Republican Lieutenant Governor Says Trans Rights Are the Antichrist’s Work in Another Vile Rant

PINK NEWS: North Carolina’s lieutenant governor Mark Robinson was caught on camera again ranting against the LGBT+ community, calling the trans rights movement “demonic” and “full of the spirit of Antichrist”.

North Carolina's lieutenant governor Mark Robinson said the trans rights movement is "demonic" in a video at the Upper Room Church of God in Christ in August. (Twitter/@RightWingWatch)
Right Wing Watch published a video of the Republican lawmaker speaking at the Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina, in August. In the video, Robinson claimed there “ain’t but two genders”.

In a virulently transphobic rant, he said: “You can go to the doctor and get cut up, you can go down to the dress shop and get made up, you can go down there and get drugged up, but at the end of the day, you are just a drugged-up, dressed-up, made-up, cut-up man or woman.

“You ain’t changed what God put in you, that DNA.” » | Maggie Baska | Wednesday, October 13, 2021

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Kongsberg: Deadly Bow and Arrow Attack Suspect in Norway Had Converted to Islam

A man arrested over a bow and arrow attack in Norway in which five people died had converted to Islam police have said.

The 37-year-old Danish citizen is accused of the killings of four women and a man on Wednesday night in the southern town of Kongsberg.

He was arrested and questioned for several hours overnight.

La Pologne poursuit son bras de fer avec l’UE

Le 10 octobre, de nombreux Polonais ont manifesté leur opposition au retrait de la Pologne de l’Union européenne. KRZYSZTOF ZATYCKI/NurPhoto via AFP
LE FIGARO : La décision du Tribunal constitutionnel contestant la primauté du droit européen sur le droit national est entrée en vigueur mardi.

La décision du Tribunal constitutionnel polonais, jugeant certains articles du traité sur l’Union européenne «incompatibles» avec la Constitution, n’aura finalement pas tardé à être publiée dans le Journal officiel. Ce mardi 12 octobre, cinq jours après l’annonce de son contenu, la décision qui dénonce «l’ingérence » de la Cour de justice de l’UE(CJUE) dans le système juridique polonais est entrée en vigueur.

Dans la presse polonaise, la nouvelle est passée presque inaperçue. Il est vrai que ce tribunal n’est plus considéré comme légitime par de nombreux juristes et experts internationaux. Certains journaux polonais refusent de l’appeler «Tribunal constitutionnel», préférant le qualifier de «Tribunal de Julia Przylebska», du nom de sa présidente, amie personnelle de Jaroslaw Kaczynski, chef du parti majoritaire au pouvoir. Un élément de chantage » | Par Hélène Bienvenu | mercredi 13 octobre 2021

Réservé aux abonnés

Finding a Retirement Home If You’re LGBT

Apr 20, 2015 • Ageing gays and lesbians should have the choice of specialised retirement homes, according to a new association aiming to fill a gap in the market.

Retired gardener Sigi Strickenberger is partly paralysed. Seven years ago he discovered a gay and lesbian home care service. Having a gay nurse looking after him is important. He feels he can only really be himself in front of someone who can also relate to him.

In Zurich an association has been set up with a view to building retirement homes and apartments for LGBT people as well as to installing other services for old age. It’s generating interest, even among younger people, some of whom also hope to find a place in an LGBT home for themselves one day.

As long as Strickenberger is healthy enough, he would like to stay at home with the aid of the gay home care service. But should the time come, he could well imagine moving to an LGBT old people’s home.

Being surrounded by people with the same interests is important. In an LGBT home, entertainment might be a drag show rather than an afternoon ballroom dancing. Plans are to have the first LGBT home up and running in five years. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)

LGBT Documentary: Gay, Old and Out

Feb 27, 2018 • Meet the people who paved the way for LGBT rights. It has been a long hard fight to secure acceptance for the LGBT community, and the older people who fought the fight often get overlooked and forgotten.

For LGBT history month this documentary follows the astonishing and moving stories of the members of the Opening Doors London project - whose personal struggles and successes paved the way.

Today’s Gay Kiss of the Day Dedicated to the Hacker!

Photograph: Adobe Stock

Message

It appears that this blog has been hacked yet again! I have not taken the Gay Pride flag down, nor my message(s), nor my email address, nor any of the links in the right-hand side bar. They have all been taken down by a hacker.

