Interesting News Items

[SpareBen]

American couple undertakes international cycle tour to prove human kindness, gets killed by ISIS.


The two Americans killed in an ISIS-claimed attack in Tajikistan over the weekend were a couple from Washington D.C. who left their lives in the nation's capital to see the world together by bicycle. According to Lauren Geoghegan's parents, the year-long cycle adventure was typical of their daughter's "openness to new people and places, and her quest for a better understanding of the world."

Robert and Elvira Geoghegan confirmed in a statement sent to CBS News that Lauren and her boyfriend Jay Austin, both 29 years old, were killed in the attack on Sunday as they rode through Tajikistan with a group of other foreign cyclists. A car rammed into the group and then five men got out and attacked the tourists with knives. A Dutch and Swiss national were killed along with Geoghegan and Austin.

Tajik authorities blamed a domestic Islamic separatist group, but ISIS followed an initial claim of responsibility in print with a video showing the five purported attackers pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Geoghegan and Austin set off on their bicycle trip around the world in July 2017 in South Africa, and chronicled their journey with regular updates and photos on their SimplyCycling blog. The trip took them through Africa, Europe, and eventually into Central Asia, cycling first through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan before crossing into Tajikistan. They were using their life savings to fund the trip, and thus travelling on a shoestring budget.

"We are focused at this difficult time on the joy that Lauren brought to us, to her sisters, and to everyone she encountered," Geoghegan's parents said in their statement. "The yearlong bicycle adventure Lauren and her partner, Jay Austin, were enjoying was typical of her enthusiastic embrace of life's opportunities, her openness to new people and places, and her quest for a better understanding of the world."

The family asked for time to cope with their loss, and thanked the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan for providing "capable and compassionate" assistance.

Under the couple's recent blog entries, comments poured in from fellow-travellers and others simply inspired by the pair's dedication to studying humanity, and their conviction that, while "badness exists… by and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this."

Geoghegan was a Georgetown University graduate who also worked in the school's admissions office.

"We are heartbroken to hear of Lauren's passing in this devastating tragedy and have expressed our deepest condolences to her family," Georgetown's dean of admissions, Charles Deacon, said in a statement. "Lauren was a valued colleague and dear friend to many at Georgetown and an overall treasured member of our community."

Austin had worked at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and was an advocate for sustainable development.

[Miami-Ken]

'NOT GAY ENOUGH': RUBY ROSE, GATEKEEPING, AND TOXIC FANDOM

https://t.co/ycd8yFnpB1

And what exactly, pray tell, were those "fans" angry about? Oh, lots of things. They claimed Rose wasn’t a good enough actress; that Rose was too femme; the fact that straight women love her means she’s too mainstream; and that Rose was bisexual and thus not queer enough (One: Rose is a lesbian and two: DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF? BECAUSE BISEXUAL PEOPLE CAN). One of Rose’s last tweets before abandoning Twitter expressed bafflement over being, essentially, called not gay enough to play Kate Kane.

Yeah, just let that one sink in for a moment. A high profile genderfluid lesbian actress, whose resumé covers both stealing women’s hearts (Orange is the New Black) and frenetic action (John Wick 2), was cast as one of the highest profile lesbian superheroes, whose resumé also covers both of those things. And she got chased off of social media by “fans” for not being gay enough.

Since time immemorial, there have been some in the LGBTQI community whose response to meeting a new member of the community is a sneering “Oh, so you’re gay, huh? Prove it!” There is perhaps no more iconic rhetoric for this garbage attitude than the idea of the “gold star lesbian”—a lesbian who has never had sex with a man. Valuing this particular kind of life experience over others is a huge problem, because it tells women loving women that their identity as a lesbian doesn’t count if it’s taken them years to figure it out, if they’ve dated men for any reason, or if their identity has shifted and evolved for any reason. Essentially, it punishes lesbians for not having had their whole situation figured out before they jumped into the pool, so to speak. It punishes us for being human.

