Category: Media and Culture,

NH State education department official posted a lot of racist crap on his own personal facebook page. …And then whined and complained when he was called out for it

On By peanutgallerynhIn Education,, Granite State,, Race,Leave a comment

Schinella posted on his Facebook page, “Northern New England is the way it is because we’re the only people who want to be here. We’re very welcoming (see the Free State Project), but don’t come here if you’re going to change everything. We like it the way it is, which is why we are here and not where you live now.”

…“We don’t want or need New Hampshire to become any kind of cesspool. We have enough problems and many of us don’t want or need to pay more taxes because the new people moving in expect the same things they had in their other states. We are small; we don’t have the ability to tax our way out of problems.”

…“Diversity for diversity’s sake doesn’t bring us anything. An extreme example? 1,300 illegal alien Dominican drug dealers moving from Lawrence to, say, Concord will make the state 1 percent more diverse; but it would also bring more crime, higher taxes for public safety, and higher taxes for schools to teach their children.”

…”The people involved in this movement think they can bring in the ‘right’ kinds of people, but there is no guarantee of that. Central planners can’t control where people go and what they do; people move because they want to or they find opportunities; they don’t move because they don’t want to. It’s really that simple.”

NH Primary Source: State education department official says Facebook post not racially motivated

sigh….

Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance in a Year

On By peanutgallerynhIn Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.

…A single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.

…Other large retail chains have been the focus of similar reports in recent months. In October, two studies released to coincide showed that American fast food industry outsourced a combined $7 billion in annual labor costs to taxpayers. …[McDonald’s] alone accounted for $1.2 billion of that outlay.

Yum Brands came in at a distant number two, with its Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC subsidiaries costing $648 million in benefits programs for workers each year.

Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion In Public Assistance

No shit, Sherlock?

4 Environmental Activists Are Killed Every Week

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Latin America is by far the world’s most dangerous place to be an environmental defender. Almost 60 percent of the environmental killings recorded in 2017 took place in the region.

Mexico’s tropical forests, for example, have been ravaged by everything from illegal cattle ranching to avocado farming. In January 2017, Isidro Baldenegro López, a prominent indigenous activist who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his work protecting the forests of the Sierra Tarahumara mountain range in northern Mexico from logging, was shot dead.

…The Global Witness report records several massacres in countries such as Brazil and the Philippines ― in the latter country, the military reportedly killed at least eight indigenous people in December as they tried to protect their land from a coffee plantation.

Brazil remains the most deadly country for environmental activists, with 57 murders last year ― the highest ever recorded by any country. Twenty-two members of one tribe ― the Gamela ― were assaulted in one land-grabbing incident. Some had their hands cut off.

4 Environmental Activists Are Killed Every Week So We Can Have Snacks, Meat And Coffee | HuffPost

Sigh….

Actor Ving Rhames said neighbor called 911 to report him as ‘a large black man’ living somewhere she was too racist to believe he lived

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

[Rhames] was watching television in his Santa Monica home when he heard noise coming from the backyard. …It was police.

…”I get up, I open the door, there’s a red dot pointed at my face from a 9 millimeter,” Rhames said …on Friday. “And they say, ‘Put up your hands.”

…”My problem is, as I said to them, what if it was my son, and he had a video game remote or something? And you thought it was a gun, just like you know, I don’t know, Trayvon had a bag of Skittles,” he said in the interview.

Actor Ving Rhames said neighbor called 911 to report him as ‘a large black man’ breaking in

Actions that negative effect others should have consequences.

On that note, two things….

One, there should be punitive legal consequences for civilians who call 911 because of their own racial profiling. Call the police on your neighbor? The police should come for you instead.

Two, the officers clearly did not look into who residing in the home before they arrived. Bad police-work like that gets people killed. They should face punitive consequences for not doing a better job of assessing the actual situation before they went into action. When the police don’t think before they act, people get killed and that can not be tolerated.

It doesn’t matter if they, the officers, were not being overtly racist by responding to this call. They did a shoddy job of performing their work responsibilities and -like in any other industry- that should merit negative consequences.