It really is high time for him to ask his mother to buy him a rattle to play with – as a matter of urgency! That way, we can all be left in peace, and he would be pacified. – Mark

The City of London Is Hiding the World’s Stolen Money

Toby Melville/Reuters
OPINION: GUEST ESSAY
THE NEW YORK TIMES: In 1969, two years after the Cayman Islands, a British territory, passed its first law to allow secretive offshore trusts, an official government report struck an ominous note. A tide of glossy propositions from private developers, it warned, was washing through the islands. Cayman was fast becoming a state captured by shady finance.

Those were the pungent beginnings of a modern system brought to light by the Pandora Papers, an enormous data leak coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The papers exposed a smorgasbord of secretive and questionable financial dealings by more than 330 politicians and public officials from over 90 countries and territories — and over 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States and elsewhere. On display was a dizzying array of chicanery and wealth hoarding, often by the very people who should crack down on it.

The revelations, published on Oct. 3, are global in scope. But if there is one country at the system’s heart, it is Britain. Taken together with its partly controlled territories overseas, Britain is instrumental in the worldwide concealment of cash and assets. It is, as a member of the ruling Conservative Party said last week, “the money laundering capital of the world.” And the City of London, its gilded financial center, is at the system’s core. For Britain, whose bloated financial sector exacerbates widespread economic problems, that’s bad enough. For the world, at the mercy of an economic system rigged for the rich, it’s even worse. » | Nicholas Shaxson | Monday, October 11, 2021

BSE: Grossbritannien wird den Rinderwahnsinn nicht los – ein neuer Fall hat nun Konsequenzen

NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG: Die grosse BSE-Epidemie liegt ein Vierteljahrhundert zurück. Doch bis heute haftet britischem Fleisch ein Stigma an. Und immer wieder gibt es neue Fälle von Rinderwahnsinn auf der Insel. So wie im vergangenen Monat – jahrzehntelange Bemühungen könnten damit vergebens sein.

Am 17. September ist es wieder so weit: Auf einem Bauernhof in der Grafschaft Somerset wird ein neuer Fall der Rinderkrankheit BSE bestätigt. Das infizierte Tier sei gestorben und entfernt worden, teilt die britische Tier- und Pflanzengesundheitsbehörde (Apha) umgehend mit. Und die oberste Veterinärbeamtin des Vereinigten Königreichs betont: «Es besteht kein Risiko für die Lebensmittelsicherheit oder die öffentliche Gesundheit.» » | Melchior Poppe | Diensrag, 12. Oktober 2021

Pologne: «Le droit européen doit-il prévaloir sur la souveraineté et l'identité de ses membres ?»

«La Pologne est un État souverain et n'est pas entrée dans l'UE pour perdre cette souveraineté durement conquise». AFP
LE FIGARO : FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE - Le Tribunal constitutionnel polonais s'est prononcé contre la suprématie absolue du droit de l'Union européenne. Max-Erwann Gastineau estime qu'une nation démocratique ne saurait déléguer sa politique à des juges européens non-élus.

Diplômé en histoire et en science politique, Max-Erwann Gastineau est essayiste. Il est l'auteur d'un essai remarqué, Le Nouveau procès de l'Est (Éditions du Cerf, 2019).

En 2005, la figure du «plombier polonais», symbole de la dérégulation économique et migratoire, cristallisait l'opposition du peuple français au projet de Constitution européenne. Plus de quinze ans après, c'est une autre figure, celle du juge polonais, qui cristallise les tensions.

En cause, le refus par la Pologne de répondre aux injonctions de la Cour de Justice de l'Union européenne (CJUE), qui exigeait le retrait d'une réforme controversée de son système judicaire. Refus motivé par les juges du Tribunal constitutionnel de Varsovie qui, dans une décision datée du 7 octobre dernier, qualifient ces injonctions d'illégitimes, la question de l'organisation du système judiciaire n'ayant jamais été transférée par les États à l'Union européenne (UE) et, de ce fait, portée à l'appréciation du juge européen.

Plus qu'un tour de passe-passe juridique, une décision «gravissime», estime Clément Beaune, Secrétaire d'État aux affaires européennes, posant les prémisses d'un futur polexit ? Il faudra nous expliquer ce qui sépare fondamentalement la décision du juge polonais de la philosophie de la Cour de Karlsruhe, où siègent les juges constitutionnels allemands. » | Par Max-Erwann Gastineau | mardi 12 octobre 2021

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Won’t Resign over Anti-LGBTQ+ Remarks

THE GUARDIAN: White House joins condemnation of Republican Mark Robinson over comments on children, homosexuality and transgenderism

Mark Robinson speaks in Raleigh, North Carolina, in April. Photograph: Rachel Jessen/REX/Shutterstock
The Republican lieutenant governor of North Carolina has said he will not resign or back down over remarks in which he called transgenderism and homosexuality “filth”.

