Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
Shaker Gourmet
Daily Dose of Cute
Superdog is super.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; terrorism; death; video may autoplay at second link] "The surviving pilot of a Russian plane shot down by Turkey on the Syrian border has said no warning was given. Capt Konstantin Murakhtin told Russian television there was 'no way' the jet could have violated Turkish airspace, as Turkey said it did. Russia said Capt Murakhtin was rescued in a 12-hour operation involving special forces. Turkey insists the pilots were warned 10 times before the plane was shot down." Meanwhile: "Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday said the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey appeared to be planned. 'We have serious doubts that it was unintentional, it looks like a planned provocation,' he said, according to Russian news agency TASS." So, everything's going great with that situation.
[CN: Terrorism] US President Obama and French President Hollande gave a joint press conference yesterday, in which they reaffirmed the alliance between the two countries. The White House had made available the complete transcript of that presser.
[CN: War on agency] This is good news (for now): "The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that the hospital admitting requirement for Wisconsin abortion providers is unconstitutional. The scathing 2-1 ruling states that this kind of targeted restriction on abortion providers is unconstitutional because it lacks any basis to suggest that it improves safety at clinics. ...A similar case will be heard by the Supreme Court next year." Let's hope the Supreme Court shares the opinion of the 7th Circuit Court.
[CN: Marginalizing language] Hillary Clinton has promised to stop using the phrase "illegal immigrants." Jose Antonio Vargas, "an activist whose group is mounting a campaign called #WordsMatter to get presidential candidates to promise not to use the phrase," and who challenged Clinton on her use of the phrase, said: "I am hopeful that Hillary Clinton will stand by her word. And I am hopeful that her fellow candidates, from both parties, will make the same pledge. Words matter." Well done, sir!
[CN: Domestic violence] The NFL continues to have perfect priorities: "On Tuesday afternoon, days after pictures and video of the Cleveland Browns quarterback partying over the weekend emerged, the team announced that Johnny Manziel has been demoted from starter to the third string for the foreseeable future. This announcement comes less than a month after Manziel, who is in his second year in the NFL, was promoted to starting quarterback amid an NFL investigation of a domestic violence incident."
[CN: Homophobia; violence] Good: "Homophobic tweets posted by accused Philadelphia gay basher Kathryn Knott will be admitted as evidence in the trial against her set to start next month. Knott is accused of savagely attacking a gay couple in City Center, Philadelphia on September 11, 2014 while shouting gay slurs. While her two cohorts in the attack accepted plea deals, Knott, the daughter of Bucks County, Pennsylvania police chief Karl Knott, opted instead to fight the charges against her in court. ...The judge in Knott's trial decided that those tweets, because they are of an anti-gay nature, would be admissible in the trial despite her defense attorney's objection (he labeled the attempt to admit them 'character assassination')."
Obviously: "Adele's Reaction to the SNL Skit About Her Is Perfect." In other Adele news: "Adele Can't Wait for Rihanna's Anti." YESSSSS!!!
[CN: Disablist language] "29 Times Tom Hardy Was Goddamn Human Perfection in 2015." LOL! Facts.
And finally! "Couple Lets Their Dog Film Their Wedding and the Result Is Better Than Most Wedding Videos." Awwww!
See, Here's the Thing with Religious Litmus Tests
[Content Note: Refugee crisis; Christian Supremacy; Islamophobia; descriptions of violence.]
Last Sunday, John Oliver had a segment on resistance across the US to accepting Syrian refugees, and it included this bit about the Republican nominees who have argued that we should only accept Christian refugees (video should begin playing at, and transcribed section begins at, 0:49):
John Oliver: Presidential candidates also got involved with this anti-refugee rhetoric. Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio called for a halt to all Syrian refugees entering the country, and others, like Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, argued we could take some, if they were Christian. And if you're wondering how that would work, let Jeb Bush explain.So, this is definitely a thoughtfully considered position that is super solid and totally doesn't have any holes in it.
[cut to clip of Jeb Bush standing and talking to reporters]
Female reporter: What does the focus on Christian families actually look like? Is that gonna—
Bush: Well, you're a Christian. You can prove you're a Christian.
