The unimportant news thread

[Karl Henning]

How strange; I just posted in another thread about the series finale of MM.

Most curious!  I've not watched the show at all, and had just chanced on that review in the Washington Post.

[North Star]

The investigation into suspicions surrounding the suspended Helsinki Drug unit police chief Jari Aarnio

http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2014/06/06/7443/Aarnio-suspected-of-26-criminal-charges
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2014/11/28/12003/Aarnio-suspected-of-hiding-tracks-in-Kuopio-case
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2014/12/15/12442/Aarnio-bribery-case-due-in-court-on-Tuesday
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2015/01/15/13309/Trial-of-Aarnio-case-continues
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2015/01/29/13745/Aarnio-suspected-of-hiding-tracks-in-drug-offence-probe
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2015/02/28/14667/Aarnio-insisted-Trevoc-equipment-purchase:-Koskimäki
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2015/03/12/15029/Aarnio-faces-new-charges
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2015/04/14/15938/Aarnio-played-role-in-purchase-of-equipment:-Ex-police-boss
http://www.finlandtimes.fi/national/2015/05/16/16784/Aarnio-faces-new-drug-charges

[Ken B]

A memory jogger
http://youtu.be/N5p-qIq32m8

[North Star]

A memory jogger
http://www.youtube.com/v/N5p-qIq32m8

.

[Ken B]

.

Laconic.

[Todd]

Why do I get a sinking feeling that this will not end well?

[Ken B]

Spotting the pro-censorship trope

http://popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/#more-23778

[Ken B]

Power play.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/heads-lgbt-win-tails-christians-lose/

[Florestan]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/heads-lgbt-win-tails-christians-lose/

"You must not only bake the cake, or arrange the flowers, or make the ring, you must hold the correct opinion when you do it."

Romania, 1985. The above pòsition was imposed vertically by the Party and the Secret Police. Nobody really believed that it should be so.

Canada, 2015. The above position is imposed horizontally by peer pressure. Many (most?) believe that it should be so.

What is the worst case, I wonder?

[Todd]

An opponent tough enough to take on Rahm Emanuel?

(Curiously, The Independent put the same story in its "Americas" section.)

[NorthNYMark]

Most curious!  I've not watched the show at all, and had just chanced on that review in the Washington Post.

I highly, highly recommend it.  For my own tastes, there has never been a more (or equally) compelling television series, though The Wire sometimes comes close.  I am already somewhat in withdrawal from it. In any event, I believe it is more interesting than reviews such as the one you posted might lead one to think (though I suppose it may depend on one's taste for the kind of literariness to which the reviewer refers).

[Todd]

Just see how much of this article you can make it through.

[Brian]

Let's all take a minute to be glad we are not on the James Holmes murder trial jury in Colorado. The trial is entering its second month. A court-appointed psychiatrist spent 22 hours interviewing Holmes to determine his sanity or insanity, and the prosecution plans to make the jury watch all 22 hours.

[Ken B]

Sad this kind of sexist crap is tolerated in Canada
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/05/30/islamic-school-soccer-team-refuses-to-play-against-a-team-having-two-girls-in-canada/

[Todd]

Usually Monday mornings are my least favorite time of the week, but today SCOTUS defends free speech, and in a non 5-4 ruling at that, and parts of the Patriot Act are at least temporarily on hold.  It's a good day for liberty.  (I wonder if I should be concerned that CNN uses a phrase like "privacy hawks" in their reporting.)

[Karl Henning]

Heck, even rants on GMG are Free Speech 

Pfffttt

[Karl Henning]

[ article ]

"Google cars drive like your grandma," the purported motorcyclist writes, "they're never the first off the line at a stop light, they don't accelerate quickly, they don't speed, and they never take any chances with lane changes (cut people off, etc.)."

Leave it to a purported motorcyclist to talk of defensive driving as if it were a personal affront.  The ageism is its own problem, of course.  And . . . he cannot really be complaining that a mechanized driver does not "cut people off," can he?

[Ken B]

Found on the web

Los Angeles recently decided to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour across the board, including even tipped workers like waitstaff. A lot of businesses opposed the new rule on the grounds that it would make their operations unaffordable. Now a new group is joining them in saying the law's not right for their operation: union leaders.

You read that right. Union leaders are saying that the $15 minimum wage is a bad idea. Not for everyone, of course; for most businesses and workers, they think it's splendid. But for union operations, they need an exemption. Rusty Hicks, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said businesses that have collective bargaining agreements with employees should be able to negotiate a wage below the "minimum."

This has been greeted with jeers from both left and right, though Matt Yglesias does mount a defense.

[ibanezmonster]

$15/hr... sure, let's not make it reasonable like $10/hr, let's just double it overnight. Great plan. 

[Karl Henning]

Indeed, as more people move online, the long-evolved conventions of spoken language and the rituals of public civility are being challenged as never before.