In a social experiment exploring violence against women, young boys in Italy were asked to slap a girl. Watch how they react in the video below …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: ethics
Millions rally for unity in France
More than three million people have taken part in unity marches across France after 17 people died during three days of deadly attacks in Paris. …
In Madrid, several hundred Muslims held banners saying “Not in our name” next to the train station where in 2004 Islamist bombings killed nearly 200 people. …
… “Our values are liberty, equality and fraternity and we cannot allow terrorists to dictate to us,” …
Everyone, especially Muslims, must condemn terrorism. And work to reduce the number and severity of these incidents.
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The right to freedom of expression is recognized as a human right under article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights …
I believe in freedom of speech. Societies should have as few restrictions as possible.
However, every government restricts speech to some degree. Common limitations on speech relate to: libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, hate speech, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, non-disclosure agreements, right to privacy, right to be forgotten, public security, public order, public nuisance, and campaign finance reform.
The magazine Charlie Hebbo seems to try to push many of those limits.
I’ve never read Charlie Hebbo and never will. But I respect their freedom of speech, within the limits of French law.
One last point. Rule of law is even more important to me than freedom of speech. Security of citizens is paramount.
Jim Jefferies – Gun Safety
This Australian comedian is very profane. Very funny.
But he is exactly right on the terrible number of firearm deaths in the USA. More Americans now die from gunfire than motor vehicle accidents. 😦
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Thanks Bieche.
the world IS getting better
More people are going to school for longer
Access to the internet is increasing
Solar power is getting cheaper
Beer consumption going up ??? 🙂
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
details on vox
(via Bill Gates)
why the USA must QUIT the Middle East
President Barack Obama said on Sunday the longest war in American history was coming to a responsible conclusion.
Obama was welcoming the end of US combat operations in Afghanistan, which was marked with a ceremony in Kabul. …
Obama honored the more than 2,200 Americans who have died in Afghanistan since the war started 13 years ago. Obama said those years had tested the US and its military. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the US and Nato plan to leave just 13,500 behind. …
Obama heralds formal end of war in Afghanistan after 13 years
The Taliban immediately declared they’d ‘defeated’ Nato:
A Taliban statement said the US-led force had “rolled up its flag” without having achieved “anything substantial”. …
Like every other Afghan invader, the costs NATO paid far outweighed anything gained. 😦
Afghanis must decide their own fate.
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On December 12th, 2013 a wedding convoy, outside the town of Radda in the al-Baydah province of Yemen, was struck by a US drone.
Following the attack, Yemeni officials claimed that around ‘14 innocent civilians were killed, 22 injured and 9 were in critical condition.’
According to the US government, the attack had intended to strike a known AQ militant Shawqi Ali Ahmad al Badani. The US government denied the deaths of civilians, claiming that they had killed militants associated with al Badani.
The U.S. government lied, as they do often.
Most of those killed were innocent.
This is an example of why so many people distrust and fear the U.S. military overseas. This is an example of an incident which inspires and motivates terrorists. Ultimately making the USA and the world less safe.
If the U.S., which claims the strike was clean and justified, didn’t pony up the $800,000 in cash and guns as reparations, then who did?
Nothing Says “Sorry Our Drones Hit Your Wedding Party” Like $800,000 And Some Guns
Update Dec 2014 – The Unspoken Truth Of The US War Against Terrorism in Yemen
Officially, the money awarded in Yemen came from the Yemeni government. But the human rights group Reprieve says the funds must have come from Washington …
Africa – Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a short novel (1899) about Charles Marlow’s life as an ivory transporter down the Congo …
The story is a complex exploration of the attitudes people hold on what constitutes a barbarian versus a civilized society and the attitudes on colonialism and racism that were part and parcel of European imperialism …
Joseph Conrad acknowledged that Heart of Darkness was in part based on his own experiences during his travels in Africa. In 1890, at the age of 31, he was appointed by a Belgian trading company to serve as the captain of a steamer on the Congo River. …
He reportedly became disillusioned with Imperialism, after witnessing the cruelty and corruption perpetrated by the European companies in the area. …
Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909), second King of the Belgians, was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 2 to 15 million Congolese. Yet very few remember him as one of the worst mass killers all time.
