@TimStone relatedly, I had a satisfying unsubscribe the other day (rich cordray emailed me something like "WOULD YOU LIKE OBAMA ON THE COURT [YES/NO]" so I just copied his whole email header into the reason for unsubscribing
2. The 'Grand Wizards' (the new name for the Chequer's daytrippers apparently) also had another meeting this morning, were they discussed again whether they could get on board to back PM's deal and there was no firm conclusion
Secret recordings have revealed senior One Nation party figures met the American National Rifle Association last year to seek tens of millions of dollars in political donations
http://bit.ly/2TVZSq5
Sarah Sanders: "They literally accused the President of the United States of being an agent for a foreign government. That's equivalent to treason. That's punishable by death in this country." https://t.co/AwnKCycW44
Joe Rogan went on Infowars today, the same day a man who lost his child in the Sandy Hook shooting committed suicide. The grieving father was among the plaintiffs suing Alex Jones for defamation after smearing the murdered children and their parents as part of a hoax. https://t.co/vlBzRsFrZP
Edmonton Journal: UCP would roll back school protections for LGBTQ students, add new provincial exams. https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/ucp-would-roll-back-school-protections-for-lgbtq-students-add-new-provincial-exams
UCP = United Conservative Party
> UCP Leader Jason Kenney said Monday if elected to government, his party would replace Alberta’s School Act with the former Progressive Conservative government’s Education Act. It would eliminate changes the NDP introduced with Bill 24, which requires school principals to immediately grant student requests to form a gay-straight alliance and requires private schools to have publicly available policies to protect LGBTQ students.
> "We want safe schools, we want peer support for kids who need it, and I think we can do it while respecting the basic religious freedom of faith-based independent schools,” Kenney said in Calgary Monday.
Ah yes, the good ol' bigotry is a-okay when it's done by Christian's excuse
> The NDP’s Bill 24 attempted to prevent school staff from outing LGBTQ kids by saying the only information they could give parents and guardians about a GSA was that one existed at the school.
> Opponents said Bill 24 allows school staff to keep secrets from families.
Yeah it does, to protect children from a bunch of bigots who want to hurt them. Why else would you need to know if a child is LGBTQ?
The United Conservative Party (UCP; French: Parti conservateur uni) is a conservative political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. It was established in July 2017 as a merger between the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose Party. The UCP currently forms the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.
== History ==
=== Background ===
The Wildrose Party largely consisted of former PC supporters dissatisfied with the longstanding PC government for various reasons. Three of the first five Wildrose MLAs were defecters originally elected as ...
BREAKING: Europe’s MEPs cave to lobbyists, ignore five million online petitioners, hundreds of thousands of protesters, and approve #article13 and #article11. Find out what happens to the disastrous Copyright Directive next: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/eus-parliament-signs-disastrous-internet-law-what-happens-next
Article 13 also contradicts earlier laws and jurisprudence that disallow any requirement to implement proactive filtering of that sort, so that's going to be """fun""" to see get hashed out in the courts
@MBraedley I've heard some stuff about NZ being somewhat tight on censorship, but that's probably good for the immediate now. Who knows about future stuff though.
@MBraedley I agree with that. Trudeau's been more or less just trudging along. No scandals, no corruption, until now.
I think things would go way better for all constituents if the best you could get was a minority government. Maybe teach these old men acting like babies to work together.
Chicago PD told me they have "no comment" on this breaking Jussie Smollett motion and deferred once again to State Attorneys office. when I pressed, saying the PD has been involved in the case, they again said "no comment" https://twitter.com/TasneemN/status/1110560460053585922
I had seen, though not verified, that the texts he exchanged with the brothers and the subsequent check appeared to actually be for the fitness training he claimed, at least on the surface. If the brothers did not provide evidence to bolster the police's narrative it's very possible there was just no case, I guess? But that would raise significant questions about what started that narrative in the first place, then
@TimStone i mean its chicago PD, the most upstanding of all police departments that definitely doesn't have corrupt tendencies in public events the last few years
@puzzlepiece87 TBH I forgot how long ago it was that they refused to release the tape of when they killed Macdonald, even after the court told them they had to
The police are bad but some departments are and have been for decades, very very bad. It's good to know some of the worst offenders generally before you travel.
> It remains unclear what prompted the decision but the Cook County's State's Attorney's office said it was due in part to Smollett's 'volunteer service in the community.'
Nova Scotia budget sees $200M boost in health-care spending https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-budget-health-care-2019-2020-1.5071888
@Wipqozn I mean, I get the feeling they're only spending it on health care because Ottawa says they have to spend it on healthcare, but maybe that's just the cynic in me.
> If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the police got over-excited about nabbing a celebrity and made a number of legal and procedural fuck-ups in their pursuit of a conviction. Holding a press conference basically announcing Smollett to be guilty before they had all the facts is the sort of thing that any good lawyer could rip them to shreds over.
Today, we’re launching The Gender Spectrum Collection, a stock photo library of over 180 images of 15 trans and non-binary models, made available to the public for free. Read more from our Editor in Chief @LindsaySchrupp: https://bit.ly/2WrBmdj
NEWS: Trump is preparing to sign an executive order meant to help deal with potential electromagnetic pulse events.
Some lawmakers and scientists have long worried that a rogue nation with the technological know-how might attack the U.S. electric grid with an EMP.
@GodEmperorDune don't you have to light a nuke in the air above the target for that? And isn't the existing answer to anyone doing that to the US simply "nuke them back?"
If you want to attack the US electric grid right now, it's probably far easier to get a bunch of script kiddies to hack some part of it, or drive a small bomb to some important point and just blast the thing the old fashioned way
@SaintWacko The issue is that you have to have the EMP be strong enough to actually do lasting damage but also somehow not destroy things and it's a very fiddly tradeoff
So like, if you're going to launch a nuke you gotta make sure it does what it's supposed to because the response will be severe
Which is why just actually leveling stuff with it is far more likely
So the strategic math in "Let's nuke them but just for the EMP effect" is just bad and it's silly to get worked up over it
Of course I'm significantly more paranoid about a CME event even though that's also silly so I guess if it's just strengthening infrastructure that's not terrible 🤔
@TimStone There is actually a moment in Modern Warfare 3 (I think) where the USA detonates a nuke around the same height as the ISS above the eastern seaboard to trigger an EMP, though I don't know to what extent that would work
EMERGENCY LANDING AT OIA: A Southwest Boeing 737 Max plane had to make an emergency landing at the Orlando International Airport today after experiencing a malfunction. The plane was on its way to California to be grounded.
UPDATES: http://bit.ly/2uvWByx
Betsy DeVos just announced the Department of Education will end all funding for the @SpecialOlympics under @realDonaldTrump's new budget. https://twitter.com/BetsyDeVosED/status/831953695101296640