|
Post by kerouac2 on Sept 16, 2019 16:16:23 GMT
I didn't even mention the other controversy about that photo. Some people see a skyscraper being hit by a plane in Melania's dress.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 16, 2019 16:17:05 GMT
Shall we keep laughing at the buffoon as he works up to fomenting war with Iran?
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Sept 16, 2019 16:59:46 GMT
Please let him choke on his next hamberder!
|
|
|
Post by questa on Sept 17, 2019 7:56:25 GMT
OMG ! her dress could not be more explicit if she tried.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Sept 17, 2019 8:30:49 GMT
I guess it depends on the person. I had to go back and look at it and try to figure out what you were all talking about. To me it looks like a coat, not a dress, and the back just has a pleat with a button.
I was more impressed by her shoes -- how can she walk in those heels?
|
|
|
Post by mickthecactus on Sept 17, 2019 9:50:59 GMT
I definitely see a tower being hit by a plane on her coat/dress.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 17, 2019 15:27:08 GMT
Oh! After Mick's comment, I see what Questa meant! Surely that is accidental, though.
Bjd ~ them there is Power Wife heels. Even young women have taken to them -- check out the Duchesses of Cambridge & Sussex, for instance.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Sept 17, 2019 15:35:32 GMT
Obviously the power is not with the wife. I have also seen the term "f**k-me pumps" for those shoes.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Sept 17, 2019 21:17:22 GMT
Frankly, the Duchesses should know better. They were both wearing them while pregnant! Especially as nowadays there are very attractive shoes without "killer" or "f-me" heels, and they can obviously afford bespoke shoes. Melania was and remains a professional model. Has anyone here been to her country? I have when it was still part of Yugoslavia. Lovely little country. You could combine a visit there with Venice and Vienna, and other places nearby. www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/europe/slovenia/worlds-most-sustainable-eco-green-country/
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Sept 17, 2019 22:31:51 GMT
Too bad Melania doesn’t have the President’s ear. She could plant some earth-friendly ideas and actually do some good as FLOTUS.
|
|
|
Post by mich64 on Sept 17, 2019 22:55:40 GMT
You could combine a visit there with Venice and Vienna, and other places nearby. I had to laugh when I read this Lagatta, this is exactly our plan for next September! My husbands grandfather is from Slovenia and he has wanted to visit there for a long time, so I have been looking at routes and accommodations for the past month. Fly into Venice, stay, then train to Villach or Klagenfurt, Austria where we can rent a car and drive into Slovenia and then train up to Vienna. Her shoes do not surprise me, expected actually and when I seen the hem on her coat I remembered having the same on an all weather coat I bought years ago. When I first saw it I thought it must be that the material needs a solid hem for wind/weather, but it does/did look odd, so not new at all.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Sept 18, 2019 0:41:43 GMT
I'd love to go back to Slovenia, the pretty little country with mountains, vineyards and beaches on the Adriatic, and its pretty little capital. Slovenia also seems to be a success story, charting its own way. They have copied cycle lane networs from Amsterdam and Copenhagen and many other environmental solutions.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Sept 18, 2019 5:53:58 GMT
Last time the friend I went on city breaks with and I were looking for a destination, we looked at Slovenia since I had heard nice things about it. But it's quite expensive to get to (few flights), there are not many hotels in Ljubljana so it's expensive and with little choice, so we went to Belgrade instead. But I agree that it would be interesting to go there combined with another place. Maybe I'll wait until they stop marketing Melania tourist tat.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Sept 18, 2019 10:06:53 GMT
I'm most definitely NOT interested in that, not even as a joke! Too bad it has become an expensive destination. I thought I could get there by train from either northeastern Italy or Austria.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Sept 22, 2019 3:36:57 GMT
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 22, 2019 4:28:30 GMT
Yeah, it was all over The Guardian, The Washington Post, & the New York Times yesterday and today. What I don't get is how much of the reporting says stuff like "Trump presses Ukraine to investigate Biden" as though that is normal and makes effing sense. What the living hell?!
