Wednesday, March 01, 2017

Been a long time since I read Farenheit 451,

and I hadn't remembered this bit about how the burning started:
“You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right?…Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, to the incinerator.”
And before you get offended, let’s clarify what Bradbury means by minorities. He’s not talking about race. He’s talking about it in the same way that Madison and Hamilton did in the Federalist Papers. He’s speaking about small, interested groups who try to force the rest of the majority to adhere to the minority’s set of beliefs.


I don't want to hear another damned word from these bloody hypocrites about someone else's carbon footprint.


Short version: "If you let people fix this themselves, or pay someone else, WE won't be able to charge an arm and leg for it!"


So UC Berkeley said "We had no idea this might happen!"  And they lied:
...They asserted that the violent protests—sparked by an appearance by conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos—weren’t something that they ever could have anticipated.

But emails between the college and officials with the city of Berkeley’s Mayoral Office seem to contradict that notion. The emails, acquired by Heat Street through the California Public Records Act, show that UC Berkeley had actually written to city officials in the days leading up to the event warning about the possibility of large numbers of “off campus protesters” and the potential for the protests to “spill over into adjacent streets and neighborhood.”

In addition, the emails also reveal that an anarchist group that has claimed responsibility for sparking the chaos emailed city officials more than a week before the event to inform them that they were planning to “defend” the college from hate speech.


Damn.  
The head of the Swedish ambulance drivers' union confirmed in a recent interview with journalist Paulina Neuding the existence of "no-go zones" where it is too dangerous to enter without police protection.
...
Grattidge explained to Neuding that the problem with these areas is linked directly to immigration policy in the country. "In these areas, the no-go zones, the majority of the people are immigrants."


Gattridge went on to tell Neuding that ambulance drivers are blocked from leaving these areas and have had rocks thrown at them. He also said "hand grendes have been thrown at police" in majority-immigrant areas.


That's the nicest way of saying "The idiot pulled the trigger when he shouldn't have" I've ever read.
“made an error of manipulation whilst changing position”

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