In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

To be perfectly blunt, I've barely been paying attention to the controversy surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the US Congress, because I can only care about so many things, and that just didn't make the cut. But this BBC story pretty much sums it up for me: "The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Iran poses a 'threat to the entire world', in a contentious speech to the US Congress. He said the deal being negotiated between Iran and world powers 'paves Iran's path to the [nuclear] bomb'. He acknowledged that his speech was controversial and insisted that he was not meddling in internal US politics." Hahaha well if he insisted, then it must be true!

In other nuke news: "North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong said on Tuesday that his country had the power to deter an 'ever-increasing nuclear threat' by the United States with a pre-emptive strike if necessary. His rare speech at the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament drew a rebuke from U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood, who urged Pyongyang to stop making threats and rid itself of nuclear weapons." To which I can only assume Ri replied, "You first!" I mean, not to be glib, but fucking hell. The US ceded the moral high ground here when, if not before, it launched a preemptive war on Iraq and vociferously defended the policy of preemptive strikes against nations who might have WMDs. WHOOOOOOOPS.

Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments tomorrow in King v. Burwell, which is the first major challenge to the the ACA's individual mandate was upheld by the court in 2012, Tara Culp-Ressler has "The Five Numbers That Explain the Case to Destroy Obamacare."

[Content Note: Transphobia] FUUUUUUUUUUUCK THIIIIIIIIIIIIS: "Charlotte [North Carolina] City Council rejected several proposed LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination ordinances, after attempting to approve a compromise that would have exempted restrooms, locker rooms, showers and changing rooms from public accommodations protections. The 6-5 vote is the second time in two decades that Charlotte has rejected LGBT-inclusive protections. [The rejection] came after hearing nearly five hours of public comment and Council debate with speakers passionately supporting and opposing the measures, with a great deal of debate and contention focusing on transgender people's use of restrooms." Of course it did. Republican Councilmember Kenny Smith said: "I don't think tonight's vote is about solving a problem. It's about promoting an agenda. If passed, it sends a clear message to the city, that Council has chosen to impose a radical left agenda." The radical left agenda of letting trans* people use the fucking bathroom.

[CN: Accusations of child neglect; choice policing; rape culture] A Maryland couple have been "found responsible for 'unsubstantiated' child neglect" after letting their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter walk home unsupervised from a park a mile away from their house. I find this really objectionable for so many reasons, not least of which is that the hysteria around constant supervision is largely the result of erroneous rape culture narratives (aided by media reports focusing on high-profile cases) about strangers abusing children, when most children who are sexually abused are abused by someone tasked with watching and protecting them. This hysteria, and the attendant parent-blaming if anything ever happens to a child, actually makes kids less safe, because it focuses on small risks to the exclusion of important conversations about what child safety really looks like.

Something something Rick Perry. I can't believe this guy thinks he's got a snowball's chance at the equator of being elected president.

Could humans not see blue until modern times? Or did humans just not have a name for it?

And finally! This cat really loves hir human baby so much! ♥