Female reporter: How?
Bush: [shrugs] I think you can prove it.
And it obviously rests on the firm and unassailable foundation that Christians would never hurt anyone, unlike Muslims.
Except, here's another story in the news today [video may autoplay at link]: "Pastor Among 8 Indicted in Fatal New York Church Beating." It's a story about eight adults, seven of whom have been charged with murder, for fatally beating a teenage boy and seriously injuring his younger brother, because the older boy had expressed a desire to leave the church. The adults, including the boys' father, tortured them for what the surviving boy "estimated was six or more hours," during which they were "pummeled with fists and whipped with a 4-foot, folded electrical cord on the back and elsewhere."
I'm guessing that Jeb Bush would be among the first people to tell me that these assholes aren't representative of all Christians.
And I agree. They're not.
Just like Islamic terrorists aren't representative of all Muslims.
There are a whole lot of problems with the narrative that "Christian axiomatically = good," even without its being juxtaposed against the narrative that "Muslim axiomatically = bad." There are a whole lot of people in the US who are harmed by Christians in the name of Christianity every goddamn day.
Enough with this shit. Enough.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis...
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; violence.]
A day after masked gunmen opened fire on protesters rallying for justice after the police killing of Jamar Clark, more information is coming out about how police responded to that shooting, which happened right outside a police precinct:
"This is what you guys wanted," police told protesters after five demonstrators were shot and injured by masked men at a continuing protest in Minneapolis on Monday night, witnesses told the Guardian.Rage. Seethe. Boil.
Protesters trying to tend to the wounded were also maced.
...Having shot five people, the attackers escaped in what looked like a black Toyota SUV, according to Nimo Omar, who was also at the protest.
After the shots, everything was "very chaotic," Omar said. Several people, including Sumaya Moallin and Oluchi Omeoga, ran back to the precinct to ask the police for help.
Moallin said they needed a squad car and an ambulance. "He looked at me and he said: 'Call 911,'" she told the Guardian. "I said: 'I thought you were 911.' Then he looked at me directly and said: 'This is what you guys wanted.'"
"Six [officers] were outside [the precinct building]," she continued. "They all just shuffled back into the door. They were not making eye contact ... I pleaded a good amount of time."
She said she felt "like I had the wind knocked out of me. We're here to protest against what they're doing wrong; we don't not want cops, we just want them to serve and protect. I fell to the ground and started crying."
...A "chaotic" 15 or 20 minutes passed, [Rachel Bean] said, with the crowd's anger at the police's refusal to offer aid growing. "I felt powerless," Omeoga said. "But the whole reason me and Jie [Wronski-Riley] were chasing around was to de-escalate." Another witness, Moallin, said that it was more like 10 minutes.
Then the police arrived at the scene in force, in full riot gear. Bean was still tending to Martin's brother's stomach wound when they released mace into people's faces, she told the Guardian. "I said, 'I called the EMS, you don't have to mace everyone,'" she said. "The officer said 'fuck you' or 'shut the fuck up' or something like that."
She said that attitude was representative of the behavior of other officers she interacted with after the attack. "The idea that you would mace a group of people that just had bullets fired at them – that's the opposite of responsible."
The sort of thinking that imagines protesters desire to be shot by anti-black gunmen is not just despicable; it's projection. It's the sort of thinking that comes from people who want to pretend that they're under siege, in order to justify their wanton murder of people over whom they have power, and then hold up as heroic martyrs a couple of fucking assholes who shot themselves.
I don't even know how these cops can spend a moment wondering why the fuck they're being protested, when they mace people trying to provide medical assistance to comrades who have been shot.
That shit right there is why you're being protested. Because you are aggressively hostile to black existence and survival.
Protest in Chicago for Laquan McDonald, and for More
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; violence.]
Protesters block I-290 in Chicago last night. [Image via Brittany Levine.]
Yesterday, after Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with murder for killing 17-year-old black teenager Laquan McDonald with 16 shots, the police public released video of the shooting. Protesters took to Chicago's streets, agitating for justice on behalf of Laquan McDonald and, as ever, raising awareness around the issue of police violence, in the hopes of preventing any more deaths like McDonald's.
