Worshiping the Creature
Ganges and Yamuna rivers granted same legal rights as human beings theguardian
The court in the Himalayan resort town of Nainital appointed three officials to act as legal custodians responsible for conserving and protecting the rivers and their tributaries. It ordered that a management board be established within three months.
And those rivers weren't even the first. See also This New Zealand River Just Got the Legal Rights of a Person smithsonianmag
Antisemitism
Artist behind 'beware of Jews' sign apologises for causing offence theguardian
Franck Allais, a freelance photographer, said the contentious sign was part of an artistic project, which includes depictions of a woman pulling a shopping trolley, a man pushing his wheelchair and a cat.
Allais said he intended the project to be a comment on identity and that the sign in Stamford Hill, one of the largest Hasidic communities in Europe, was not an antisemitic statement. He said he was left shaken by the offence he had caused.
I posted the original story of this 'antisemetic' act yesterday on the previous blog, but appears that I (as well as several others) jumped to conclusions about the intent. I appologize for my part in passing the original story around.
Society
WATCH: University Students Stumble over Who Has Freedom to Live and Work According to Beliefs adflegal.org v
Don’t like President Trump? It’s fine to tell people you won’t write a speech supporting him. Muslim singer? No one should force you to perform at an Easter service under threat of government punishment. But for a Christian creative professional, photographer, writer, or artist, it seems they must live by a different standard. To get a sense of just how confusing this issue seems to be for some, we visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison to hear what students have to say.
Society
Meet the Trump admin official paid to promote LGBT ‘rights’ around the world lifesitenews
The decision to preserve open homosexual Randy Berry as Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons was reported Monday by the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade. It is another blow to pro-family advocates who oppose the LGBT agenda and are counting on Trump to root out homosexual and abortion activists from the foreign affairs bureaucracy after eight years of Obama’s leftist policies.
“The Obama administration has systematically filled the ranks of State with LGBTQ and abortion activists,” Perkins wrote in December. “Unless the next Secretary of State is willing to resist and remove this embedded agenda, the promotion and protection of true human rights, like religious liberty, will continue to languish.”
Society
Same-sex Valentine's Day cards are on the shelves at Sainsbury's for the first time home.bt w!
The 'cute' cards have a simple design featuring illustrations of a man and a man, and a woman and a woman, along with the words ‘You + Me’.
Abortion
Obama Bars States From Denying Federal Money to Planned Parenthood nytimes
Mindful of the clock ticking down to a Trump presidency, the Obama administration issued a final rule on Wednesday to bar states from withholding federal family-planning funds from Planned Parenthood affiliates and other health clinics that provide abortions. The measure takes effect two days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald J. Trump.
According to the department, repealing the rule would require a new rule-making process, or a joint resolution of disapproval by the House and Senate, with concurrence by the new president.
North Korea
North Korea Close to Having Nuclear-Armed ICBM: Official defensetech.org
North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, armed with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, but they have yet to solve the “re-entry problem” that would burn up the warhead as it hits the atmosphere, a senior military official said Thursday.
Society
5 things to know: Transgender case lands in Supreme Court sfgate
Grimm was allowed to use the boys' restroom at his high school for several weeks in 2014. But after some parents complained, the Gloucester County School Board adopted a policy requiring students to use either the restroom that corresponds with their biological gender or a private, single-stall restroom. Grimm says that policy violates Title IX, a federal law that bars sex discrimination in schools.
Also see US Supreme Court agrees to hear student privacy case adflegal v
Censorship
The slow creep and chilling effect of China's censorship dailydot
In the era of smartphones, instantaneous communication, and social media, you would’ve expected this news [Sonam Tso's act of self-immolation] to quickly spread around the world. It didn't. In fact, it was not until early May that civil society groups outside of Tibet were able to verify what had happened to Sonam Tso and alert the world. That was more than six weeks after the event has taken place—an eternity in the digital age.
