The Utterly Fashionable "Nyarl was RIGHT!" Thread

[Doctor X]

Ah Thanksgiving!

Time to thank Big Daddy for hunting Native Americans to extinction your Commodore Game Cube and having to listen to Uncle Earl blame "the Hip Hop" for the country's "lack of moral fiber!"

Nothing renews my faith in a Benevolent Universe quite like a pre-teen anti-gun violence advocate being killed . . . by gun violence!

"We are in a state of chaos. In the city in which I live, I hear and see examples of chaos almost every day. Little children are victims of senseless gun violence..."

Two years ago, 11-year-old Milwaukee schoolgirl Sandra Parks wrote these words in an award-winning essay about the murders in her city.

On Monday night, aged 13, she was shot by a stray bullet fired into her home.

Her frantic family called 911, but Sandra died at the scene.

The girl's mother, Bernice Parks, told police she had gone to bed early while her children watched TV. She woke to the sound of gunshots shortly before 20:00, and found her daughter bleeding on the floor.

"She said, 'Momma, I'm shot. Call the police,'" Ms Parks told TV station WITI. "I looked at her. She didn't cry. She wasn't hollering. She was just so peaceful... She didn't deserve to leave this world like that."

Bugger'd by Colonists

--J.D.

[Witness]

Tanzania to hunt down homosexuals, beginning this week

[snip]

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/258 ... -this-week

Complement:

The Canadian missionary connection to Tanzania’s homophobia

Canadians should express their solidarity with Tanzanians facing politically inspired homophobia. But, we must also be suspicious of journalism that ignores Canadian complicity in the promotion of anti-gay ideology.
[…]
While raising the subject of “Canadian aid”, the Globe and CBC both ignored how this country’s “assistance” to the region has, in fact, fostered the social conservatism that the stories bemoan. For example, while the Stephen Harper Conservative government was in power international aid funding for religious NGOs increased substantially. In an MA thesis titled “Canadian Foreign Aid and the Christian Right: Stephen Harper, Abortion, and the Global Culture Wars in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2006-2015” Erin Jex details Ottawa’s support for socially conservative forces on the continent. In a high-profile example Crossroads Christian Communications, an Ontario group that listed “homosexuality” with pedophilia and bestiality as a “sin” and “perversion”, was granted more than half a million dollars for a project in Tanzania’s neighbour Uganda.

But Canada’s contribution to social conservatism in Tanzania goes back over a century. During the 100th anniversary of Tanzania’s St. Philip Theological College in 2014 Ontario Anglican Reverend Gary Badcock claimed homosexuality was a “first world” problem and that homosexuals would steal their children.

Lots of links on the page: https://yvesengler.com/2018/11/21/the-c ... omophobia/

[Pyrrho]

Perpetual Disappointments Calendar

https://design-milk.com/the-updated-per ... uragement/

[Doctor X]

Jury decision affirmed in favor of homeopathy sellers

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed a jury verdict in a consumer class action deceptive advertising case in favor of Boiron Inc. and Boiron USA, Inc., the sellers of Oscillococcinum, a homeopathic product marketed for the relief of colds and flu-like symptoms. In the jury trial, the plaintiff argued that the product was essentially water resulting from homeopathic dilution sprayed on sugar, but the jury was persuaded by Boiron's anecdotes, clinical studies, and expert testimony that it is effective and therefore Boiron did not violate California's laws against deceptive advertising. The Appeals Court ruled that Boiron presented sufficient evidence from which the jury could have concluded that Oscillococcinum actually works and that a battle of plaintiff's versus defendants' experts could not be relitigated upon appeal. [Ninth Circuit affirms jury verdict in favor of homeopathic remedy for flu-like symptoms. The National Law Review. Nov 27, 2018] Boiron had previously settled two class-action lawsuits but new ones persuaded it to go to trial. [Consumer suits after trial led Boiron to go to trial. Bloomberg BNA, July 27, 2016] Ocillicoccinum is prepared by incubating small amounts of a freshly killed duck's liver and heart for 40 days. The resultant solution is then filtered, freeze-dried, rehydrated, repeatedly diluted, and impregnated into sugar granules. The dilution is so great that the finished product cannot contain its alleged "active ingredient," which means that no amount of research can prove that it is effective. [Barrett S. Homeopathy: The ultimate fake. Quackwatch, Aug 25, 2016] However, this point was apparently beyond the jury's understanding.

QuackWatch

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

Caveat emptor I guess.

(Although caveat emptor is not the principle used by the FDA to approve drugs.)

I don't know why homeopathy is exempt from FDA approval.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Caveat emptor I guess.

(Although caveat emptor is not the principle used by the FDA to approve drugs.)

I don't know why homeopathy is exempt from FDA approval.

Because plain water is generally recognized as safe.

However there are fraud statutes that should be applied.

[Doctor X]

A far-right extremist trained his toddler daughter to perform a Nazi salute for the camera, a court heard.

After filming the video, Darren Fletcher then told another member of neo-Nazi group National Action: "Finally got her to do it".

Fletcher is set to be jailed at Birmingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to membership of the group, which was banned by the home secretary.