While the demonstrations, which at times blocked some of Chicago's busy Interstate highways, were largely peaceful, some turned confrontational during the night.And the police's response was violence and aggression. They also arrested Malcolm London, along with three other leaders of the Black Youth Project 100, a black social justice youth organization in Chicago. Earlier in the day, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (who is an opportunistic scoundrel) sought to meet with London and others, and they refused, knowing it would be a charade as part of Emanuel's bid to avoid demonstrations in Chicago. I'm sure, ahem, it's just a coincidence then that later the same day, London was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault, despite the fact that he was "just standing there" when police grabbed him.
Skirmishes broke out between protesters and police, who surrounded officers after they apparently made arrests. Protesters also tried to stop a police SUV from leaving with arrestees — an effort that failed. As the sound of sirens filled the air, police were met with shouts of "16 shots" — the number of times the officer charged with murder fired at Laquan McDonald, 17, in October 2014 — and "No Black Friday!" Some protesters showed up in gas masks, and some pushed against a police line, but no smoke or tear gas came.
In dramatic standoffs, some protesters stared down police as cameras snapped.
"When we say 'F—k the police,' that's not just because … we think that s—t is something cool," one protester said. "That is a response!"
That police specifically targeted BYP100 organizers for arrest is not a coincidence. It is a deliberate strategy to intimidate, discourage, demoralize, and terrorize young black activists in Chicago.
Thus proving the need for those activists in the first place.
This protest was about justice for Laquan McDonald and about accountability for police violence. But, like every Black Lives Matter protest, it was about so much more. It's about all the police violence against the black community in Chicago. It's about overpolicing in black communities, the sort of policing in which police aren't there to serve the community but contain and oppress them. It's about Homan Square. It's about profound segregation and entrenched institutional racism. It's about the spectrum of systemic violence and marginalization of black people committed by a white supremacist city, state, and nation. It's about making black lives matter, in every way.
And there are an awful lot of white people who regard each of these protests as singular events. Who don't understand that this protest is intimately connected to the protest in Minneapolis, at which black protesters were shot by white supremacists. And to the fight for justice for Sandra Bland. And Rekia Boyd. And Michael Brown. And John Crawford. And Jonathan Ferrell. And Eric Garner. And Oscar Grant. And Freddie Gray. And Andre Green. And Darrien Hunt. And Kajieme Powell. And Tamir Rice. And Tony Robinson. And Walter Scott. And Charles Smith. And for those killed by white people other than police, like the victims of the AME Church Shooting, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, and Darius Simmons. And for black women for whom self-protection laws don't apply, like Marissa Alexander and the Jersey 4 and CeCe McDonald. And for black women whose need is criminalized, like Shanesha Taylor and Laura Browder and Moina Lucious.
And school segregation, and job discrimination, and housing discrimination, and wealth inequality, and pay disparity, and mass incarceration, and municipal violations, and fair legal representation, and the disproportionate application of the death penalty, and lack of meaningful visibility, and unequal opportunities, and access to healthcare, and millions of microaggressions, and white people (and other non-black people) doubting whether anti-black racism really still exists and auditing the ways black people try to address it and accusing them of looking for things to get mad about and screaming BOOTSTRAPS at them and calling them oversensitive.
My pal Dan Solomon posted the following on Facebook, which I'm sharing with his permission, drawing a line between the white supremacist shooting at the protest in Minneapolis this week and the scolding of black students advocating for safe spaces on college campuses:
Okay, here is the thing about Black Lives Matter protests and all the I'm-just-a-reasonable-white-guy whining about how the kids are all way too sensitive and don't deserve their "safe spaces" -- the space outside of a fucking *police station* in Minneapolis wasn't safe. If they want to talk about the way that black lives are at very real risk in this country, they are at risk of being fucking *shot* for it. The idea that they're not equipped for the "real world" because they want safe spaces on their campuses when the world tells them over and over again that they don't get safe spaces, that a space that is super safe for someone like me is actually dangerous as hell for them, is such heavy, condescending bullshit that anybody who spouts it should have fucking asphyxiated by now.In Chicago last night, protesters marched for safety. The kind of safety that so many white people take for granted. And the police responded by arresting one of their leaders on a trumped-up charge based on the claim that he assaulted them.
