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I have a hard time imagining that the US will cease to exist in its present form any time in the near future. I realize that large countries do sometimes break up, but bureaucratic inertia is a hell of a thing.
When I talk about "the death of western civilization," I'm obviously employing hyperbole. We're just going to continue to accelerate the gradual erosion of liberty (both individual and societal) which has been taking place for the 60 years or so.
When thoughtcrime actually becomes a punishable offense, it will not because we were subjugated by Big Brother. It will be because We The People demanded that it be so, to protect ourselves from the danger of being offended.
I have a hard time imagining that the US will cease to exist in its present form any time in the near future.
For sure neither of us would be around, even in distant memory, to collect on a bet. You're well educated so no sense in citing the numerous "countries" that don't exist anymore.
This is a few months old, but really kind of fascinating if you read it seriously. Makes me wonder what would happen if it'd been President Trump rather than President Johannesson:
Pineapple Pizza Tests Limits of Presidential Power in Iceland By ROBIN POGREBINFEB. 22, 2017
Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson, right, visits a restaurant school in Copenhagen with Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark in January.
Talk about sensitive subjects.
It turns out that people take their pizza very personally. So when the president of Iceland casually joked last week that pizza topped with pineapple should be outlawed, he set off a debate of international (and viral) proportions.
The incendiary remarks by this particular world leader, Gudni Thorlacius Johannesson, were made during a visit to a high school in northern Iceland, according to news reports.
In answering questions from students about pizza and football (his favorite Premier League team is Manchester United), Mr. Johannesson told them that, should he be able to pass laws, he would like to ban pineapple as a pizza topping, igniting a media firestorm.
The story quickly ranked among the top trending stories on Reddit and was picked up by news sites including the Guardian, CNN, USA Today and even Foreign Policy. Fans of the topping were outraged. Pizza purists thought they had found a champion.
A pineapple and ham pizza.
“A true hero,” wrote metalmaniac9999 on Reddit. “Pineapple on pizza is a crime against gastronomy.”
To which, titaniumtoes responded, “See you at The Hague, pal.”
“The Hague is for common war criminals,” countered Heiminator. “People who put pineapple on pizza should face the firing squad immediately. No trial, no blindfold.”
Steve Green, who publishes the pizza industry magazine PMQ, told the Huffington Post: “Being against pineapple pizza is like being against Santa Claus. There’s really nothing that won’t work on a pizza.”
By Tuesday, the president had issued a statement on Facebook, in both English and Icelandic:
“I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza. I am glad that I do not hold such power. Presidents should not have unlimited power. I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding that which I don’t like. I would not want to live in such a country. For pizzas, I recommend seafood.”
The seafood suggestion did not help matters.
“Pineapple-pizza-gate,” cried Iceland Magazine. “President backtracks ‘I can’t dictate pizza toppings!’ Then encourages people to put fish on their pizza.”
While shellfish may not have been such a controversial selection — see Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana’s legendary white clam pie in New Haven — the president used the word “fiskmeti” in the Icelandic-language version of his post, which translates as fish-products, rather than seafood.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, pineapple-topped pizza did not originate in Hawaii, but in Canada in 1962, when restaurateur Sam Panopoulos decided to mix ham with canned pineapple on his pie to see how it would turn out, according to Atlas Obscura.
“People said ‘You are crazy to do this,’ ” Mr. Panopoulos told the website in a 2015 profile.
The topping has since become a longstanding source of contention, with its own Know Your Meme subject page and a 2014 worst topping ranking by the website Thrillist.
Despite stepping into this controversy, Mr. Johannesson’s approval ratings have remained high.
A former history professor at the University of Iceland with a laid-back style, he has turned down a 20 percent pay hike, donated 10 percent of his pretax salary to charity, and holds the distinction of being the first president to march in a gay pride parade.
