Random News Stories

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Articles where two/three words tell the entire tale 5/222/fff/2C:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-30001656

A court will decide whether wheelchair users have priority over pushchairs on buses, but how do you decide who is more entitled to the space?

In February 2012, wheelchair user Doug Paulley was not allowed to board a bus in Leeds because the wheelchair space was taken by a pushchair. The mother, not wanting to wake her sleeping baby, refused to move.

Paulley was left with no choice but to get off and wait for the next bus. That one was an hour away, and took him to the wrong side of the city. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. "That day in February resulted in me not using a bus again for a year. I lost all confidence and couldn't face it anymore," he said last year.

But did he have more of a right to the space than a mother not wanting to wake her sleeping child?

The law says he did because disabled people are a "protected group" under the Equality Act 2010.

But Claire Muller, a mother who recently had to get off the bus for a wheelchair user, feels as entitled to that space as a wheelchair user. She says that people could end up resenting disabled people. "At the moment you're firstly hoping there's not another pushchair on there, and then at every stop you're hoping there's not a wheelchair user," she says. "It shouldn't be the case, but it is."

Remember Kids, if you feel entitled to something, you should get it. Always. Even at the expense of the disabled.

As a total aside, this is somewhat typical of the UK at large. People feel astonishing levels of entitlement to things that they have no right to in any way, shape or form. As a result you get the Entitlement fight and "who's more important: X or Y group?" The reality is that all of these groups are important and should be working together to get better transportation for all instead of defending their niche interest. Instead we prefer this charming system that pits Mothers against the disabled over an issue that could be very easily fixed for relatively little cost.

This is why I don't like other mothers.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The reality is that all of these groups talking primates are important and should be working together to get better transportation everything for all instead of defending their niche interest.

Planet Earth, neatly summed up.

[Junkenstein]

Pretty much, yeah.

[Junkenstein]

What the living fuck.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30038753
No, seriously this time.

Disabled people in Greece are often stigmatised and can struggle to get the support they need. Some disabled children who live in a state-run home are locked up in cages - staff say they want to improve conditions but money is short.

Nine-year-old Jenny stands and rocks backwards and forwards, staring through the bars of a wooden cage.

When the door is unlocked she jumps down on to the stone floor and wraps her arms tightly around the nurse. But a few minutes later she allows herself to be locked back in again without a fuss.

She is used to her cage. It's been her home since she was two years old.

I'd quote more, but it just gets worse. I'm genuinely struggling for words.

[Cain]

Not to excuse this or diminish it, but you see this a lot in rural communities of poorer countries - like those of the Mediterranean and the cultures they spawned elsewhere.  In Peru, disfigured kids would often be made to sing for money - usually by older relatives or someone known to the family - in order to elicit sympathy from travellers and the like.  Their living conditions were not much better than cages either.

I suspect it's got a lot to do with the traditional rural values about being able to work on a farm - if you can't, you're seen as worthless.  A more robust welfare system would, in time, alleviate that notion, but I don't have to point out the dire economic conditions of many of these countries...

[Junkenstein]

I suggest that we need a "The more you know" image with a suitably horrible background. A crying child perhaps.

I've got nothing else here.

[Doktor Howl]

I suggest that we need a "The more you know" image with a suitably horrible background. A crying child perhaps.

Oh, yeah.

[Doktor Howl]

SO...

The house has just named Trent Gowdy (again) for the house investigation into Benghazi.  Again.

I'VE HEARD THIS JOKE BEFORE.  Couldn't they get Ken Starr to come out of retirement?

[LMNO]

Didn't they just release a GOP-led report that said there's nothing there?

Oh, yeah: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/benghazi-report-from-republican-led-house-panel-debunks-allegations/

For fuck's sake, they need to let it go.

[Cain]

There was nothing there because Obama's secret Muslims in the State Department took it.  So, obviously, a new investigation is needed into the coverup of this coverup.

Seriously though, notice how no-one is talking about the allegations that Benghazi's CIA annex was used to support Qatari and Turkish attempts to arm Syrian rebels with Libyan weapons?  The suspicion is that the CIA used the State Department's (legit) weapons seizure and destruction program as a cover to acquire weapons which would then be passed onto the aforenamed nation states and end up in the hands of Officially Approved Rebels. 

After Benghazi was hit, the Turks and Qataris had free reign to arm whoever they wanted, since no CIA support meant no CIA oversight meant arms getting into the hands of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

[LMNO]

That's a lot more damning.

But it doesn't involve Hillary, so fuck it.

[Cain]

More importantly, it does involve David Petraues, who once upon a time had a bright and starry future as a Republican politician (and may still do, if people forget his affair).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

THANKS A LOT, OBAMA!

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/11/27/scott-stapp-blames-obama-for-money-woes

He may have fronted a band in the '90s that sold an upwards of 50 million copies, but Creed frontman Scott Stapp shocked the world yesterday when he announced - via Facebook - that he's broke and homeless living in a Holiday Inn.

"I'm under some kind of pretty vicious attack," he said in a rambling, 15-minute video posted to his Facebook page. "There are people who have taken advantage and stolen money from me, and they're trying to discredit me, slander me...

[Doktor Howl]

I've seen a couple of stories about this, and my conclusion is "meth".

[Eater of Clowns]

I've seen a couple of stories about this, and my conclusion is "meth".

My conclusion is EVEN GOD HATES CREED.