Every time black protesters go to the street to talk about this, they are aware that they are not safe. They get shot. They get beaten. They get gassed. They are aware that they get shot and beaten and gassed. They are *willing* to get shot and beaten and gassed. It's not because their tactics are too aggressive or they snatched a mic from Bernie fucking Sanders, it's because the world is filled with racist people who will shoot and beat and gas them. Motherfuckers, you'd want a "safe space" too.
Are you getting it yet?
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker yes: "What is your favorite self-care ritual?"
Literally more than anything else: A nap, when I really need one.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Slaughter: "Fly to the Angels"
This week is featuring all of Deeky's favorite hair metal bands, in honor of his birthday.
What to Get the Fishmonger Who Has Everything
Please take a moment to review the "Ridiculous (and Awesome)" section of GOOP's 2015 Holiday Gift Guide and let me know what you'd like for Christmas. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas. Especially if you don't celebrate Christmas. All the coolest fishmongers are celebrating Christmas these days!
If anyone is wondering what to get me this year, I would like the $90,000 World View Exploration at the Edge of Space. Please and thank you.
"I make those sorts of calculations every day."
[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism; harassment; threats; violence; war on agency.]
Andrea Grimes interviews abortion provider Dr. Cheryl Chastine on what it means to her, and what it costs her, to be an abortion provider in the United States: "An Abortion Provider Speaks Out: 'I'll Do Whatever My Conscience Tells Me I Must'."
In American culture, work is such a big part of who we are that "What do you do for a living?" is an incredibly common small talk question. So with every encounter like that, I have to decide whether I want to bring it up. Should I say, "I provide abortions," to my airplane seatmate? My hairdresser? The woman on the treadmill next to me at the gym? I don't want to perpetuate abortion stigma by not talking about it, and I'm proud as hell to do what I do. So I usually talk about it, and people are usually supportive. I feel like confronting people with the work that I do, and the need for that work, is a political act.Read the whole thing.
At the same time, though, you never know who might be anti-abortion. Now, I'm not worried about upsetting anyone. But I do have to think about whether, say, my hairdresser might call up the groups that harass me and tell them where and when I go there. Then I have to worry that they might start picketing my haircut appointments, or calling the salon and threatening to boycott or protest them if they continue seeing me, or even that at my next appointment there could be someone waiting outside with a gun.
It's absurd and appalling that I have to think about that. But I make those sorts of calculations every day.
...I have no regrets about my path. This is even more important, and more rewarding, than I'd thought it could be. Every day I go to work, I can make it possible for someone to leave an abusive relationship, care for their children, continue their education, deal with an illness. Every day, my patients hug me and thank me and tell me I've helped them get their life back.
Cheryl is a friend of mine (which I'm disclosing with her permission). I've had the pleasure of spending time with her in person, and she is every bit as awesome as you'd imagine from reading this interview, and even more. She is deeply kind.
I've said before that I don't have heroes, because it has always seemed such an unfair thing, to me, to call someone a hero—to put someone on a pedestal from which they cannot escape and lionize them to the virtual point of dehumanization. It's such a terrible way to recognize the rarity of a person whose work and example are so meaningful that I aspire to follow their lead, this instinct to ignore their complex humanity (lest one spy a flaw, oh dear), when their humanity is a fundamental part of what makes them admirable in the first place.
After all, they live in the same shitty world that we all do, and have the same human foibles, but manage to be kind and wise despite the cultural cacophony of disincentives to be either.
So I don't have heroes.
But if I did, Dr. Cheryl Chastine would be at the top of that list.
Your Best Photograph
If you're a photographer, even if a very amateur one (like myself), and you've got a photo or photos you'd like to share, here's your thread for that!
It doesn't really have to be your best photograph—just one you like!
