Category Archives: human rights

The gun lobby’s new tactic: redefining ‘school shootings’ so they don’t count | News | theguardian.com

In short – as far as I can follow the logic – the message to parents concerned that there are loaded weapons going off on school property, and that their sons and daughters are at risk of being hit by bullets from those weapons, is this: it doesn’t really count unless the shooter is a pupil, not involved in a gang, who made a pre-meditated plan to massacre a large number of students.

And not in the parking lot.

(If you think this kind of absurdity is confined to the fringe, see this only slightly less mendacious CNN piece, which brings the figure down from 74 to 15 by excluding, among others, shootings motivated by “personal arguments, accidents [or] alleged gang activities and drug deals”. Johnson says the cable channel stole his work.)

What’s especially dispiriting about this flat denial of reality is how little prospect it offers for rational discussion or compromise. Even if you’re a supporter of gun control, you can still hold a reasoned discussion with somebody who believes that the benefits of widespread firearms ownership outweigh the harms. You can discuss international comparisons; and how no comparable country experiences anything like this level of gun violence; the other person can seek to establish why those comparisons aren’t relevant; or that, yes, violent deaths are actually in decline in the US, and so on. But when the pro-gun side of the argument consists of simply insisting that the gun violence that people are so distraught about isn’t real gun violence? Then there’s no clear way forward at all.

And let’s not forget the bigger point here. A pro-gun journalist applies the most stringent imaginable criteria to the term ‘school shooting’; he rejects every instance he possibly can, for reasons many might regard as spurious, and then triumphantly declares that there have only been … seven bona fide school shootings in America since December 2012!

Only seven school shootings since December 2012.

I hope I never to get to the point at which the word “only” in that sentence makes even the slightest bit of sense.

via The gun lobby’s new tactic: redefining ‘school shootings’ so they don’t count | News | theguardian.com.

Chile rejects Patagonia wilderness dam project | News | DW.DE | 11.06.2014

There were scenes of jubilation in the capital city Santiago’s Plaza Italia as opponents of the dam heard the news.

“This is a historic day,” Juan Pablo Orrego, international coordinator of the Patagonia Without Dams campaign, told IPS news agency after the decision was announced.

“I am moved that the citizens… managed to finally inspire a government to do the right thing in the face of a mega-project,” he added.

“We did it. We won. Viva Chile!” and “Goodbye HidroAysen!” were among the messages tweeted on the group’s Twitter account.

The company may still appeal the project. The dam project, one of numerous schemes around the world that have sparked protests, would generate a about a third of Chile’s current energy needs. Experts say that Chile, which has a heavy reliance on a energy-intensive mining industry, will have to triple its current 18,000-megawatt power generation capacity within 15 years.

However, since being elected last year, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet had said the plan was not viable.

via Chile rejects Patagonia wilderness dam project | News | DW.DE | 11.06.2014.

ISIS bids for global jihad leadership with Mosul attack – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

 

Before taking Iraq’s second largest city this week, ISIS had already seized most of Anbar province in Iraq and Raqqa province in Syria. There, it enforces a Taliban-style extreme version of Islam. Mosul represents a much bigger price, an ancient city with great symbolic value. ISIS is effectively creating a stronghold across the Syrian desert in the heart of the Arab world, erasing the borders set a century ago by the British and French after the fall of the Ottomans.

Baghdadi, like Zarqawi, has bigger ambitions. Last month, the Saudis foiled a major ISIS plot to carry out attacks in the kingdom, arresting dozens. ISIS has recruited thousands of foreign fighters to fight in Syria, and some are reportedly being trained to go home to fight in their native lands. ISIS probably trained the French Muslim who attacked the Jewish Museum in Brussels and killed four in May.

Taking Mosul could expose ISIS to counterattack by the larger US-equipped Iraqi army backed by Iran. It may provoke the Kurds, too. It’s a gamble. For Baghdadi, it is an audacious move to outshine his mentor.

via ISIS bids for global jihad leadership with Mosul attack – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

47 years of occupation: Every photo tells a story | +972 Magazine

47 years of occupation: Every photo tells a story

Marking 47 years of the Israeli occupation since 1967, we asked Activestills photographers to choose one photograph from their archive and write about it.

via 47 years of occupation: Every photo tells a story | +972 Magazine.

Ebola update | Sierra Express Media

Ebola was officially confirmed in Sierra Leone on Sunday May 25th this year and only one (1) woman was confirmed having the disease.

Below are official up dates of Ebola suspected cases, confirmed cased and death rates respectively

Date

Suspected cases

Confirmed cases

Dead

Monday 2nd June 2014

36

15

5

Thursday 6th June 2014

71

24

6

Monday 9th June 2014

109

42

12

via Ebola update | Sierra Express Media.

Jerks Photo of the Day: Michigan GOP pretends to read fashion mags, claims they understand women

What do you do when you’re accused of fighting a “War on Women” because you, for instance, force them to purchase abortion insurance in case they get raped? If you’re the Michigan GOP, you turn it into a hilarious joke.

Republican Congressmen Peter Pettalia, Roger Victory, and Ben Glardon totally shattered the idea that they’re anti-woman by posing for a photo while reading Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar.  Michigan Public Radio Network reporter Jake Neher tweeted the photo along with this zinger which Pettalia uttered ”a couple of times” because it is that funny: “Don’t say we don’t understand women.”

In response, four women members of Michigan’s Democratic House delegation, tweeted their own photo of themselves reading proposed bills, with the caption “Real Women read bills not fashion mags.”

via Photo of the Day: Michigan GOP pretends to read fashion mags, claims they understand women.

Creating a new dependency, even if done out of love- will it help? New KC center for homeless veterans offers ‘homes for the brave’ | The Kansas City Star

{Few, very few homes as a solution, even though there are more warehoused vacant one and two family homes with two bedrooms than there are homeless veterans in the US.

It is hard, I guess, to help people as individuals so everything is industrialized, so to speak, and warehousing the elderly, the disabled, or veterans is the way that gets the most attention and money. Living independently is the American dream but not if you are poor and elderly, disabled, or a veteran who needs some help back up.}

St. Michael’s Veterans Center officially opens the first of three planned buildings, with 58 apartment units for homeless veterans and a full complement of social services in the same building. Many say the project is unusual and innovative, especially in this region.

“It’s far more beautiful than I ever imagined it would or could be,” Fillmore said of the three-story edifice at 3838 Chelsea Drive, on a hill just south of the VA Medical Center. “It doesn’t resemble anything but first-rate market housing.”

via New KC center for homeless veterans offers ‘homes for the brave’ | The Kansas City Star.

{The assumption is that they are broken and need counseling – but maybe they just need financial help to get back up and would want to pay some back to help others later on?}