Mark Robinson, the first African American to hold the post, made the remarks in question at Asbury Baptist church in Seagrove, North Carolina, in June.

“There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth,” he said, in video posted to social media.

“And yes, I called it filth, and if you don’t like that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.”

Condemnation extended to the Biden White House. » | Martin Pengelly | Sunday, October 10, 2021

Raiders Coach Resigns after Homophobic and Misogynistic Emails

THE NEW YORK TIMES: In emails detailed by The New York Times, Raiders Coach Jon Gruden casually used misogynistic and homophobic language to disparage people.

In a postgame news conference Sunday, Raiders Coach Jon Gruden addressed an email in which he used a racist trope to describe DeMaurice Smith, the head of the N.F.L. Players Association. | Rick Scuteri/Associated Press
Jon Gruden stepped down Monday as the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders football team hours after The New York Times detailed emails in which he had made homophobic and misogynistic remarks, following an earlier report of racist statements about a union leader.

His resignation was a striking departure from the football league for a coach who had won a Super Bowl, been a marquee analyst on ESPN and returned to the N.F.L. in 2018 to lead the resurgent Raiders, which he had coached years before.

“I have resigned as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders,” he said on Twitter in a statement issued by the team. “I love the Raiders and do not want to be a distraction. Thank you to all the players, coaches, staff, and fans of Raider Nation. I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.” » | Ken Belson and Katherine Rosman | Monday, October 11, 2021

Richard Dawkins on Religion

May 16, 2013 • An interview with renowned atheist Richard Dawkins on whether religion is a force for good or evil.

Fanaticism, fundamentalism, superstition and ignorance. Religion is getting a bad press these days. Much of the conflict in the world, from the Middle East to Nigeria and Myanmar, is often blamed on religion.

But how are things from a different perspective? Defenders of religion claim Adolf Hitler was an atheist. Communism under Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot or Mao Zedong banned religion, but also massacred millions. And science brought incredible and amazing advances, but also pollution and the atomic bomb.

A critic of religious dogmatism, Professor Richard Dawkins revolutionised genetics in 1976 with the publication of The Selfish Gene, which explained how evolution takes place at the genetic level. He has since written 12 more bestsellers, including The God Delusion which sold millions of copies, was translated into more than 30 languages, and catapulted him to the position of the world's foremost atheist.

Mehdi Hasan interviews evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins at the Oxford Union and asks: Is religion a force for good or evil? Can it co-exist with science? Is science the new religion? And why if god does not exist, is religion so persistent?

Barbra Streisand : Woman in Love

Brazil Has the Highest Coronavirus Death Toll after the United States | COVID-19 Special

Oct 8, 2021 • Brazilian President Bolsonaro called it "a little flu". Now his country has the highest coronavirus death toll after the United States. Infection and death rates are slowly easing but that's little consolation for the bereaved.

Poland: Thousands Turn Out for Pro-EU Rallies after Court Ruling | DW News

Oct 10, 2021 • Thousands are attending pro-European Union rallies across Poland with the main event taking place in the capital Warsaw. It comes just days after the country's landmark ruling against the bloc.

On Thursday, a top court ruled that some Polish laws have priority over European Union laws. The European Commission expressed "serious concerns" over the ruling - while the opposition in Poland warned of the possibility of the country leaving the 27-nation bloc.


Why Is Poland Fighting the Supremacy of European Union Courts?: Poland argues that its courts should supersede the bloc’s top court. The E.U. sharply disagrees. »

Zu Tisch ... in Graubünden | ARTE

Oct 10, 2021 • Der Kanton Graubünden liegt in den Schweizer Alpen. Die Region ist berühmt für Bündnerfleisch und Bündner Nusstorte. Und eine seltene Kiefernart, die nur in alpinen Hochlagen wächst: die Arve. Die Schreinerin Barbara Schuler-Rozzi verwendet das Holz der Arve nicht nur in ihrer Werkstatt, sondern auch beim Kochen zum Aromatisieren.