EPA worried about Scott Pruitt’s toxic desk but chose not to warn or protect the public from the exact same risk

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Former EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s staff planned to take precautions to protect him from the toxic effects of formaldehyde in a fancy new desk – but months later, his top aides blocked the release of a report on the health dangers of the carcinogeno.

…Pruitt was wrapping up a more than $9,500 redecoration of his office when a top official noticed a California warning on a desk the administrator wanted to order saying it contained the chemical.

…Although an EPA regulation limiting formaldehyde emissions from such items had been put on hold by Team Trump, California regulates the chemical.

…A few months later, top EPA officials took steps to block a health report produced by another division at the agency that found the levels of formaldehyde that many Americans breathe every day are tied to leukemia and nose and throat cancer, among other ailments.

EPA worried about Scott Pruitt’s toxic desk but not enough to warn public

Grrrr

U.S. gathering on religious freedom sets up competing narratives

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Religion,Leave a comment

The gathering gives Trump a high-wattage spotlight for showing his pro-Christian bona fides to the evangelical voters who helped him win the Oval Office. But it also gives the president’s critics a platform to assail what they see as his hypocrisy on human rights, especially when it comes to Muslims, whom Trump once proposed banning from U.S. soil.

…According to a State Department staffer, countries that managed to snag seats include Bahrain and Hungary, whose governments have been accused of hostility toward some religious groups. In Bahrain, Shiite Muslims, many of whom are opposition activists, have faced crackdowns by the Sunni-led monarchy. Hungary’s increasingly autocratic ruling party has faced a backlash over a law stripping recognition from a range of religious groups.

…The State Department staffer said that Russia and Turkey, whose religious-rights records have been increasingly problematic, were left off the invite list. The staffer added that administration officials hoped to highlight in particular the religious abuses by the government of Iran, an Islamist-led country that the Trump administration has singled out for pressure to the point where analysts say it is effectively aiming for regime change.

On the civil-society front, the administration is taking an inclusive approach: Invitees range from atheists to Scientologists, according to the State Department staffer. Representatives of more broad-based organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, are also on the list. Many are hosting side events.

…Trump ….avoids church.

U.S. gathering on religious freedom sets up competing narratives – POLITICO

hmmmm

Oldest Greek Fragment of Homer Discovered on Clay Tablet

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Media and Culture,, Middle East,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The epics of the Greek poet Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey, have been recited around campfires and scrutinized by students for 2,800 years, if not longer. 

…It’s believed that The Odyssey and The Iliad come from an oral storytelling tradition. Whether the stories were composed by a blind poet named Homer is a source of debate, though many researchers believe Homer was probably not a historical individual but a cultural tradition that developed the stories over many decades or centuries, with scribes writing them down sometime around the 8th century B.C.

Oldest Greek Fragment of Homer Discovered on Clay Tablet | Smart News | Smithsonian

Wild.

Body of ‘witch’ tormented by villagers 1,600 years ago found buried with one-hand tied behind back

On By peanutgallerynhIn Chick Stuff,, Europe,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The woman was found face down with her left hand fixed behind her back – a position hat was apparently used in witch burials to ensure that they do not return from the dead and haunt the villagers.

It is thought that she was the lover of a wealthy man, who would have blamed her ‘magic powers’ as the reason behind his adultery. This accusation would have been the cause of her torture by the villagers.

…Most women accused of witchcraft tended to be older yet occasionally young women found themselves accused of witchcraft, usually if they ended up in relationships with the wrong man or even if they had been sexually abused by a man of influence.

…This woman lived in times of the Chernyakhov culture. Her grave differs from burial traditions that existed in this area in the third and fourth centuries AD.”

The Chernyakhov culture is an archaeological culture that flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what is now Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and parts of Belarus.

Body of ‘witch’ tormented by villagers 1,600 years ago found buried with one-hand tied behind back – Mirror Online

hmmmm

White House removed Putin support for Trump from official video, transcript

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Te White House had appeared to delete a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for President Trump in an official video of the leaders’ joint press conference in Helsinki, Finland.

The U.S. government is essentially following the Kremlin’s playbook.”

…The Atlantic was the first news outlet to point out the differences. Maddow added that the Russian government’s transcript from the event nixes Mason’s question completely.

Maddow: White House removed Putin support for Trump from official video, transcript | TheHill

hmmm