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Sept 25, 2019 17:12:07 GMT
I know that many people find it tragic that Donald Trump no longer loves Fox News. Or should I say that Fox News no longer loves Donald Trump? Anyway, he has a new favourite news network. Let the honeymoon begin! One America News Network
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Sept 25, 2019 17:20:08 GMT
WTF is that? Trump’s Media outlet that he planned to start when he expected to lose to Hillary?
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 25, 2019 17:32:34 GMT
"Credible News 24/7 Anywhere" ~ unh-hunh Good to know what Mr. Intellectual in the White House approves.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Sept 25, 2019 18:15:27 GMT
I would have thought he prefers the word "incredible!!". Does he even know what credible means?
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 25, 2019 18:21:58 GMT
The credible quote is from that network's website. I just love it. "Credible" news as in "could be true", "sounds plausible enough", "sure, why not -- they'll believe it", etc.
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Sept 25, 2019 19:18:02 GMT
I'm sure it has plenty of alternate facts.
I thought it was funny when a French news crew went to interview them. There is apparently a counter somewhere on the site showing the terrible cost of illegal immigrants and other statistics concerning those terrible people. (I couldn't find the counter on the site.) The spokesperson said that this sort of information was very important for people to know. The French reporter asked if they were planning to also put a gun violence counter on the site with the mass murders, attacks and random shootings. The spokesperson said "..."
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Sept 29, 2019 13:01:36 GMT
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Sept 29, 2019 15:39:47 GMT
Yes, I heard about that yesterday. It really points up the slippery slope of "fulfilling the will of the people" when that is rephrased as "keeping your fat ass in office". The Republicans were supposedly soooo appalled that Trump was running as a Republican, conveniently forgetting that David Duke had been a Republican candidate and that Duke and Trump are only publicly voicing the ugly sentiments to which Republicans generally pander. Then, when the bastard actually won their party's nomination, some of them voiced their dismay, notably the despicable Lindsey Graham who, along with others, was later all to eager to climb up Trump's butt, as pointed out in Kerouac's link. Still, it seems reasonable to assume that maybe 30 or 35 of them still care enough about their country to want to stop Trump. On another note, as a person who championed Pelosi's foot-dragging on impeachment, I found this article interesting. It's from the Washington Post, so has a paywall which is worth circumventing to read the information presented: www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/impeachment-isnt-mandatory--even-if-trump-committed-impeachable-offenses/2019/09/26/ae65b62c-dfca-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Oct 2, 2019 23:11:24 GMT
Here you go, huckle: {Click here for full text}Government Plans to Collect DNA From Detained Immigrants The Department of Homeland Security said it would begin testing on hundreds of thousands of immigrants in federal detention facilities. ImageAsylum seekers turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents near Penitas, Tex., in February. Asylum seekers turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents near Penitas, Tex., in February.CreditCreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times Caitlin Dickerson By Caitlin Dickerson Oct. 2, 2019 Updated 6:48 p.m. ET The Trump administration is moving to begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody each year for entry into a national criminal database, an immense expansion of the use of technology to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that the Justice Department was developing a federal regulation that would give immigration officers the authority to collect DNA in detention facilities that are holding more than 40,000 people. The move would constitute a major expansion of the use of a database maintained by the F.B.I., which has been limited mainly to genetic data collected from people who have been arrested, charged or convicted in connection with serious crimes. Immigrant and privacy advocates said the move raised privacy concerns for an already vulnerable population that could face profiling or discrimination as a result of their personal data being shared among law enforcement authorities. The new rules would allow the government to collect DNA from children, as well as those who seek asylum at legal ports of entry and have not broken the law. They warned that United States citizens, who are sometimes accidentally booked into immigration custody, could also be forced to hand over their private genetic information. “That kind of mass collection alters the purpose of DNA collection from one of criminal investigation basically to population surveillance, which is basically contrary to our basic notions of a free, trusting, autonomous society,” said Vera Eidelman, a staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. She said