The first Syrian refugee family arrived this week in Lancaster, to an apartment furnished with freshly made beds, a kitchen stocked with eggplant, olives and Arabic tea, and a table set with a hot meal accompanied by hummus and tabouleh.
Monday, September 07, 2015
Much More Like This
We aren't doing enough collectively, but kudos to the things that are being done.
Think About All The Freedom Bombs That Could Be Built With That Money
Such a waste, really.
The German government will spend an extra €6bn to cope with this year’s record influx of refugees, the ruling coalition said on Monday.
State and local governments will receive €3bn to help them house the 800,000 refugees heading for Germany while the central government is planning to free up another €3bn to fund its own expenses, such as paying benefits for asylum seekers.
Sunday, September 06, 2015
To Protect And Serve Millionaires
This is the key point of this article. Someone's apparent full time cop job is booting people who are quite often legally there. Who is paying that salary again?
How about if sheriff's deputies research the law and enforce it properly, rather than act as free armed guards for millionaires?
But They're All Terrorists
I gave George W. Bush a lot of credit for one thing. After 9/11, he really did make an effort - and did a pretty good job of - diminishing anti-Muslim sentiment. The narrative of Afghanistan was that it was a country of good people ruled by bad people, and we needed to take out the bad people both for our sake and for theirs. This is all cartoonish stuff, but such are narratives. And then Iraq. Peeance, freeance... and then those ungrateful Iraqis started to fight back. Why? I don't know. Ask them (people rarely did). The narrative for staying in Iraq, and staying in Iraq, and staying in Iraq, required it to be filled with bad people. So "they" (Muslim-ish people from the Middle Eastern-ish part of the world) all became bad again.
While the refugee response discourse has mostly been focused on Europe, because they're where they are coming to at the moment, America "can't" and certainly won't take them in. They're all terrorists, after all.
While the refugee response discourse has mostly been focused on Europe, because they're where they are coming to at the moment, America "can't" and certainly won't take them in. They're all terrorists, after all.
I Wonder How Much It Costs To Train 60 Moderate Rebels
We're a massive country. We can take in some refugees, too. I know it isn't all about us, but we didn't exactly help things in the region, even though we supposedly did it all for the peeance and the freeance.
The great humanitarian shining city on a hill could so something, no? For the freedom-loving people of Syria and elsewhere we kept talking about?
German and European Union leaders have called for European countries to share the burden of absorbing the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have poured into the continent this summer
The great humanitarian shining city on a hill could so something, no? For the freedom-loving people of Syria and elsewhere we kept talking about?
Rescue thread
I watched Attack the Block tonight and absolutely loved it. The trailer and the whole movie are apparently over at YouTube, so you can check it out. I recommend watching with the subtitles on, though, since that South London patois can be a bit hard to catch up with. I loved it that it all takes place in Wyndham Tower since the allusion is so stark and the population so blatantly non-Wyndham.
If that's not enough to keep you busy, I posted a whole bunch of links here.
Saturday, September 05, 2015
Because They Think He Pisses Off Liberals
Conservatives basically support anything/anyone they think pisses off liberals. They aren't very good at understanding what pisses off liberals, so usually it's more hilarious than enraging. No liberals would not be happy with President Trump, though that's less about President Trump being worse than the rest of the people in the clown car and more about being flabbergasted that those idiots voted for Trump just to piss us off.
If any conservatives want to offer up a policy-based case for Trump then I'm open to it, but I haven't yet seen one (that some liberals have pointed out that he isn't always so bad on the issues, recent events aside, doesn't count as a conservative case). Otherwise it's all attitude.
If any conservatives want to offer up a policy-based case for Trump then I'm open to it, but I haven't yet seen one (that some liberals have pointed out that he isn't always so bad on the issues, recent events aside, doesn't count as a conservative case). Otherwise it's all attitude.
Foreign Policy Is Hard
I don't know what to say about this, so I'll offer it without comment.
U.S. officials have not come to a firm conclusion about Russia's military intentions in Syria. But they fear Moscow will help Assad's forces attack the government's opponents, some of whom the U.S. backs. The increased Russian involvement could extend Assad's hold on power and further prolong a civil war that has pitted shifting alliances of dozens of armed factions, including the Islamic State militant group, against the government in Damascus.
"It's obviously a big concern," one official said. "If they're moving people in to help the Syrian government fight their own fight, that's one thing. But if they're moving in ground forces and dropping bombs on populated areas, that's an entirely different matter."
We Helped To Build That
The US isn't the only or direct cause of the refugee crisis, but we haven't exactly been helping things very much lately. Yes we armed a bunch of moderate rebels and then they disappeared with their weapons and then we armed a bunch more and then they disappeared with their weapons. One day we'll get that right I suppose.
We could take in some refugees maybe? I suppose that's unpossible, because even though we were told the people in the Middle East were all just earning for peeance and freeance if only we just took out their bad leaders, we're also told that they're all very scary brown mooslims, like the president, so that makes them all potential supervillains.
Foreign policy is complicated apparently. We'd better get Tom Friedman down to the White House so we can figure it out.
We could take in some refugees maybe? I suppose that's unpossible, because even though we were told the people in the Middle East were all just earning for peeance and freeance if only we just took out their bad leaders, we're also told that they're all very scary brown mooslims, like the president, so that makes them all potential supervillains.
Foreign policy is complicated apparently. We'd better get Tom Friedman down to the White House so we can figure it out.
Friday, September 04, 2015
American's Worst Humans
William "Too Fucking Many Names But Not Actually Bill O'Reilly" O'Reilly.
Shorter O'Reilly: A man who is married to an African-American woman must acknowledge how horrible they are.
Glad we're in that post-racial world.
Shorter O'Reilly: A man who is married to an African-American woman must acknowledge how horrible they are.
Glad we're in that post-racial world.
More Seriously
One of those days, which I've had several of lately, when blogging has been unpossible. Talk amongst yourselves!
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