n2doc
n2doc's JournalAustralian comedian perfectly sums up why other countries think US gun laws are crazy
Yesterday in Moneta, Virginia, local news reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward were shot and killed on live TV while broadcasting from a shopping center. The suspected gunman has been identified as Vester Flanagan, a former employee of the news station. Flanagan reportedly shot himself after being pursued by police.
Every shooting is its own private tragedy for the victims and their families. But events like this are also part of a much bigger problem. The United States has far more gun violence than the rest of the developed world. To Americans, that can seem like a regrettable but unavoidable fact of life. But to much of the rest of the world, the US attitude toward gun control seems absolutely crazy.
Australian comedian Jim Jefferies was the victim of a home invasion once. He was tied up and beaten, and his girlfriend was threatened with rape. So you might think he'd sympathize with the idea that Americans want guns to protect their families. Quite the opposite — he does an excellent job of summing up why so many foreigners are baffled by America's gun culture:
Now in America, you had the Sandy Hook massacre, where little tiny children died. And your government went, "Maybe ... we'll get rid of the big guns?" And 50 percent of you went, "FUCK YOU, DON'T TAKE MY GUNS."
He continues with a blistering smackdown of the idea that Americans seek guns to keep their families safe...
more with video
http://www.vox.com/2015/3/24/8283199/gun-control-comedy-jefferies
NASA: Sea level increase likely on upper end of predictions
Sea levels have risen an average of 3 inches worldwide since 1992, according to new data from federal researchers, who warned climate change is likely to ensure sea levels will rise at least 3 feet in the future.
Sea level changes vary around the world, NASA scientists said Wednesday: the west coast of the United States has actually seen its sea levels fall, while other parts of the globe have experienced increases of more than 9 inches.
NASA researchers analyzed 23 years of sea level satellite data to determine the changes, the agency said.
Climate scientists have long said that climate change will, among other things, lead to rising sea levels around the world. In 2013, United Nations researchers determined that global sea levels would rise between 1 foot and 3 feet by the end of the century.
NASA’s research suggests climate change has likely “locked in” an average sea level increase on the high end of those estimates, the agency said.
more
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/252082-nasa-sea-level-increase-likely-on-upper-end-of-predictions
Gay couple turned away 3rd time by Rowan (Ky) clerk
MOREHEAD, Ky. James Yates and William Smith Jr. left the Rowan County Courthouse on Thursday, frustrated that clerks have now refused them a marriage license for third time.
The couple said they felt that Rowan Clerk Kim Davis was obligated to provide the paperwork after appellate judges refused to stay a federal injunction against Davis on Wednesday. But a deputy clerk said he was under orders to turn them away.
"It's just making us want to press more," Yates said. "She can't get away with this."
The couple said they plan to return and try again next week.
http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/08/27/gay-couple-turned-away-3rd-time-rowan-clerk/32440151/
somebody need to go to jail for contempt.
Thursday TOON Roundup 3- The Rest
Stocks
Education
Fires
Traffic
Biden-Warren
Sanders
Carter
Andrew Cuomo GE Deal: NY Taxpayers to Subsidize General Electric As Critics Slam Company
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week proudly declared that he had successfully lured General Electric into “coming home.” It took $50 million in taxpayer subsidies to convince the company to build a new manufacturing facility in upstate New York, but this was money well spent, Cuomo asserted, noting that GE used to be “such a big part of this community and provided so many jobs and was such a vital player in this community.” Cuomo is now pushing to authorize an additional, undisclosed amount to entice GE to also relocate its corporate headquarters from Connecticut back to New York, some 40 years after it left.
The welcoming rhetoric from the New York governor, a Democrat, presents a stark change from recent years, in which GE was known throughout the state as a large-scale industrial polluter: During the mid-20th century, the company dumped more than one million pounds of chemicals linked to cancer into the Hudson River.
Since 2009, the technology and manufacturing conglomerate has contributed more than $466,000 to Cuomo’s campaigns and political groups that have supported his bids for governor, according to state and federal campaign finance records.
New York state and federal authorities have for decades sparred with GE over the pace and extent of its promised cleanup of the Hudson from years of manufacturing-related chemical dumping, a battle that continues even as Cuomo now extends the state’s largess. In the same week Cuomo was promoting his plans to subsidize GE, federal officials told New York authorities that the company had been underreporting the volume of toxic chemicals that are still in the river’s ecosystem. Meanwhile, New York lawmakers, businesses and environmental groups have been raising concerns that the company is now moving to prematurely abandon the cleanup operations, while a report from federal government scientists said GE needs to conduct additional dredging to fully clean up the river.
more
http://www.ibtimes.com/andrew-cuomo-ge-deal-ny-taxpayers-subsidize-general-electric-critics-slam-company-2068579
The blasé acceptance that you might get shot is a fact of American life
Megan Carpentier
It’s hard to be shocked at the Virginia shootings. They’re part of a cycle in which innocent people are murdered and politicians get away with doing nothing
The first time I did something about America’s epidemic of mass shootings was not when I looked up and saw on TV that a child had shot up a school full of children – although that’s happened a lot of times here.
It wasn’t when I saw a horrific video playing on a loop on Facebook on Wednesday, like so much of the rest of the world did, after another video of the same killing played in a loop on the the cable networks and across Twitter, even as people called for the Virginia video to disappear.
No, there wasn’t social media or an online death reel of snuff films in the midst of a sniper’s killing spree in the Washington DC metro area, way back in 2002.
I didn’t write my then-congressman demanding more gun control, of which we have little.
I didn’t email my then-senators demanding that they do something to reduce the number of guns on the streets, because I knew they didn’t really read their emails.
I didn’t even call my state assemblywoman or my state senator in Richmond, Virginia, to demand that they close the state’s well-known and egregious loophole that lets people buy guns easily at gun shows.
Instead, I positioned the back of my car toward a building, and stood, bent over, behind my car door while I pumped gas – in case a teenage sniper was aiming at me, from somewhere I couldn’t see, hunting me.
more
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/27/the-blase-acceptance-that-you-might-get-shot-is-a-fact-of-american-life
Bernie's "Enough Is Enough" March on DC reaches 104,000 signup Goal!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1636611586577118/Amazing.Hope this happens.
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