In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today.

[Content Note: Injury; death] This story about a 77-year-old man collapsing outside a D.C. fire station and the rescue workers inside refusing to help, supposedly because they misunderstood the regulations about self-dispatching, is terribly sad and infuriating. Also, I really hate the implication that because Mr. Mills was a city worker, his life was worth more. "I'm quite disturbed and disappointed by what appears to be an inappropriate response," said Paul A. Quander Jr., the deputy mayor for public safety. "Mr. Mills was someone that worked for the District for a number of years, and the pain and the anguish that the family has gone through is unacceptable." How about: "Mr. Mills was a human being, and the pain and anguish that family has gone through is unacceptable."?

The New York State Assembly passed the Women's Equality Act earlier this week, "an omnibus bill designed to strengthen women's rights in 10 different areas. The Women's Equality Act codifies Roe v. Wade, ensuring that a woman can get an abortion within 24 weeks of pregnancy, and protects providers from prosecution. It also closes loopholes in equal pay laws, extends protections against sexual harassment to all workplaces, allows the recovery of attorney fees in harassment cases, ends employment discrimination based on whether a woman has children or is pregnant, stops housing discrimination toward victims of domestic violence, and strengthens order of protection laws and human trafficking laws in the state." Awesome.

Democratic Representative Henry Waxman announced yesterday that he will not seek reelection this fall. The announcement came as a surprise, and it seems like Waxman is just fed the hell up serving in a dysfunctional Congress: "We're going through a difficult time now in Congress. It's quite dysfunctional, because the Tea Party Republican extremists have taken over, and their view is compromise is a dirty word. The Republicans at the moment want to say no to everything that President Obama wants, just because it's Obama. That doesn't make sense to me. It's unfortunate." Damn.

[Content Note: Racism; violence. Video begins to play automatically at link.] George Zimmerman, the man who murdered unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, has agreed to a celebrity boxing match, and the promoter of this reprehensible event says Zimmerman is open to fighting a black person, but: "We're not looking at it as a race thing... We haven't discussed purple, yellow, white, black." I love how "purple" is the go-to color for racists trying to pretend they're not racist.

[CN: Sexism; policing; fat bias] Former First Lady Laura Bush said, presumably sardonically, that the first First Gentleman should be subjected to the same scrutiny as First Ladies: "And maybe we should be that way about the first gentlemen, also, really critique the way they look all the time. Their choice of tie, or their hair style. Whatever. Or maybe their weight." I get what she's going for here, but I always hate the idea, even proposed jokingly, that the best way to achieve parity is to treat men as shitty as we treat women. Maybe let's raise the bar, instead of lowering it.

[CN: Reference to child sex abuse] The conservative trash-rag known as National Review may be put out of business by a lawsuit brought by a climate scientist whom a former writer for the magazine, Mark Steyn, accused of falsifying data and perpetuating intellectual fraud. The scientist, Michael Mann, is "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data," said paid anti-climate science operative Rand Simberg, quoted by Steyn. Really, you've just got to read the whole article to understand the depth of this fuckery.

Actors Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have called for a boycott of magazines that publish pictures of celebrities' kids. Right on.

Did you love Sharknado? Then you will probably be excited to hear that Ian Ziering and Tara Reid have agreed to return for the sequel!

And finally: RIP Greater, the world's oldest known flamingo, who died at age 83.