He is one of six people being sentenced in a two-day hearing.

Bugger'd by Colonists

Though there is a "Happy" Ending which made it tempting to post a "Hitler's Parents Jailed" thread.

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

I posted about this back in April of last year, when things looked suspicious but there was still some question that it might be an accident. Nobody thinks it was an accident anymore.

Police ID remains of fifth child of adoptive mother who drove family off California cliff

Jennifer and Sarah Hart presented as the ultimate hippie moms, but in the weeks after their deaths, officials in Oregon, Washington and Minnesota, as well as people who knew them, said the homeschooling, organic food and music festivals were merely cover for their twisted philosophy on child rearing.

Among the allegations were that the Harts denied their kids food and forced them to lie on the floor for hours. Sometimes, punishment was meted out for behavior common among children, such as laughing at the dinner table.

[Doctor X]

I feel dirty upvoting these posts.

--J.D.

[Doctor X]

Requests to bring in child brides OK’d; legal under US laws

By COLLEEN LONG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of requests by men to bring in child and adolescent brides to live in the United States were approved over the past decade, according to government data obtained by The Associated Press. In one case, a 49-year-old man applied for admission for a 15-year-old girl.

The approvals are legal: The Immigration and Nationality Act does not set minimum age requirements for the person making the request or for that person’s spouse or fiancee. By contrast, to bring in a parent from overseas, a petitioner has to be at least 21 years old.

And in weighing petitions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services goes by whether the marriage is legal in the spouse or fiancee’s home country and then whether the marriage would be legal in the state where the petitioner lives.

The data raises questions about whether the immigration system may be enabling forced marriage and about how U.S. laws may be compounding the problem despite efforts to limit child and forced marriage. Marriage between adults and minors is not uncommon in the U.S., and most states allow children to marry with some restrictions.

There were more than 5,000 cases of adults petitioning on behalf of minors and nearly 3,000 examples of minors seeking to bring in older spouses or fiances, according to the data requested by the Senate Homeland Security Committee in 2017 and compiled into a report. The approval is the first of a two-step visa process, and USCIS said it has taken steps to better flag and vet the petitions.

Some victims of forced marriage say the lure of a U.S. passport combined with lax U.S. marriage laws are partly fueling the petitions.

“My sunshine was snatched from my life,” said Naila Amin, a dual citizen born in Pakistan who grew up in New York City.

She was forcibly married at 13 in Pakistan and later applied for papers for her 26-year-old husband to come to the U.S. at the behest of her family. She was forced for a time to live in Pakistan with him, where, she said, she was sexually assaulted and beaten. She came back to the U.S., and he was to follow.

“People die to come to America,” she said. “I was a passport to him. They all wanted him here, and that was the way to do it.”

["Snip!"--Ed.]

There is a two-step process for obtaining U.S. immigration visas and green cards. Petitions are first considered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. If granted, they must be approved by the State Department. Overall, there were 3.5 million petitions received from budget years 2007 through 2017.

Over that period, there were 5,556 approvals for those seeking to bring minor spouses or fiancees, and 2,926 approvals by minors seeking to bring in older spouses, according to the data. Additionally, there were 204 for minors by minors. Petitions can be filed by U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

“It indicates a problem. It indicates a loophole that we need to close,” Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told the AP.

In nearly all the cases, the girls were the younger person in the relationship. In 149 instances, the adult was older than 40, and in 28 cases the adult was over 50, the committee found. In 2011, immigration officials approved a 14-year-old’s petition for a 48-year-old spouse in Jamaica. A petition from a 71-year-old man was approved in 2013 for his 17-year-old wife in Guatemala.

["Snip!"--Ed.]

Reiss, who says she was forced into an abusive marriage by her Orthodox Jewish family when she was 19, said that often cases of child marriage via parental consent involve coercion, with a girl forced to marry against her will.

“They are subjected to a lifetime of domestic servitude and rape,” she said. “And the government is not only complicit; they’re stamping this and saying: Go ahead.”

The data was requested in 2017 by Johnson and then-Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the committee’s top Democrat. Johnson said it took a year to get the information, showing there needs to be a better system to track and vet the petitions.

["Snip!"--Ed.]

The head of USCIS said in a letter to the committee that its request had raised questions and discussion within the agency on what it can do to prevent forced minor marriages. Awesome.

USCIS created a flagging system when a minor spouse or fiance is detected. After the initial flag, it is sent to a special unit that verifies the age and relationship are correct before the petition is accepted. Another flag requires verification of the birthdate whenever a minor is detected. Officials note an approval doesn’t mean the visa is immediately issued. Which does what exactly? Oh, right, fuck all!

“USCIS has taken steps to improve data integrity and has implemented a range of solutions that require the verification of a birthdate whenever a minor spouse or fiance is detected,” USCIS spokesman Michael Bars said. “Ultimately, it is up to Congress to bring more certainty and legal clarity to this process for both petitioners and USCIS officers.”

The country where most requests came from was Mexico, followed by Pakistan, Jordan, the Dominican Republic and Yemen. Middle Eastern nationals had the highest percentage of overall approved petitions.

Boston Sun

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]