I mean, roll the idea around a little. Unlike the President of Iceland, the President of the US *does* have the legal authority to ban things without the consent of Congress. What if an Executive Order in the US did ban pineapple on pizza. Does this create a first-amendment issue? Is putting pineapple onto pizza a protected form of expression? If it is done in protest against the president's order, does it then become political speech?
President Donald Trump’s significantly slashed White House budget is projected to save American taxpayers $22 million over the next four years, according to media reports.
Forbes states, “savings come from President Trump’s refusal to take a salary as well as big reductions in other areas including the absence of czars, expensive ‘fellowships,’ and spending on FLOTUS staff.”
“Our review of the Trump White House payroll confirms five staffers dedicated to First Lady Melania Trump,” Forbes states, adding that Michelle Obama had 24, including “assistants, advisors, schedulers, directors, deputies, advance aides, associates, social and press secretaries and other helpers.”
...
Forbes reports that the Trump administration’s annual report – released to Congress on Friday – covers 377 White House employees and projects a $5.1 million in payroll cuts compared to the Obama administration’s payroll (which had 110 more payees, according to government watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com) for the financial year of 2015.
The report, as cited by The Washington Times, states that 36% of the 10.6 million people using the service may not actually qualify for it – a fact investigators discovered after sampling the population and discovering that a good number of people couldn’t actually prove their eligibility upon a second review.
“More than 5,500 people were found to be enrolled for two phones, while the program was paying for nearly 6,400 phones for persons the government has listed as having died,” The Washington Times reports.
It gets worse.
According to the GOA’s report, investigators submitted intentionally fraudulent applications to 19 phone carriers to see if they would be flagged. In the cases of 12 carriers, they weren’t.
It gets worse yet.
“The report, requested by Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, also says the program has stashed some $9 billion in assets in private bank accounts rather than with the federal treasury, further increasing risks and depriving taxpayers of the full benefit of that money,” The Washington Times states.
...
“Lifeline was initially meant to provide poor people with a phone in case of an emergency or, as time went on, to apply for a job,” the outlet states.
“The wife of the CEO of TracFone, the largest beneficiary of Obamaphones, was a mega-fundraiser for former President Barack Obama,” the outlet states.
It continues, “the cause of the fraud rates, shocking even by federal government standards, was always clear: The FCC allowed companies with a profit motive to sign up as many people as possible to determine eligibility.”
The worst part? According to The Daily Signal, the FCC will not be taking action in response to news of the staggering amounts of fraud happening in the Obamaphone program.
“Instead,” the outlet states, “the program is being expanded to include free internet.”
An illegal immigrant is reportedly being awarded $190,000 because police reported him to immigration authorities.
According to The Daily Mail, 33-year-old Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno was trying to report his car stolen in San Francisco when – surprise – police detained him upon learning he is an illegal immigrant.
However, the city has now reached a settlement with Pedro and his trusty lawyer and are awarding the illegal $190,000 because the police were cooperating with federal immigration officials which goes against San Francisco’s sanctuary city law.
Last edited by Joe Perez; 07-03-2017 at 05:43 PM.
Reason: Fixed all your links
Today I learned, that if you stop harboring criminals, crime is reduced. Mind blown.
Following Phoenix’s decision to drop its status as a sanctuary city, crime reportedly plummeted, suggesting that the pro-alien designation may not be as safe as its liberal proponents might have one believe.
“When we eliminated our sanctuary policy back in 2008, we saw crime, violent and stolen vehicles fall by 25%,” said Arizona Police Association executive director Levi Bolton according to Fox News.
“We saw a 20-year low crime rate. When we were allowed and had the discretion to contact our federal immigration partners, crime fell drastically.”
He reportedly continued, “it had a deterrent effect on folks because the risk of discovery went up exponentially when we actually enforced the law.”
Indeed, according to City-Data.com, from 2008 to 2009 Phoenix saw its murder rate drop by 27%, its robbery rate by 23%, its assault rate by 13%, its burglary rate by 14% and its theft rate by 19%.”
“The numbers for each category fell the following year as well – albeit by smaller margins,” reports Fox News.