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
– Joseph Stalin
In 2014 Africans are quick to blame European imperialists for … everything.
Yet in 2014 if you see something of QUALITY in sub-Saharan Africa, you assume some foreigner is involved. Africans have been – in the main – very unsuccessful in moving themselves from tribal cultures to modern societies.
Long term, I’m not optimistic for Africa. Despite tremendous economic opportunities.
For example – Bill Gates – Can the Asian Miracle Happen in Africa?
To move forward, Africa needs clean drinking water, education of girls and good leadership.
Will that happen?
In nations like Congo Brazzaville, the richest Africans move money out of the country faster than foreign aid comes in. They steal as much as they can, moving their families to Paris or London.
With African leadership like this, what future for Congo?
Corruption is killing African potential.
The most corrupt nations in the world 2014:
Somalia
North Korea
Sudan
Afghanistan
South Sudan
Iraq
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Libya
Eritrea
One bright spot, I hear, is Rwanda. A British woman living there told me the nation is moving forward rapidly. Internet is faster than in London.
If another dozen nations make progress like Rwanda, over the next ten years, then there is hope. Those nations will thrive, draw business investment. Forcing the corrupt, less efficient nations to compete.
In the end, it’s competition that improves the world.
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related – The 10 least corrupt countries in the world:
Denmark
New Zealand
Finland
Sweden
Norway
Switzerland
Singapore
Netherlands
Luxembourg
Canada
Merry Christmas Pope Francis
Finally. A reform Pope.
I just love what he’s been doing. 🙂
David Willey – BBC Vatican correspondent:
In the course of 2014 Pope Francis consolidated his position as one of the most popular pontiffs of modern times, more popular even than the recently-sainted Pope John Paul II.
He invented a new easy style of communication at the Vatican, brought in fresh blood, and publicly lambasted power-hungry princes of the church – the cardinals and bishops who run the Catholic Church’s Rome headquarters; he also found time to play an active diplomatic role in helping the US and Cuba bring to an end 50 years of public enmity. …
1914 Christmas Truce
In some places, it continued for more than a day. But the generals, when they learned of it, made sure it would never happen again. And despite sporadic attempts in later years, it never really did. …
The Real Story Behind the 1914 Christmas Truce in World War I
A reenactment of the 1914 Christmas Truce produced by Sainsbury in partnership with the Royal British Legion. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
gun safety in the USA
A slight majority of Americans still defend the rights of everyone, including the mentally ill, to own and even stockpile firearms with a minimum of regulation.
That will change, I believe.
Tea Party extremists and other gundamentalists are less and less vocal on public social media. They don’t like answering questions like this:
The New York Cop Killer Was Arrested 19 Times. Why Was He Able to Get a Gun?
Washington State is the most progressive.
Two years after the Newtown shooting, the gun-rights lobby still holds the edge when it comes to gun policy in America.
On the federal level, gun-rights groups, led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), spent roughly twice what gun-control groups spent on national political campaigns and nine times what they paid to lobby Congress, according to data from the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. …
Don’t Call It “Gun Control”
Advocates have also started to rethink the way they talk about their goals. Today, none of them actually use the term “gun control.” “That’s a phrase that was pointed to as divisive, or didn’t have the right tone or implications,” said Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action.
They talk instead about “gun safety,” “common-sense gun laws,” or more simply, “keeping guns out of the wrong hands.” They underscore that even as Americans support firearm ownership, 91 percent also want mandatory background checks.
“This framing of pro-gun versus anti-gun, or pro-restriction versus Second Amendment rights, is not a healthy way of looking at this issue if our goal is to save lives,” said Dan Gross, head of the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. “We need to look at the opportunities that clearly exist to prevent gun deaths and crime while being consistent with the Second Amendment and the desire of law-abiding citizens to own guns.”
“Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes,” Wachtel said. …
Rick McCharles 