motherjones:

Women. Serving as voiceless repositories of forensic material since forever. Sigh.

invisiblelad:

bapgeek:

Side note: This nation has a history of seeking ways to disarm black people/people of color.

I think this is a fitting response to the absolute moron who was talking about Dr. King, slavery and gun ownership earlier in the week. 

From the Article: 

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote.  Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that … and we all should be too.

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the “slave patrols,” and they were regulated by the states. 

In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state.  The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings. 

As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, “The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search ‘all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition’ and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds.”

It’s the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, “Why don’t they just rise up and kill the whites?”  If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains.

(via brashblacknonbeliever)

scifigamingmom:

deliciouskaek:

sinidentidades:

Hong Kong action hero Jackie Chan has once again provoked criticism, this time from an American blogger, after suggesting on Chinese television that the US is the “most corrupt” country in the world.

“When you talk about corruption — the whole world, is there corruption in the United States? The most corrupt in the world!” the Rush Hour star, who has made headlines recently for his controversial views, told Phoenix TV last month.

Chan reaffirmed his view after the show’s host questioned him — “Of course! Where did the great breakdown come from? The world, the United States started it,” Chan said, referring to the financial crisis and gesticulating as he spoke.

His comments were rebuked Thursday by Max Fisher, a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Post, who called them “anti-American” rhetoric that was rooted in China’s insecurity.

“To the degree that Chan’s comments were anti-American, they likewise reflect a common Chinese view of the United States, one that is rooted not just in attitudes toward America but in China’s proud but sometimes insecure view of itself,” Fisher said.

Jackie Chan also said China is a relatively young country, where in the first half of its history it was “bullied by so many people”, and that it only achieved “real success” in the past decade.

“Our country’s leaders admit they are corrupted, etcetera. We are improving — I can see our country is constantly improving and learning,” he said, adding that everyone is making an issue out of China because it is “powerful” now.

Chan, who is known for his martial arts skills and daring stunt work, sparked criticism in Hong Kong, which was returned to China in 1997, after he reportedly told a Chinese magazine last December that protest in the city should be restricted.

In the same interview, he said that he was bullied by Hong Kong triads and had to hide in the United States. He also said he needed to carry a gun everyday to protect himself, leading to a police investigation.

oop

“Anti-American” must be code for telling the truth.

(via thatfeministdyke)

ianto-motherfucking-jones:

pennywhistle:

brbshittoavenge:

Wow. Apparently the owner companies of Applebee’s, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell are saying they have no control over franchisees cutting full-time employees to part time hours to avoid having to offer them health care. Looks like I’ll be boycotting those restaurants until the corporate offices take more responsibility and put pressure on all their franchisees to not screw over their employees. 

Denny’s and the parent company that owns Red Lobster and Olive Garden saw their profits drop sharply when they did the same thing, so boycotting works. Everyone deserves health care, and it’s just plain wrong to cut someone’s hours to avoid a legal obligation.

This is the biggest reason I will support Starbucks forever. While other companies are cutting hours so they don’t have to give their minimum-wage earners health care, Starbucks offers it to those who work 20 hours a week, and they’ve been offering it for a long time. I know it’s saved my life.

Okay people.

These are *franchise owners*, not the actual corporation saying this.  Franchise owners are generally giant scumbags so I fully advocate boycotting!  Unfortunately, not all of the franchise owners are doing this and there are also corporately owned stores too.  So please research locally to make sure the franchises are in on this shit before you boycott.

And now an anecdote:

I used to work for an IHOP that was corporate run before the resident trust fund kid’s father helped him buy it.  I say kid, but the guy was a full grown man in his 40s with a wife and kids.  The idiot ran the business into the ground, the state and federal tax services seized all of the business’ assets and the idiot eventually went on the lam.

Google ‘Pancake Partners’ and ‘Brad woodard’ if you’d like to know more.

Moral of this story is: a corporate owned IHOP generally isn’t a bad place to work!  Under Brad, however, we had no health care, no vacation pay and our paychecks routinely bounced.  So the working conditions vary greatly from franchise to franchise. 

Yes, these are individual franchisees doing this, not the corporations themselves. However that doesn’t mean that there is nothing that the parent corporation can do about it. In order to operate a franchise the franchisee has to sign a franchise agreement that has certain standards that the franchise has to maintain in order to keep their license from the parent company.

These standards cover everything from maintaining food and service quality, to standards for the look of the structure, to advertising standards, to agreeing to honor coupons issued by the parent company, and so on. These franchise agreements are the sort of thing that are normally for a certain term, and have to be reviewed and renewed periodically, and usually contain some sort of clause allowing the parent company to either retract the franchise agreement, or take over a location, if the franchisee doesn’t maintain those standards.

All of that is to say this, if the parent company wanted to they could do something about franchisees who pulled things like this. They could update their corporate standards and make it known that they expect their franchises to meet those standards within a certain period of time, or when franchise agreements came up for renewal they could amend the language, or any of a number of other things.

It is a case where silence from the powers that be is the same as agreement.