The reason pizza is so great is because it's free to be whatever you want it to be, when you start dictating what can and cant be toppings on pizza it is an affront to freedom, and suggests you're a fascist, racist, and a bigot.
FROM Evan Sayet..."Donald Trump has, with his tweets, put the Leftist media in an untenable, unwinnable position. The Leftist media is left with only two options. They can choose to, let me use the phrase, "go high," stop employing fake news and work to repair their creditability. The problem is that, if they do this -- if they start honestly and accurately reporting the truth, it will be the end of the Democratic Party. It is ONLY the media's lies and cover-ups that keeps the Dems alive.
So this leaves the Leftist media only one option: double down on their hate and lies. This is what they've chosen. The problem is, that, as they double down on the lies, hate and hysteria, the narrative that Trump presents of them becomes even more obvious and more undeniable."
FROM Evan Sayet..."Donald Trump has, with his tweets, put the Leftist media in an untenable, unwinnable position. The Leftist media is left with only two options. They can choose to, let me use the phrase, "go high," stop employing fake news and work to repair their creditability. The problem is that, if they do this -- if they start honestly and accurately reporting the truth, it will be the end of the Democratic Party. It is ONLY the media's lies and cover-ups that keeps the Dems alive.
So this leaves the Leftist media only one option: double down on their hate and lies. This is what they've chosen. The problem is, that, as they double down on the lies, hate and hysteria, the narrative that Trump presents of them becomes even more obvious and more undeniable."
This incident has been the subject of a lot of the office chatter here at the newsroom today. A few of our people are former CNN, and of course we know a lot of people inside CNN, as pretty much all large broadcast news departments share resources with them via the wire.
The general consensus is that CNN isn't doubling-down based on any ideological position, as that would imply that they are actually making deliberate, rational decisions as part of an overall strategy. Much to the contrary, most folks here agree that the management at CNN is basically incompetent, that they've grown way too large and diverse to really have a single guiding philosophy, and that a lot of their staff just have really poor judgement / decision-making skills.
Or, don't mis-attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance.
And the democratic party isn't going anywhere. I mean, what percentage of the electorate do you really believe make their decisions based on journalism, research, and careful consideration of the facts? No, the average voter consumes media in to reinforce their existing opinions, not to form new ones.
So long as the GOP continues to shoot itself in the foot when it comes to LGBT issues, abortion, etc., and so long as the dems continue to promise free ****, the status quo is safe.
^ Oh, man. I am gonna re-use the **** outta that photo!
Seriously, I keep saying this over and over again, but commercial broadcast news agencies don't have an agenda, other than to build and maintain viewership. If they seem to have a political or socialogical bias, it's because they're trying to appeal to whatever demographic they have judged to be most valuable. In the US, most of the smart journalists who are actually committed to responsible, in-depth reporting burn out at the networks and wind up at NPR or in print. (Or teaching.)
I'm not trying to defend anyone, I'm just saying that this is literally what audience research is for.
And I still maintain that it wouldn't matter if The Washington Post ran a week long series of front-page, above-the-fold stories in which they reveal hard evidence that the chair of the DNC, the minority leader of the Senate, and former Secretary of State Clinton were actively engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to sell nuclear secrets to North Korea in exchange for child sex-slaves. There'd be an uproar, some criminal convictions, and then within two months the whole thing would be forgotten and we'd be back to the status quo, with democrats trying to redistribute wealth and increase dependency upon the state, republicans trying to repress the liberty of minorities and gays, and voters making uninformed decisions based on stereotypes, fear, and pre-existing biases.
Someone created an animated GIF which CNN found offensive, and posted it.
CNN tracked down the identity of this person and threatened to reveal it unless they took it down and apologized.
They did.
WTF? Why not let them reveal your personal info, then file a civil suit against them for trying to blackmail you, and then capitalize on the subsequent popularity?
I'm being totally serious here: this doesn't make any sense. If this story is true, then some troll willingly threw away a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
06-30-2017, 08:02 PM
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