Please be sure if your photo contains people other than yourself, that you have the explicit consent of the people in the photos before posting them.
* * *
Here's one I quite like which I took a few days ago of the sky during a rainstorm at dusk:
The rain was coming down, and it was quite a strange and lovely stormy sky. There's no filter on this image; it was one of the most unusual storm skies I've ever seen.
Nope
[Content Note: Transphobia; misgendering; sexual assault.]
The Federalist is a conservative garbage rag, which is hardly worthy of any decent person's attention, but this deserves a response: Kaeley Triller is a rape survivor who is using her history of abuse to argue against allowing transgender people to use the appropriate bathrooms, playing on the "trans predator" trope in the most cynical and harmful way.
I want to first say that I'm sorry Triller was abused. It makes me sad and it makes me angry.
But it also makes me sad and angry to see a fellow survivor engage in irresponsible fearmongering about trans people, trading on vicious narratives about trans predators in order to deny trans people—trans women, in particular—the needed and deserved safety that access to gender-appropriate bathrooms affords.
Triller, however, denies she believes trans people are all predators:
Let me be clear: I am not saying that transgender people are predators. Not by a long shot. What I am saying is that there are countless deviant men in this world who will pretend to be transgender as a means of gaining access to the people they want to exploit, namely women and children. It already happens. Just Google Jason Pomares, Norwood Smith Burnes, or Taylor Buehler, for starters.Okay. So I did Google those names, and here is what I found: Jason Pomares is a cis male predator who dressed as a woman in order to secretly videotape women in a mall restroom. Norwood Smith Burnes is a cis male predator who dressed as a woman in order to expose himself to people in a Walmart restroom. Taylor Buehler is a cis male predator who dressed as a woman in order to engage in voyeurism in a college restroom.
None of them were trans women, and none of them were "pretending to be transgender." They were pretending to be women. That is not a semantic difference.
And if cis male predators are already dressing as women in order to gain access to women's restrooms, then preventing trans women from using women's restrooms is totally irrelevant, unless one believes that trans women are disposed toward predation.
Triller can insist all she wants that she doesn't think trans women themselves are all predators, but denying them access to safe toileting because their very existence gives cover to cis male predators, and conflating trans women with cis male predators in wigs and bras, is no fucking better.
And it's just a bullshit cover, anyhow, because she goes on at length about how allowing trans women in women's bathrooms puts women and children at risk for sexual assault, and then utterly gives away the game by referring to trans woman as "biological males."
Why would people knowingly invite further exploitation by creating policies with no safeguards in place to protect them from injury? With zero screening options to ensure that biological males who enter locker rooms actually identify as female, how could a woman be sure the person staring at her wasn't exploiting her? Why is it okay to make her wonder?Why would a trans woman be any more likely than a cis woman to stare at another woman in a locker room? To believe that, one has to believe that trans women are inherently more predatory.
They are not.
Triller further argues:
While I feel a deep sense of empathy for what must be a very difficult situation for transgender people, at the beginning and end of the day, it is nothing short of negligent to instate policies that elevate the emotional comfort of a relative few over the physical safety of a large group of vulnerable people.Given that transgender women are much more likely to be harmed just for trying to take a piss or a shit, this is projection in the highest order. It isn't trans people's feelings getting hurt which is the most pressing concern here. What a gross minimization of transphobic violence. Though even if it simply were about feelings, feelings of safety and inclusion are no small thing.
...There's no way to make everyone happy in the situation of transgender locker room use. So the priority ought to be finding a way to keep everyone safe. I'd much rather risk hurting a smaller number of people's feelings by asking transgender people to use a single-occupancy restroom that still offers safety than risk jeopardizing the safety of thousands of women and kids with a policy that gives would-be predators a free pass.
...Is it ironic to no one that being "progressive" actually sets women's lib back about a century? What of my right to do my darndest to insist that the first time my daughter sees the adult male form it will be because she's chosen it, not because it's forced upon her? What of our emotional and physical rights?
...Even if there aren't hundreds of abusers rushing into locker rooms by the dozens, the question I keep asking myself is, "What if just one little girl gets hurt by this? Would that be enough to make people reconsider it?"