Creatures
Computation of motion by T4 cells in the fly brain more complex than previously believed medicalxpress
Flies are usually very difficult to catch. No wonder – they invest around ten percent of their brain in the detection and processing of image motion. For the fly, a hand approaches in slow motion and the fly's evasive manoeuvre has long been triggered before any real danger arises. Scientists have been researching for decades how the fly brain can perceive and process movements so quickly and accurately. "Our goal is slowly coming into view, and we are close to completely decoding the neuronal circuit of motion perception in the fly," says Alexander Borst, who has been working on this problem with his Department at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology neuro.mpg.de for quite some time. The scientists have now come one step closer to the answer: They have provided experimental data that combine two theories previously considered as alternatives.
China
China building aircraft hangars on disputed islands in South China Sea, says US think tank scmp
Satellite photographs taken in late July show the construction of hangars on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly chain of islands and some have already been completed, according to a report by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
War
Military Success in Syria Gives Putin Upper Hand in U.S. Proxy War nytimes v
For the first time since Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian military for the past year has been in direct combat with rebel forces trained and supplied by the C.I.A. The American-supplied Afghan fighters prevailed during that Cold War conflict. But this time the outcome — thus far — has been different.
False Unity
Pope to young on Poland trip: Believe ‘in a new humanity’ washingtonpost
Pope Francis told young people who flocked by the hundreds of thousands to his words Sunday that they need to “believe in a new humanity” stronger than evil, and cautioned against concluding that one religion is more violent than others.
If you remember, Imagine was played quite a bit last year by various so-called 'globalists'. Sounds like P.J., himself, took a page from Lennon this week:
“People may judge you to be dreamers, because you believe in a new humanity, one that rejects hatred between peoples, one that refuses to see borders as barriers and can cherish its own traditions without being self-centered or small-minded,” Francis told his flock.
Society
Constitution Check: Does the First Amendment protect a wedding cake as an art form? blog.constitutioncenter.org
Lyle Denniston, the National Constitution Center’s constitutional literacy adviser, looks at a potential Supreme Court test case about religious beliefs, same-sex marriage and a Colorado bakeshop.
Also see Masterpiece Cakeshop petition to the Supreme Court adflegal pdf
Creatures
Scientists say they’ve just discovered a new species of whale quartz
The first hints of a new species came from Japan in 1940s, when whalers reported catching an unknown beaked whale. Then, in 2004, a dead whale washed up on an Alaskan shore that looked vaguely familiar. The next hint came in 2013, when Japanese scientists used modern DNA analysis to test old samples and found evidence that indeed this mysterious mammal may be new to us. Then, finally, in 2014, another washed up dead on a shore in Alaska.
Society
LGBT History Lessons Heading for California Classrooms abcnews.go
The State Board of Education cde.ca.gov unanimously approved those changes in classroom instruction Thursday to comply with the nation's first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay Americans and LGBT rights milestones in history classes.
Do you remember that lesson you learned in school about the danger of rulling parties of some, shall we say, "less free" nations projecting/rewriting history to suit its purposes?
Society
Transgender 'woman' arrested for voyeurism in Target changing room washingtontimes
Police responded to a call on Monday from a woman who said she noticed someone reaching over her stall and taking pictures while she was trying on clothes, the Post Register reported. The victim confronted the perpetrator, who ran out of the store.
Also see Transgender 'woman' accused of videotaping 18-year-old in Target fitting room pix11, where at least the police are shown with some remaining sanity:
Smith is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in Bonneville County and was booked as a male into the Bonneville County Jail bonnevillesheriff on a $30,000 bond.
UN
Fraud? What fraud? Watchdogs find UN in 'a state of near denial' about internal corruption foxnews
That is the main thrust of a 133-page examination foxnews of “fraud detection, prevention and response” across 28 organizations in the U.N.’s network, carried out by members of the world organization’s Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), a special group of experts mandated to carry out examinations across the entire array of U.N. funds, organizations and programs.
Israel
US accuses Israel of ‘systematically' seizing Palestinian land jpost
US State Department spokesman John Kirby further charged that such seizures plus “settlement expansions and legalization of outposts is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution.”
Apostasy
Scottish Episcopal church leaps towards allowing gay marriage theguardian
The Scottish Episcopal church voted on Friday by 97 to 51, with three abstentions, to remove a clause in its canon law that states that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. Before the change can be enacted, it must win a two-thirds majority in a second vote next year.
Synod members voted to delete the first clause of canon 31, which states: “The doctrine of this church is that marriage is a physical, spiritual and mystical union of one man and one woman.”