[Bucho]

KATG's old buddy Noam caught in some CK crossfire:

http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/louis...stle-joke.html

[Miami-Ken]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...w-inmates.html

A transgender prisoner charged with raping a woman was remanded to a female prison where she indecently assaulted four inmates, a court heard.

Karen White, 52, was sent to the jail despite the fact that she was a convicted sex offender and paedophile.

All her previous offences had been committed when she was a man – and White had not had gender reassignment surgery when she went to women-only New Hall Prison near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where the sex assaults took place.

The case could lead to a review of the rules for dealing with transgender inmates in the prison system.

Yesterday White pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to the historic rape of a woman in August 2003, when she was then called Stephen Wood.

Last month she also pleaded guilty at the same court to two counts of raping another woman between February and December 2016.

It was for these rape offences that White was remanded in custody to New Hall Prison.

And while locked up there she took advantage of living alongside women inmates to carry out further sex attacks.

White admitted sex assaults on two inmates and denied sexually assaulting two others. All the incidents took place between September and November last year.

She was transferred to HM Prison Leeds, a category B men's prison, after the jail attacks.

The sex assault offences she denied have been left to lie on file, as have a further rape allegation against the 2016 victim and a charge of controlling behaviour against her.

White had been living as a man called David Thompson before she began to identify as a woman.

She became Karen White and lived near Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire. She was in transition when she committed the latest rape.

White is also awaiting sentence for stabbing a neighbour. Yesterday she appeared in the dock with her auburn hair in a ponytail, wearing glasses and walking with a stick.

Judge Christopher Batty adjourned sentencing until October 11 for the preparation of reports and to obtain victim personal statements.

[astrokahn]

This is very funny to me.
Watch the video for sure to get the full beauty
https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxne...rican.amp.html

[FingerLakes]

https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaco...f=bffbbuzzfeed

Tony Hawk tweets about how people keep almost recognizing and insulting him in public

[SpareBen]

Not news exactly but I decided to google how flushable wipes are. Past guest Adam Conover has a lot to say on the subject.

[SpareBen]

Jehohah's Witness lawyer dismisses child abuse allegations as "fake news" - also compares them to fish.

Highlights from his opening statement:


You know, today there’s a lot of misinformation out there. If you watch the news media, they take one fact, and depending on their political leaning they take that fact and they change it. Some people refer to that as fake news. We don’t listen to fake news when it comes on the television, and we ought not listen to it in this courtroom.

And you should hear the whole story before you make any decision. In fact, sometimes people can just exaggerate because of the passage of time. For example, maybe you’ve been fishing down in the reservoir, right – and you go down fishing in the reservoir with your buddies, you catch a ten-pound pike. And then five years later that ten-pound pike is now 20 pounds. Ten years later that pike is now 30 pounds. But lo and behold, someone says, “you know I have a photograph of when we went fishing.” And when you compare the photograph to the story, you realize that the person, their memory has been affected by the passage of time. And in this case, we have documents, we have evidence to show that memories have been affected by the passage of time.


[...]

So now, what you’re hearing today, is that pike weighs 60 pounds. But in 2004 when her memory was fresh, before she had any idea of suing, for money damages, it was ‘I have just disclosed this.” That’s what she says. And then she goes on to describe the abuse.

Spoiler: he lost the case.

[SpareBen]

I blame American Horror Story.

Satan-Worshiping Girls Planned To Kill Classmates, Drink Their Blood

[scottperezfox]

https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...cent-explained

"... when they talk about food, even food that’s widely known by the non-Italian population, they often use a specific accent.

And it’s a weird one. “Mozzarella” becomes something like “mutzadell.” “Ricotta” becomes “ree-goat.” “Prosciutto” becomes “pruh-zhoot.” There is a mangling of the language in an instantly identifiable way: Final syllables are deleted, certain consonants are swapped with others, certain vowels are mutated in certain places. ..."