The unimportant news thread

[eyeresist]

 
Stand up, quick!

[knight66]

I may get a nose bleed.

Mike

[Todd]

Just think of the cross-promotion possibilities!

Australian universities appear to have lax drug testing policies.

Soylent Green is people!!!!

[Philoctetes]

Australian universities appear to have lax drug testing policies.

Peter: Uh...Oh, boy, Quagmire. I-I don't know that we can do that. We-We-We can barely take care of the two we have. Now-Now, this is just a suggestion. Just throwing it out there. Have you considered abortion?
Quagmire: Uh, Peter, I think it's too late for that.
Peter: Oh, don't let the press put the scare into you. Wade v. Boggs has not been overturned.
Quagmire: Yeah, but you can't really abort a live baby.
Peter: Ho, boy, they have got you. [putting his hand on Quagmire's shoulder] Glenn, Glenn. [whispering] Give her back to God

[eyeresist]

US readers probably knew about this, but it's news to me:

Airline mistakes toddler for terrorist

An 18-month-old girl was mistakenly pulled off a flight because airline employees thought her name was on the US no-fly list.

The child's parents have told an ABC television network affiliate, WPBF, that they believe they were targeted because they are of Middle Eastern descent and the mother wears a hijab.

An airline employee boarded the flight before it departed on Tuesday evening, telling the family their toddler was on a federal list that includes thousands of known or suspected terrorists.

Advertisement: Story continues below JetBlue airline on Thursday blamed a computer glitch, saying employees followed proper protocol. The US Transportation Security Administration says the girl was not flagged by the agency.

The family was cleared to re-board. But they declined, saying they were too embarrassed.

[eyeresist]

"What's in the box? What's in the BOX??!!??  Oh. It's porn."

Harmless: The "haunted box of porn" movie that might just save your soul

Kirk Cameron's Fireproof warned of the way that pornography is contributing to the dissolution of the American family, but strangely, no one took that movie very seriously. So the Christian movie industry will try again with Harmless—this time using the "found-footage" aesthetic that today's horror audiences respond to, in hopes that the visceral, vérité quality of the film will communicate the very real horrors of constantly whacking it. Indeed, perhaps you will see something of yourself in the film's otherwise-decent family man whose supposedly "harmless" box o' porn turns out to be anything but, because the title is ironic and porn is evil. In fact, said box unleashes a porn poltergeist that soon terrorizes his entire house, haunting the man via creepy hair-dolls and giant, symbolic mounds of jizz-snow guarded by disapproving, matronly women, until he must make the apparently very difficult decision regarding just throwing it out already. The filmmakers call their still-in-production project a "sort of a social commentary on how pornography can destroy a family"—though we suppose some hedonists will read it as an argument for how great the Internet is, because it removes the need to hang onto a giant box of haunted porn. Those people are going to have demons watching them masturbate forever.

[Todd]

US readers probably knew about this, but it's news to me:

Diaper bombs are no laughing matter.  I've had to defuse more than a few.

[Karl Henning]

Oh, please assure me that you meant defuse . . . .

[Todd]

Oh, please assure me that you meant defuse . . . .

No morning coffee when I posted.  Corrected.  (Though the original word had its charms, too.)

[eyeresist]

No morning coffee when I posted.  Corrected.  (Though the original word had its charms, too.)

I came late and completely missed the joke

[eyeresist]

A review of the book The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain, by Paul Preston, brings new knowledge of the homegrown horrors of the Spanish civil war, in which all the worst aspects of politics came together to release the worst potential of humanity. It was a true catastrophe.

Sadly, the reviewer ends with a repetitive, banal conceit on "self-colonization", and a diatribe about how the word "holocaust" must not be applied to anything except the mass murder of Jews by Nazis (he calls Preston's title "a profound mistake").

[Todd]

What could possibly go wrong?

[eyeresist]

What could possibly go wrong?

Wow, that is nutty. I assumed the right to change your name was universal in the West (barring certain exceptions such as names that are unprintable). Maybe it's just the English-speaking world? Knowing Germany, this might be more a case of insane rules-enforcement than ethnic discrimination per se.

[Szykneij]

Soylent Green is people!!!!

...and you don't even get "Peer Gynt" or the Pastoral Symphony!

[Todd]

Thank goodness we have a caring big brother.

This particular bill also includes an amendment that would allow the Federales to prohibit foreign travel by people owing more than $50K in taxes - without a hearing. 

Awesome!

[knight66]

'The point of having a right to bear a name is not to counteract flaws in society.'

What has that to do with it? Seems to me one should have the right to call yourself whatever you want: within some wilder boundaries, but seemingly not.

I used to have a neighbour whose surname was 'Archibald'. This kid's parents, or rather I suspect his father, decided to give him the first name of, 'Archibald'. So, Archibald Archibald it was. Now in my view, not only should the child have the right to rename himself, but that should be extended to impunity when burying an axe in his father's head. In Scotland, where this happened, he would certainly have had the right to change his name on whatever grounds he wished.

In France the name of a baby which is to be registered can only be chosen from a prescribed list. They basically restrict foreign names.

Mike

[Todd]

Seems to me one should have the right to call yourself whatever you want: within some wilder boundaries, but seemingly not.

As an American, the idea that one can change one's name to just about anything is a given.  A person really has to come up with a doozy - something with profanity or Adolf Hitler thrown in - to have the name rejected.  Apparently, even enlightened New Zealand has a list of banned names.  Such offensive names as Duke and Knight are no-nos.  Do governments not have real issues to contend with?

I must also say the phrase 'right to bear a name' is almost alarming. 

[knight66]

We are at one.

Mike, (Knight the Proscribed)

[DieNacht]

The authorities have to give permission here in Denmark too, if people request for new, unusual names. On the other hand, recent laws have made the procedure of changing one´s name easier.

However, according to the television station TV2, this also means increased creativity and that more requested names are thus rejected to protect the children - rejections have included girl names "Ikea", "Circle" and "Petit" (a perfectly normal surname in France though?) and boy names like "Plaza", "Bacchus" and "Bandito".

[Todd]

...this also means increased creativity and that more requested names are thus rejected to protect the children - rejections have included..."Bacchus"

Bacchus?  Really?