Der Kanton Graubünden im Südosten der Schweizer Alpen beeindruckt mit imposanten Panoramen und malerischen Bergdörfern. Die Bergwelt ist in der Bündner Küche allgegenwärtig. In den kurzen Gebirgssommern gedeihen vor allem widerständige Gewächse wie Mangold, der für Capuns – Krautwickel mit Spätzleteigfüllung – verwendet wird. Oder auch Gerste, die als Grundlage für einen kräftigen Eintopf dient, die Bündner Gerstensuppe. In den Bergen haben sich haltbare Speisen bewährt. Die bekanntesten Spezialitäten sind die Bündner Nusstorte mit karamellisierter Walnussfüllung und das magere Bündnerfleisch, das über Monate an der Luft getrocknet wird. Eine Besonderheit der Region wächst in den Hochlagen der Bündner Alpen. Die Arve, auch als Zirbelkiefer bekannt, ist reich an ätherischen Ölen, deren intensiver Duft über Jahre erhalten bleibt. Die Pflanze wird jedoch nicht nur für Möbel und ganze Zimmerausstattungen wie das Arvenstübli verwendet. Ihre Extrakte eignen sich auch zum Verzehr. Barbara Schuler-Rozzi führt in dritter Generation eine Schreinerei in Bergün, einem Dorf an der Straße über den Albulapass. Barbara arbeitet in ihrer Werkstatt oft mit Arvenholz, experimentiert damit aber auch gern in der Küche. Mit Arvenholzspänen aromatisiert sie Eis, und aus getrockneten Arvennadeln bereitet sie ein schmackhaftes Bett für warmen Ziegenkäse. Weil dem Duft der Arve eine beruhigende Wirkung zugeschrieben wird, baut die Schreinerin auch richtige Betten aus Arvenholz, unter anderem für ihren jüngsten Sohn Maurus, der gerade von zu Hause auszieht und so den Geruch der Heimat in sein neues Leben mitnimmt.

Esskulturreihe, Regie: Hanna Leissner (D 2016, 26 Min)

Holocaust: Deutsche Muslime, Christen und Juden besuchen Auschwitz | DW Reporter

Oct 10, 2021 • Am Ort des Holocaust kommen sie mit Zeitzeugen ins Gespräch, teilen ihre Eindrücke miteinander. Solche Begegnungsreisen sind nötig, lautet die Erfahrung der Veranstalter, denn im Schulunterricht in Deutschland wird die Geschichte der Nazidiktatur nicht immer umfassend behandelt; manchmal nur als ein Zeitabschnitt unter vielen. Da gibt es Nachholbedarf - und die Chance, durch die drastische Konfrontation mit dem Grauen der Shoa aktuellem Antisemitismus und antimuslimischen Rassismus zu begegnen. Am Ende sind sich die TeilnehmerInnen einig: Jeder junge Deutsche sollte einmal in einem ehemaligen KZ gewesen sein. Eine Reportage von Axel Rowohlt.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz Steps Down But Stays in Power | DW News

Oct 10, 2021 • Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has resigned. He has been under pressure over allegations he bribed a newspaper for favorable coverage prior to his election as party leader and then chancellor.

As he made that announcement on Saturday, Kurz said he wasn't involved in any criminal activity. And that he was standing aside to prevent a government crisis after his Greens coalition partner said he was unfit to lead the country. Kurz was expected to face a vote of no confidence in parliament next week.


Related links

Merkel in Israel: What Has She Meant for German-Israeli Relations? | DW News

Oct 10, 2021 • German chancellor Angela Merkel is on a farewell trip to Israel before she leaves office. After a morning meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the German leader met with the Israeli cabinet. The trip caps Merkel's sixteen years in power, which saw the chancellor deepen relations with the Jewish nation-state. With Merkel's impending departure, Israel is bracing for a new chapter in the relationship.

Speaking at the start of her visit, Angela Merkel said she finds the progress Israel and Germany have made particularly moving.

It’s been 56 years since Germany and Israel formally established diplomatic relations. In the following decades, ties between the two countries have slowly become closer. But the psychological scars of the past still run deep.

March 2008 saw a landmark moment when Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first chancellor to address the Knesset – Israel's parliament – in German.

Merkel’s final visit as chancellor this week will be her eighth – more than any of her predecessors. For 12 of her 16 years as chancellor, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was her counterpart. But the smiles for the cameras often faded away behind closed doors.

Germany continues to insist on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But the likelihood of that happening has shrunk dramatically. One major reason is the expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which Germany deems illegal under international law.

Still, Germany has stuck by Israel's' side. Most recently, during a violent flare-up in the conflict between Israel and Gaza earlier this year, which saw rockets fired by Hamas and Israel. With Merkel's impending departure as chancellor, comes a new chapter. But regardless who fills Merkel's shoes, relations with Israel will remain as unique – and complicated – as ever.