PBS.org

We had two, yesterday!.

As the Founders intended.

An excerpt from "The Sports Gene":

Finch rocked back and then forward, whipping her arm in a giant circle. She fired the first pitch just high. Pujols lurched backward, startled by what he saw. Finch giggled.

She unleashed another fastball, this time high and inside. Pujols spun defensively, turning his head away. Behind him, his professional peers guffawed.

Pujols stepped out of the batter's box, composed himself and stepped back in. He twisted his feet into the dirt and stared back at Finch.

The next pitch came right down the middle. Pujols uncoiled a violent swing. The ball sailed past his bat, and the spectators hooted.

The next pitch was way outside, and Pujols let it go. The one after that was another strike, and Pujols whiffed again. With one strike remaining, Pujols moved to the back of the batter's box and dug in, crouching low in his stance.

Finch rocked and fired. Pujols missed badly. He turned and walked away, toward his tittering teammates. Then he stopped, bewildered. He turned back to Finch, doffed his cap and continued on his way.

"I never want to experience that again," he later said.

Fun fact: the Italian word “ciao” is derived from a Venetian expression meaning “[I’m your] slave” (the English equivalent would be “at your service”). From Late Latin “sclavus”, Italian “schiavo”, (initially “Slavic captive”; they were prisoners from the Balkans) the word in Venetian was “sciàvo”, later becoming “sciao”, until the modern “ciao”.

For some reason, this tune's been on a loop in my head lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoPpw7DNzCY

Never fear, little cleek. Brave Mr Rubio wants to close down all places where people are radicalized or radicals are inspired.

Goodie.

When I took the oath of office, I swore to do everything I could to protect the citizens of this state from harm. There is nothing more important to me than ensuring that we are safe and can gather in our public places without fear of mass, indiscriminate violence. The nightmare scenario — the one that keeps me up at night — is the one where some individual could easily and legally obtain a firearm and use that firearm to kill innocent American citizens and also that the individual doing the killing is Syrian.

... our freedom to kill Americans!

"While the Paris attackers used suicide vests and grenades,” Dale wrote, “it is clear that firearms also killed a large number of innocent victims. Can you imagine a scenario were [sic] a refugees [sic] is admitted to the United States, is provided with federal cash payments and other assistance, obtains a drivers license and purchases a weapon and executes an attack?"

...

While those applying for refugee status must complete “the most stringent security process for anyone entering the United States,” those attempting to purchase guns through private sales at gun shows in Texas and many other states are not required to undergo any background checks whatsoever. Virtually none of the millions of refugees admitted into the United States since 1980 have become terrorists, but the U.S. leads the world in mass shootings — almost all of which are perpetrated by people born in America.

One of the Paris attackers was supposedly found with a Syrian passport—leading Republican governors here in America to vow to block Syrian refugees from entering their states.

But that passport was a fake, French officials told The Wall Street Journal, which means the governors’ freakout over refugees was likely based on a lie.

...

French officials told the Journal that Ahmad al-Mohammed, who blew himself up outside the Stade de France, was carrying a counterfeit Syrian passport made for him. Al-Mohammed’s fingerprints matched those on the passport found near his body, the French added.

Greek officials said the information on Al-Mohammed’s passport was run against police databases after he landed in Leros on Oct. 3 and nothing was found. Another man carrying a passport with identical information, but a different photograph, was being used by a man in Serbia who was arrested on Monday.

Daily Beast

Apparently, there's an "Indianist" subculture across Europe.

Today, Indian clubs from Prague to Potsdam put on elaborate reenactments complete with acres of buckskin outfits while (mostly) waving off concerns about how redface paint and the appropriation of sacred symbols like eagle feathers might play with actual Native Americans.

Everyone's least favorite Christian sect, the Westboro Baptist Church, says they will picket outside Kim Davis’ Office. Because, they say, she’s a “Fake Christian”. Furthermore, they're calling for her to "HUSH and OBEY the law that she helped bring about." Which law? The law that allows gays to marry. They say she needs to start issuing marriage licenses to gay people.

If Kim Davis received mercy from God and grace, as she claims, she would, with all due haste put her sin away. She would mourn for her sins, and in a show of great mercy, she would be busy apologizing to the fags for enabling them, and she would, with all diligence, give those perverts a marriage license.

I think this about seals it: WBC must be a parody.