Category Archives: Fail!

Ebola Therapy From an Obscure Biotech Firm Is Hurried Along – NYTimes.com

{Company was not hiding, has a contract with CDC, so not obscure to CDC – anything not on a Post It note, or on your tickler list at Times is “obscure?”}

Inside special isolation units at an Atlanta hospital on Wednesday, Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, the two Americans infected with Ebola in West Africa, appeared to be responding to an experimental medicine devised by an obscure biotechnology company with ties to the Defense Department.

via Ebola Therapy From an Obscure Biotech Firm Is Hurried Along – NYTimes.com.

Middle East – Kurds unite in bid to rescue Iraq’s Yazidi minority – France 24

Pray that they succeed! Though Peace is still the answer.

Kurdish fighters from Iraq, Syria and Turkey were coordinating operations in northern Iraq Wednesday to reclaim areas lost to jihadists and rescue thousands of Yazidi civilians stranded in nearby mountains.

The fate of the civilians from the Yazidi minority, who fled to the Sinjar mountains after an attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) group at the weekend, has sparked international concern.

On Tuesday a Yazidi lawmaker broke down in tears during a parliamentary session as she urged the government and the international community to save her community from being massacred or starved into extinction.

“Over the past 48 hours, 30,000 families have been besieged in the Sinjar mountains, with no water and no food,” said Vian Dakhil.

via Middle East – Kurds unite in bid to rescue Iraq’s Yazidi minority – France 24.

AKA: We’ll do it when no one is watching! Government drops enough hint to allow confined field trials of GM crops – The Times of India

A day after allaying members’ concerns over genetically modified crops in Parliament, the government on Wednesday dropped enough hint that it may eventually give its nod for ‘confined’ field trials of certain varieties of GM crops including rice, brinjal, chickpea, mustard and cotton.

“We are not saying no to science. Nobody can say no to science. We have to take proper caution. We have to take proper action. But you cannot deny, we are not living in the Galileo times,” said environment minister Prakash Javadekar on sidelines of a function here.

via Government drops enough hint to allow confined field trials of GM crops – The Times of India.

40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death | World | The Guardian

{No one cares, no one will help?}

Tens of thousands of members of one of Iraq’s oldest minorities have been stranded on a mountain in the country’s north-west, facing slaughter at the hands of jihadists surrounding them below if they flee, or death by dehydration if they stay.

UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy mile-high ridge identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah’s ark.

At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Irbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades.

Sinjar itself has been all but emptied of its 300,000 residents since jihadists stormed the city late on Saturday, but an estimated 25,000 people remain. “We are being told to convert, or to lose our heads,” said Khuldoon Atyas, who has stayed behind to guard his family’s crops. “There is no one coming to help.”

Another man, who is hiding in the mountains and identified himself as Nafi’ee, said: “Food is low, ammunition is low and so is water. We have one piece of bread to share between 10 people. We have to walk 2km [1.2 miles] to get water. There were some air strikes yesterday [against the jihadists], but they have made no difference.”

via 40,000 Iraqis stranded on mountain as Isis jihadists threaten death | World | The Guardian.

‘Fashion police’: Xinjiang city goes off deep end, bans burkhas, beards from buses: Shanghaiist

It appears China’s war on terror has devolved into a McCarthyist witch hunt, the latest ‘extremist’ measure concerning the banning of beards, burkhas, and headscarves on buses in Karamay, Xinjiang. Well known fact: only uyghur terrorists sport beards.

Foreign Policy reports:

“The QQ news portal and other Chinese news sites that picked up the report also ran a graphic showing the “five abnormal styles” that weren’t allowed on Karamay public transport. It showed pictures of women in full and partial veils, headscarves, and men with full beards and even a modest goatee.”

So if you’re a rabbi, hipster, or any other one of our shaggy friends, you might want to hold off on that Xinjiang trip, unless you want to walk the whole time. Other banned items include the ilbab, a type of robe, and anything sporting the crescent moon and star. Violators are subject to arrests.

We figure it’s only a matter of time before they start banning anybody who’s eaten pita bread in the last month or ever watched a Muhammad Ali fight. In fact, we’re not far off. Last July, Urumqi authorities prohibited bus passengers from carrying cigarette lighters, yogurt and even water, to prevent attacks…somehow.

via ‘Fashion police’: Xinjiang city goes off deep end, bans burkhas, beards from buses: Shanghaiist.

Argentina imprisons woman for getting an abortion, along with the friends who helped her

This is a total violation of women’s rights, an injustice that has been committed by the state and all of its institutions from the public health system to criminal justice system.

This woman is the expression of the necessity of the legalization of abortion in Argentina. Today there is still no legal justification for incarcerating these women, it’s a totally illegal situation, since they are holding them in what is called “preventative prison” because of the possibility that they will flee and let’s remember that there isn’t a single rapist or murderer in Argentina being held in in “preventative prison,” so the real criminals are always free, but women aren’t.

In the above video, Verónica Cruz, director of the Center of Las Libres, Manuela Castañeira, director of the women’s group “Las Rojas,” and Marianne Møllmann from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission demand the release of Susana D., María G. y María C. Castañeira says, “We are launching this campaign with the release of this video which invites everyone to join and help spread the message so that the authorities in Jujuy free these three women.”

Support the campaign by using these hashtags: #SusanaLibertadYa (#FreeSusanaNow) #MaríasLibertadYa (#FreeMariaNow) #Jujuy

Also, make sure you see the movie Las Libres, about the fight to free women incarcerated for having abortions in Argentina and Mexico.

via Argentina imprisons woman for getting an abortion, along with the friends who helped her.

Brooklyn Cops Allegedly Beat Handcuffed Man On Stretcher: Gothamist

{If you read the Rant noted below – you will never call NYPD in Brooklyn for “help.”}

A second EMT involved says the patient was in “handcuffs and foot shackles” during the beating, and was repeatedly thrown to the ground, sustaining “injuries to face and head.” According to the report, police only stopped assaulting the handcuffed man when the EMTs physically intervened.

An FDNY spokesman did not respond to our request for comment, but the NYPD says Internal Affairs is investigating. (Update: In an email, FDNY spokesman Frank Dwyer says simply, “FDNY responded to the 67pct stationhouse on July 20 to treat and transport a patient to the hospital.”) For more, we turn to ever-reliable cop message board NYPD Rant, where the discussion begins with, “Screw these two EMTs….this EDP was assaulting UMOS, spraying bodily fluids on them, and they lodge complaints against the officers…FU EMS.”

via Brooklyn Cops Allegedly Beat Handcuffed Man On Stretcher: Gothamist.

Interview with Sociologist Eva Illouz about Gaza and Israeli Society – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Illouz: The only response is to create a vast camp of people who defend democracy. The right-left divide is no longer important. There is something more urgent right now: the defense of democracy. The voice of the extreme right is much louder and clearer than it was before. That’s what’s new: a racist right that is not ashamed of itself, that persecutes dissenters and even people who dare express compassion for the other side. The real danger to Israel and its sustainability comes from within. The fascist and racist elements are no less a security threat than the outside enemies.

via Interview with Sociologist Eva Illouz about Gaza and Israeli Society – SPIEGEL ONLINE.