What if just one (more) trans person gets hurt by this, Ms. Triller? Would that be enough to make you reconsider your reprehensible position?
I'll just say once again: I am a cisgender woman who uses public bathrooms, and I am well aware that there are trans women, some of whom might well have a penis, using the same public restrooms I do—Spoiler Alert: AND I DON'T FUCKING CARE—and anyone who's under the misapprehension that no trans women ever currently use women's bathrooms is a cloistered ignoramus who may well have been deliberately misled by a transphobic asshole with an agenda.
Trans women and men and cis women and men already share bathrooms. This is not a tragedy or cause for alarm. OH NOES BATHROOM PANIC! is unmitigated bullshit. The End.
As is any other transphobic shit that is peddled under the auspices of "trans predator" memes, and justified under some variation of the argument that I need to be protected from trans people.
I am a cis woman, and a survivor of sexual violence. I am exactly the type of person who is routinely invoked as needing protection from trans predators. I don't need your protection. No one has my permission to pretend that they're "saving" me by endangering trans people.
(Further, no survivors are welcome to pretend they speak for all survivors when raising trans bathroom panic in support of transphobic bathroom policies. They do not. They most certainly do not speak for me.)
I am not in danger from sharing a bathroom with trans women. But trans women could very well be in danger from not being allowed to share a bathroom with me.
And trans men could very well be in danger from being forced to share a bathroom with me: "[Trans editor and writer Mitch Kellaway] told ThinkProgress that gender policing and stereotypes are a very real threat to transgender men. 'When we use the women's bathrooms we're 'supposed' to use'—according to opponents of trans equality measures like HERO—'we're seen as predators,' and that perception can lead to violence toward trans men."
Predators using bathrooms as an arena for predation is a real issue. (Though stranger sexual assault is much less common than sexual assault perpetrated by someone known to the victim.) But it's an issue that has fuck-all to do with trans people using the restroom.
Predators prey. Trans people just want to take a piss.
Daily Dose of Cute
For seven years, these two couldn't have given two shits about each other. In fact, Tilsy always seemed rather contemptuous of Sophie, sometimes just hissing at her or batting her with a paw for no damn reason as she walked by. But this MAGICAL CHAIR has turned them into BFFs. Now they not only cuddle together, but suddenly play together in a way they never have previously. Cats, you are so weird.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: Police brutality; racism; death] Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, a white man, has been charged with murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old black teenager Laquan McDonald. This is the first time in 35 years an on-duty Chicago police officer has been charged with murder. "Several people who have seen [dashcam video of the shooting] say it shows the teenager armed with a small knife and walking away from several officers on 20 October 2014. They say Van Dyke opened fire from about 15ft and kept shooting after the teen fell to the ground. An autopsy report says McDonald was shot at least twice in his back. ...'I can't speak to why the [other] officers didn't shoot,' the lawyer representing Van Dyke, Daniel Herbet, told reporters on Friday, according to the Chicago Tribune. 'But I certainly can speak to why my client shot, and it is he believed in his heart of hearts that he was in fear for his life, that he was concerned about the lives of [other] police officers.' Van Dyke was the only officer of the six present that night who fired his gun out as the teen was allegedly walking away, according to lawyers representing McDonald's family." Officer Van Dyke's heart of hearts can go fuck itself.
[CN: Police brutality; racism; death] It has been a year since Tamir Rice was killed by Cleveland Police Officer Tim Loehmann, and, over the weekend, Rice's "family and hundreds of supporters gathered in the park where he last played for a vigil in celebration of his life." They also presented petitions asking that Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty remove himself from the case. "Organizer Elle Hearns said at the vigil that today's action is 'an opportunity to join us as organizers, and as a family with demands of the city and of the prosecutor to do the right thing and to make sure that this family has an opportunity to heal and to have some peace.'"
[CN: War on agency] Imani Gandy has your latest update on the legal troubles the Center for Medical Progress is facing "in connection with its heavily edited undercover videos" of meetings with Planned Parenthood: "Lawyers for the National Abortion Federation (NAF) filed two whopping motions on November 13 against the anti-choice front group and its leader, David Daleiden." Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks!
