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  • Multiple western countries, including the U.S., have now confirmed that Syrian Armed Forces are launching sarin gas attacks.
  • Multiple western countries, including the U.S., have now confirmed that Syrian Armed Forces are launching sarin gas attacks.
    Jesus. That's pretty goddamned serious.

  • God damn it.
  • Oh, and Hungary is totes fucked up -- like, Greek Nazis levels of fucked up, but with less democracy.
  • Was not expecting that...
  • Yeah, that happened. And the first pro athlete homophobic tweet in response to it as well. Honestly I'm rather concerned for how It'll affect his signing prospects, because even if the response is almost entirely positive or neutral, managers and other executive types tend to drastically overestimate the amount of business they'd lose in response to "culture wars" issues.
  • NBA, yes. First openly gay professional athlete in the US? No.
  • edited April 2013
    Just the first in a major sporting league to come out while still in the midst of a career, true. But despite the rather narrow qualifier, that's a fucking huge step.
    Post edited by Arcadian on
  • Nevermind. I was thinking of Chris Kluwe, but he's not gay. He's a supporter of gay marriage.
  • The fact that this didn't happen until 2013 I think is strong evidence that professional sports locker rooms are homophobic as all fuck.
  • Yeah, but that's old news; pretty much every heavily masculinized space cranks up the heteronormativity dial to 11 and opens the door for heteronormativity's even nastier brother, flat-out homophobia. It's one of the severe internal contradictions of traditional masculinity that it seeks to elevate and idealize "manliness" in the abstract (while denigrating femininity), but stops up very short whenever that manliness is concretized in an actual dude. Men trying to act out that ideal are caught on the divide between admiring a guy's masculinity and NOT admiring the guy himself. The very fact that the line is so incredibly thin (to the point of being nonexistent, really; it's not so much a line as a gradient) is one of the major reasons behind there being such a strong backlash against perceived breaches of that line.
  • The fact that this didn't happen until 2013 I think is strong evidence that professional sports locker rooms are homophobic as all fuck.
    This is from the 90-91 season, but still:
  • The UFC had an openly gay fighter in its first women's fight, Liz Carmouche, back in February. She's fought in other groups as well but the UFC is the leader in MMA
  • The UFC had an openly gay fighter in its first women's fight, Liz Carmouche, back in February. She's fought in other groups as well but the UFC is the leader in MMA
    Other sports have had openly gay participants in the past. I mean, tennis great Martina Navratalova came out way back in 1981. Before her, there also was Billie Jean King in tennis. The big deal about Collins is that he's the first actively participating athlete in the "big 4" (Men's Football, Men's Baseball, Men's Basketball, and Men's Hockey) to come out.
  • The fact that this didn't happen until 2013 I think is strong evidence that professional sports locker rooms are homophobic as all fuck.
    You might be surprised. I am sure there is a distribution, but there are some that are the polar opposite. Probably depends on the sport a lot as well.
  • This looks worrisome. Anyone know what the deal is?

    (Is it just legal changes so web apps can transfer images to their servers and display ads, like the Instagram ToS were, or is it actually a bad thing that could potentially affect copyright of things on the Internet?)
  • Rhode Island just legalized same-sex marriage

    Granted, they had recognized same-sex marriages performed in other states for several years now, but finally you can have a same-sex wedding in RI.
  • Thermobaric bomb, too. That's some serious destructive power.

    There's already conspiracy theories that it's a nuclear detonation that they're covering up.
  • Good fuck, people need to learn... anything, about nukes. At all.
  • The video does not show a thermobaric detonation, but rather the secondary explosions of SA-11 missiles being transported to Lebanon for Hezbollah. You can see some other, smaller, explosions right before the large detonation. Even bombs such as the MOAB barely make an explosion that large, so the only real possibility is an ammunition cook-off.

    In other news, the UN has testimony that the Syrian rebels (or at least a faction) has used Sarin gas.
  • edited May 2013
    Huh, I just figured it was from the initial flash, then the massive flare and fireball. My mistake. From the sound delay, I'd figure they're about 2-ish miles away, I think, but don't quote me on that - so I should have known it was too big, didn't think about it.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Pretty big news around Cleveland:
    These girls disappeared a decade ago and escaped this evening from a house where they had been kept prisoner.
    http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/cleveland_metro/Cleveland-police-dispatch-Missing-teens-Amanda-Berry-and-Gina-DeJesus-found-alive
  • Wow. Every time those stories come up it amazes me each time.
  • So a controversial report has been floating around about the trillions that would be added to the deficit by making millions of illegal immigrants into American citizens. There are plenty of problems w/ the report, but the core logic seems sound. Yes, it would cost a lot of money to give these people benefits, and they wouldn't be paying it all back in taxes due to rather low-paying jobs.

    It just seems incredibly short-sighted to me to limit the scope to the next decade or two, though. History repeats itself, and I would expect the children of hard-working low-skill immigrants to wind up being incredibly well-educated people who become a major contributing force to our society.
  • I don't understand why we don't allow almost anyone to become a legit citizen.
  • edited May 2013
    So a controversial report has been floating around about the trillions that would be added to the deficit by making millions of illegal immigrants into American citizens.
    I think you're conflating the deficit with the debt. As far as I know, the $6.3 trillion dollar figure they cite is over something like a 50-year period.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
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