out of stock.
I guess they stopped making it.
Which is a shame.
My guess is that some people who had never actually tried it were turned off by the fact that it cost so much more than the brand’s regular line of ice cream. But that cheaper ice cream is all puffed up full of air, which is why it was so cheap, and why I don’t particularly like it.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 