[CN: White supremacy] Donald Trump has defended the crime stats he cribbed from a neo-Nazi by claiming, "I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert." This fucking guy.
[CN: 9/11; graphic imagery] In other Trump news, after lying about seeing people celebrating when the Towers fell on 9/11, he's now claiming, incredibly, that "he saw people jumping from the World Trade Center from his building in midtown Manhattan." The thing is, Trump Tower is "more than four miles away from where the World Trade Center towers once stood. ...The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking how Trump witnessed people jumping out of the Twin Towers from more than four miles away." I'll bet they didn't.
[CN: Privacy violations; disablist language] You know that "most-used words" word cloud thing on Facebook? Don't do it. Don't do any Facebook quizzes. I mean, unless you don't care how your personal information is used. Which is a valid choice! In which case, do all the quizzes you want!
Wowwwwww: "In its first three days of release, Adele's 25 has already sold at least 2.3 million in pure album sales in the U.S., according to Nielsen Music. And, at the present (Nov. 23), industry forecasters suggest the album could finish the week with 2.9 million sold. Thus, 25 is already only the second album to sell more than 2 million copies in a single week since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991. Further, by the end of the day Monday, it should surpass the single-week sales record, currently held by *NSYNC's No Strings Attached, which debuted with 2,416,000 sold in the week ending March 26, 2000." Congratulations, Adele! Well deserved.
Amazing: After 6 Years, 4,200 hours, and 720,000 Attempts, photographer Alan McFadyen has finally taken the perfect photo of a kingfisher making a dive into the water. It is a pretty great goddamn picture!
[CN: Moving gifs at link] And finally! "The 38 Most Awkward Dogs of 2015." LOL! Clearly, whoever compiled this list hasn't met Dudley!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Racist violence; description of violence; racist slurs.]
"It was just a sea of white faces. A lady kicked me in the stomach. A man kicked me in the chest. They called me n*****, monkey, and they shouted 'all lives matter' while they were kicking and punching me. So for all the people who are still confused at this point, they proved what 'all lives matter' meant. It means, 'Shut up, n*****.'"—Mercutio Southall Jr., the black activist who was attacked at a Trump rally by white Trump supporters.
White Supremacists Open Fire at Black Lives Matter Protest for Jamar Clark in Minneapolis
[Content Note: Guns; racist violence; eliminationism.]
Jamar Clark is the black man who was killed by Minneapolis police earlier this month. Black Lives Matter activists and local justice advocates have been protesting outside the Fourth Precinct police station in north Minneapolis, demanding accountability for the deadly shooting.
Late last night, three white men opened fire on the protesters, shooting five people, all of whom are hospitalized with injuries but alive:
Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said "a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights."This is white supremacy. This is eliminationism. This is terrorism.
One of the three counterdemonstrators [sic] wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening.
When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they "opened fire on about six protesters," hitting five of them.
...The attackers fled. No arrests had been made by midnight Monday. Police said via their Twitter feed that they are searching for three white male suspects.
The gunshot victims were taken to North Memorial Medical Center and Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), deputy police chief Medaria Arradondo said at the scene.
A person at the scene said one of the victims had been shot in the stomach, and was undergoing surgery overnight at HCMC.
Jie Wronski-Riley said angry protesters moved the counter-demonstrators away from the encampment at the police station. Wronski-Riley heard what sounded like firecrackers and thought, "surely they're not shooting human beings." Two young black men on either side of him were hit, one in the back and leg, the other in the arm.
At least two of the three men who had been taunting protesters were firing guns, said Wronski-Riley, who described the incident as "really chaotic, really fast."
"I am obviously appalled that white supremacists would open fire on nonviolent, peaceful protesters," said Nekima Levy-Pounds, president of the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP, who returned to the site after the shootings.
While Republican presidential candidates caterwaul alarmist nonsense about terrorist refugees, there is actual terrorism being committed against black people in the United States by white supremacists.
But they don't care about the violence perpetrated by white men with guns. After all, that's their key constituency.
