A fresh wave of hard-right populism is stalking Europe

In Germany, the AfD are weaponising climate change

The Economist — Sep 14th 2023
A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of a rising hard right. In Germany the overtly xenophobic Alternative for Germany (afd) has surged to become the country’s second-most popular party.
Its success is polarising domestic politics and it seems poised to triumph in state elections in the east next year. In Poland the ruling Law and Justice party is leading the polls ahead of a general election on October 15th, and it is being drawn further to the right by an extreme new party, Confederation.

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Is This for Real? Life in space discovered?? Gwynne Dyer Says, “Maybe Yes.”

Life discovered on planet 120 light years from Earth

– Gwynne Dyer is a UK-based Canadian journalist and historian who writes about international affairs

This week’s real news is the discovery of life on another planet. As Cambridge University’s Nikku Madhusudhan said in the first sentence of his report: “The search for habitable environments and biomarkers in exoplanetary atmospheres is the holy grail of exoplanet science.” And he has probably found the Holy Grail.

Continue reading Is This for Real? Life in space discovered?? Gwynne Dyer Says, “Maybe Yes.”

Kim Davis, Antigay Kentucky Clerk, Must Pay $100K for Refusing Same Sex Marriage License

Kim Davis, Kentucky County Clerk who denied gay couple marriage license, must pay them $100,000

 

Kim Davis, former Kentucky county clerk

 

A former Kentucky county clerk must pay $100,000 to a gay couple she denied a marriage license, a federal jury decided on Thursday.

Kim Davis, formerly the Rowan County clerk, attracted international attention when she refused to issue the license after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, landing her in jail on a contempt of court charge for five days.
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Aliens in the Mexican Congress?? Sworn Witnesses Said “Yes.” But is “Seeing” Believing??

AP News: Scientists call fraud on supposed extraterrestrials presented to Mexican Congress

Sept. 13, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Supposed aliens landed in Mexico’s Congress but there were no saucershaped UFOs hovering over the historic building or bright green invaders like those seen in Hollywood films.

The specter of little green men visited Mexico City as lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday from individuals suggesting the possibility that extraterrestrials might exist. The researchers hailed from Mexico, the United States, Japan and Brazil.

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When Hanging Wasn’t Brutal Enough for Black Prisoners: Southern Whites Brought In “Old Sparky”

From Reading Religion:

The End of Public Execution

Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South

By: Michael Ayers Trotti

266 Pages — $32.95

  • Published By: University of North Carolina Press

Michael Ayers Trotti’s The End of Public Execution: Race, Religion, and Punishment in the American South opens with a short transcription of a newspaper article about an Atlanta hanging. The report is about the 1891 execution of Frank Danforth, a Black man who had been convicted of the murder of his wife. The report mentions preachers saying prayers and singing, Danforth swaying to religious music, his repeated testimony to his belief in his own salvation, and white women who stood on a jailhouse fence to watch his execution. Trotti observes that the report describes Danforth’s execution as private because it was done behind jailhouse walls, even though hundreds of people were in attendance.

Continue reading When Hanging Wasn’t Brutal Enough for Black Prisoners: Southern Whites Brought In “Old Sparky”