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Rabbi divorce "gang" reveals perils, complexities of divorce in ultra-Orthodox ... CBS News (CBS) - It sounds utterly bizarre: a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis allegedly accepting tens of thousands of dollars to kidnap and torture Jewish men to force them to grant their wives a divorce. But Benny Rogosnitzky, a New York cantor and a ... Orthodox rabbis charged with torture, kidnapping plotNew York Post 2 Rabbis Arrested in Cases of Alleged TortureABC News Rabbis Charged With Kidnapping Husbands Who Refused DivorcesTablet Magazine The Republic -Bustle -Memphis Commercial Appeal all 100 news articles »

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	Word: "That's a nice idea, but if we're going to celebrate the struggle of indigenous people against genocide and slavery, maybe the right people to celebrate are the indigenous heroes and victims of Europeans, not Europeans who thought better of the unconscionable, no matter how thoroughly they repented."

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The latest of The Oatmeal makes a pretty compelling case for hating Christopher Colombus, whose achievements ("discovering" America, sailing from Europe to America, proving the curvature of the Earth) are all BS. More importantly, though, is what Colombus did do: launched a campaign of genocide in order to terrorize indigenous people gold-mining slavery, a program buoyed up by mass slaughter, mutilations, and systematic sexual slavery of girls as young as nine or ten.

Matthew Inman, the Oatmeal's author, proposes celebrating the life of Barolome de las Casas, who also set out to slave and murder his way through the New World, but changed his mind, took the cloth, and spent 50 years defending indigenous people. That's a nice idea, but if we're going to celebrate the struggle of indigenous people against genocide and slavery, maybe the right people to celebrate are the indigenous heroes and victims of Europeans, not Europeans who thought better of the unconscionable, no matter how thoroughly they repented.

Inman cites Howard Zinn's excellent People's History of the United States as a primary reference for the piece, and I concur: Zinn's work and those derived from it (like the graphic novel and the audio of dramatic readings) are important and fantastic works.

Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not) - The Oatmeal

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Price. Vincent Price.

The US government is running out of money to pay its bills. It is so close to reaching the statutory limit on debt at this point that US Treasury secretary Jack Lew has taken “extraordinary measures” to delay becoming delinquent on payments owed.

Republicans offered a deal today to temporarily raise the debt limit, but the saga has left the Treasury with just $32 billion in its operating accounts, less than is held by nine Standard & Poor’s 500 companies in cash and short-term investments. General Electric has nearly three times as much readily accessible cash as the US government right now.

Just six months ago, the Treasury had $151 billion to spend, following US annual tax collection for 2012.  (Those receipts were unusually high as Americans tried to avert higher taxes in 2013 according to Nancy Vanden Houten a government and policy analyst at Stone McCarthy Research Associates.)

Several years ago, Central Connecticut astrophysics professor Kristine Larsen figured out the structure of the solar system from J.R.R. Tolkien's work, using hints scattered throughout the books as well as her own knowledge of Tolkien's source material (which is, not surprisingly, our own solar system).

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ATLANTA—After missing four consecutive days this week, sources close to Marcus Vick confirmed that the former Virginia Tech quarterback is considered unlikely for his Sunday afternoon shift at Sbarro.

barlevg writes "Analyzing hand-prints found in cave sites, an archaeologist from Penn State University has concluded that roughly 75% of all ancient cave art was painted by women. Previously it was thought that neolithic cave paintings were made mostly by men, perhaps to chronicle their kills. But an analysis of the relative lengths of fingers in hand stencils found on cave walls suggests that it was mostly prehistoric women--not men--who created these works."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NBC has acquired U.S. broadcast rights for Welcome To Sweden, a comedy being produced by Amy Poehler and her brother Greg. The show both stars and is based on the life story of the male Poehler, who was living in New York until he fell in love with a Swedish girl and followed her back to her homeland. The show will be shot in Sweden, and should feature a mix of both Swedish and American actors, including Solsidan’s Josephine Bornebusch, Illeana Douglas, and, of all people, Patrick Duffy. Guests like Will Ferrell, Aubrey Plaza, Gene Simmons, and the aforementioned female Poehler will also pop in throughout the season.

Welcome To Sweden is actually the first show ever commissioned by Swedish network TV4 that will air in English. It’s also the first show NBC has been involved with in some capacity that shoots in Sweden. 

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Speed kills

Vincent Van Bat

popular shared this story from The Things They Fumbled.

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gimmepizzauoldtroll:

REAL TALK.