Today in Geopolitical Clusterf#@ktastrophes
[Content Note: War; militarism; terrorism.]
Turkey has shot down a Russian warplane that was carrying out operations near the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey says the plane violated Turkish airspace and was shot down after repeated warnings; Russia says the plane never entered Turkish airspace.
"We are looking into the circumstances of the crash of the Russian jet," Russia's Defense Ministry said. "The Ministry of Defense would like to stress that the plane was over the Syrian territory throughout the flight."It is a serious incident, particularly in that it follows a month-long build-up of tension over Russian incursions into Turkish airspace: "In October, NATO's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, had warned Moscow it was courting 'extreme danger' by sending planes into Turkish airspace." By early November, the US European Command had "deployed six U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters from their base in Britain to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey to help the NATO-member country secure its skies," saying the deployment was "in response to the government of Turkey's request for support in securing the sovereignty of Turkish airspace."
Russia said the Su-24 was downed by artillery fire, but Turkey claimed that its F-16s fired on the Russian plane after it ignored several warnings.
..."This isn't an action against any specific country. Our F-16s took the necessary steps to defend Turkey's sovereign territory," a Turkish official said in an email.
..."It's the kind of thing we're been warning about," said Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network think-tank in London. "And it's a direct military engagement between a NATO country and Russia, so I think it's a serious incident in anybody's book."
But the incursions reportedly continued, and, last Friday: "Turkey's Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador demanding that Russia cease operations in Syria targeting Turkmen villages, saying the Russian actions did not 'constitute a fight against terrorism' but the bombing of civilians. Ambassador Andrey Karlov was warned during the meeting that the Russian operations could lead to serious consequences, the ministry said."
That's the backdrop to what happened today. It wasn't a one-off event, but a culmination of tension caused by Russian provocation.
And now Putin is being expectedly bellicose (note particularly his implication that Turkey is essentially an extension of the US):
This event is beyond the normal framework of fighting against terrorism. Of course our military is doing heroic work against terrorism... But the loss today is a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists. I can't describe it in any other way. Our aircraft was downed over the territory of Syria, using air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16. It fell on the Syrian territory 4km from Turkey.For Turkey's part, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has asserted the country's right to defend itself: "We want the international community to know that we are ready for any kind of sacrifice when the security and life of our citizens and our border security are concerned. The downing of a jet that had violated Turkish airspace today has to be seen in this context as well. We do not adopt an approach that impeaches on the sovereignty of any country. But the world needs to know that it is our international right and our national duty to take measures against anybody who violates our borders on the land and in the air, in spite of our many warnings."
Neither our pilots nor our jet threatened the territory of Turkey. This is obvious. They are fighting terrorists in the northern areas around Latakia, where militants are located, mainly people who originated in Russia, and they were pursuing their direct duty, to make sure these people do not return to Russia. These are people who are clearly international terrorists.
Taking into account that we signed an agreement on deconflicting with the US, and as we know Turkey was among the ones that has joined the US coalition. Since Isis has such huge resources of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars coming from illicit oil sales, and they are protected by the armed forces of other states, then it's clear why they are so brazen, why they are killing people, why they are carrying out terrorist attacks throughout the world including in the heart of Europe.
We will analyse everything, and today's tragic event will have significant consequences, including for Russia-Turkish relations. We have always treated Turkey as a friendly state. I don’t know who was interested in what happened today, certainly not us. And instead of immediately getting in contact with us, as far as we know, the Turkish side immediately turned to their partners from Nato to discuss this incident, as if we shot down their plane and not they ours.
NATO will be holding an emergency meeting in Brussels today to discuss the incident. As of yesterday, Brussels was still on the highest alert level following the attacks in Paris, which makes holding the meeting in Brussels either a very smart idea, because of the heightened security, or a very foolish idea, because of the heightened threat.
Meanwhile, the US State Department has issued a worldwide travel alert owing to "possible risks of travel due to increased terrorist threats."
So that's where we are. None of it good.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker invisibilia: "What is your favourite fairy tale or mythological story?"