that because genetic material carries strong family connections, the data collection would have implications not only for those in immigration custody but also their family members who might be United States citizens, or have legal residence. Homeland security officials, in a call with reporters on Wednesday, said the new initiative was permitted under the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005. Up until now, immigrant detainees have been exempt from the law, they said, because of an agreement between Eric H. Holder Jr. and Janet Napolitano, who served as attorney general and homeland security secretary, respectively, under President Barack Obama. The officials said the proposed rule was inspired partly by a pilot program conducted this summer along the southwestern border, in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents used rapid DNA sampling technology to identify “fraudulent family units” — adults who were using children disguised as their own to exploit special protections for families with immigrant children. The new program would differ from the pilot in that it would provide a comprehensive DNA profile of individuals who are tested, as opposed to the more narrow test that was used only to determine parentage. And unlike the testing under the pilot program, the results would be shared with other law enforcement agencies. The move is part of a wider Trump administration move to criminalize unauthorized border crossings, even in some cases when people have complied with federal immigration laws, such as presenting themselves at legal ports of entry into the United States to seek asylum. Regarding that group, which is considered protected under federal asylum law, a senior D.H.S. official who spoke with reporters on condition of anonymity, said, “There is a criminal aspect to that population.” Crossing the border without documents and attempting to elude border authorities is a misdemeanor for first offenders. After the DNA samples are taken, under the forthcoming regulation, they would be entered into the F.B.I.’s highly regulated national DNA database. Known as CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System is used by state and law enforcement authorities to help identify criminal suspects. It is advertised on the bureau’s website as a “tool for linking violent crimes.” In supplying the F.B.I. and other law enforcement with the DNA of immigration detainees, federal authorities are jumping into an ethical debate about the use of DNA in criminal investigations. While such sampling has been crucial in securing thousands of prosecutions over the past several decades, it has also generated controversy because of the potential for abuse. Trump administration officials did not provide a timeline for the rollout of the regulation but said that a working group was meeting weekly to introduce it as soon as possible. Caitlin Dickerson is a Peabody Award-winning reporter based in New York who covers immigration. She has broken stories on asylum, detention and deportation policy, as well as the treatment of immigrant children in government custody. @itscaitlinhd
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Oct 3, 2019 4:02:47 GMT
I think the world has been reprogrammed to hop on every available conspiracy theory.
I have never forgotten way back 50 years ago in university, when I would attend just about every radical speech possible. At that time, sickle cell anemia had just recently been identified as a serious heamth problem that affected black people almost exclusively, and there was a push for more research to find a cure. But at one speech I attended (it might even have been Angela Davis), the female speaker violently opposed any sort of research. "Why are all of these white scientists suddenly interested in Black Body Chemistry?" she asked in a vitriolic voice heavy with innuendo.
Even back then I didn't buy what she was hinting at, maybe because I just a stupid white boy.
Obviously, there is no really good reason to collect the DNA of immigrants, but they are already collecting their fingerprints, just like for anybody who "breaks the law." DNA tests might totally replace fingerprinting some day, since obviously it is more efficient.
At least it would eliminate the "other" new conspiracy theory -- that people should absolutely not make the V-for-victory sign in their selfies because they could have their identity stolen by software that can read their fingerprints from the photo.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Oct 3, 2019 4:32:44 GMT
Well that, and because it irritates the piss out of me.
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 6, 2019 15:04:04 GMT
/
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Oct 6, 2019 17:54:03 GMT
That is delightful. A country with a normal president. They are rare.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Oct 6, 2019 18:45:48 GMT
That was very cute, but I don't have to visit Finland (an exemplary country in many ways) to see reindeer and snow. There will be plenty of snow in a few months, and for reindeer, I can see them in Northern Québec (Nunavik). Though ours are wild (caribou). I wonder why the Saami tamed them (to some extent; they aren't horses or cattle) and the Inuit, northern Cree and Innu didn't here. They are essentially the same mammal.
|
|