Headlines & Global News

Biological father, tribe give up the fight over Baby Veronica Chicago Tribune By Heide Brandes OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The biological. father of a 4-year-old Cherokee girl at the heart of a protracted custody battle said Thursday he is giving up the fight for "Baby Veronica" so that she may live in peace with her Dusten Brown, Cherokee Nation drop further ligitagation in Veronica caseNative Times 'Baby Veronica's' Biological Dad, Cherokee Nation Drop Legal FightNPR (blog) Dusten Brown to stop custody fight for VeronicaNewsOK.com The Herald | HeraldOnline.com -Public Radio Tulsa all 60 news articles »

	rachel shared this story from Librarian Shaming:
	"masturbation" is misspelled FML

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Cataloging is complicated glorified data entry : ǂb MARC must die / ǂc by a cataloger. 

nicocw:

Finally, the President explains the purpose for the shutdown.

No doubt reminded of the character’s charms when we brought him in to play us for this Newswire, NBC has ordered a reboot of Remington Steele, the 1980s series in which each week Pierce Brosnan unwrapped the mystery of a new, dashing suit. The updated Remington Steele will actually be a sequel, concerning as it does Olivia Holt, the daughter of Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist’s characters from the original, only this time repackaged as a half-hour comedy. In the contemporary version, Holt reopens the detective agency that her mother ran with the help of a con man who pretended to be her male superior—as this was the 1980s, an era when women were incapable of detecting anything without the aid of a handsome man making wry comments—and soon finds herself falling into “the same hilarious, action-packed, romantic entanglements of her parents,” even though today’s ...

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The thing about Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk is I can never quite tell when they’re kidding and when they’re being serious. The two are obviously masters of intentional camp, of moments that are meant to heighten the onscreen action to point out its inherent ridiculousness, but I can never quite decide just where the line between that and the many, many instances of unintentional camp in their various shows begins and ends. For instance: In the opening scene of American Horror Story: Coven, Kathy Bates, as the historical serial killer Madame LaLaurie, chews out one of her daughters for having sex with a slave, and the moment is shot through with the sort of arch campiness that Murphy and Falchuk often apply to sexuality. There’s talk of “rutting” and other archaic terms, and we’re obviously meant to be chuckling, at least a little bit.

But ...

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In “Rebuilding New Orleans” the personalities of the chefs in this season of Top Chef begin to emerge, which means that it’s already becoming clear who are going to be some of the heavyweights for the season. This episode features the season’s first quickfire—a late-night challenge to make gumbo by the next morning—and a food truck challenge, which is the centerpiece, elimination challenge. Carrie from Iowa, who was in the top three last week, sweeps both competitions, getting immunity in the quickfire that she doesn’t even need as she leads the yellow team to victory. It’s early, but it’s hard to imagine that this show isn’t going to be a major launching pad for her career. She’s already managed to impress several celebrity chefs (last week, Emeril; this week, Leah Chase and Susan Spicer. More on them both in a minute ...

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One of my favorite things I learned in high school, a lesson from my ninth-grade English teacher, was that every time you write a story, you are allowed to place in it a single tear. Shedding more, she said, is “not literary,” and bawls would wash away your grade. I love this lesson because it is wrong. There aren’t rules about this kind of thing. But it prevented a generation of melodramatic teenagers from plinking out prose about crying in the rain. And since I’m pretty sure adolescent tales of “I’m sobbing alone because no one understands me” are the No. 1 source of teacher resignations in America, this was one wrong rule for the greater good.

If someone submitted Beyond: Two Souls to my English teacher, they would be kept after class. There is one scene, early in the game, where crying is used effectively. Here ...

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Women rarely commit murder, but forensic psychiatrist Sigrun Rossmanith has treated many female killers. She explains why women's dark side is underestimated.

It's not a trick - Double Fine really is treating iOS players to Costume Quest, out now on the App Store for $5, with the Grubbins on Ice DLC available for $2 extra. It's an unexpected arrival for the kindergarten RPG that's an oddball mixture of trick-or-treating, turn-based RPG combat, and typical Double Fine humor. That said, it's bang in time for Halloween.

We put four chocolate stars in Costume Quest's candy bucket back in 2010, our review deeming it "sweeter than the candy the game's heroes and villains pursue so relentlessly."

Costume Quest in iOS getup, out now originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 10 Oct 2013 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eighty light-years from Earth, there's a world that's just six times more massive than Jupiter, floating all alone without a sun to keep it warm, astronomers reported Wednesday.