Rededication to Compassion Earns Catholic Church Praise
The leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has a lot of things going for him that his predecessor did not. In addition to having never been conscripted into Hitler’s Youth or favoring gaudy gold-filled religious relics, Pope Francis has garnered lots of praise for his compassion and humility. His recent comments about how it is not a good thing to have an economic system in which extreme poverty is so rampant upset Rush Limbaugh to the point where he called the pope “a Marxist,” which is an indisputable sign that he is doing good in the world. The pope has also made waves by commenting on homosexuality, saying, “We must always consider the person” and not their sexual orientation when deciding if they are good or bad. Pope Francis responded to Time Magazine’s decision in typically humble fashion, noting that, “Winning the award over Miley Cyrus’ gross ass and that guy that can’t come home to America because the Feds will lock him away in solitary confinement for the rest of his life is an honor.”
Boston Police Department Goes Back to Binoculars, Squinting
Damning investigative journalism conducted by MuckRock and the Boston Globe has forced the Boston Police Department (BPD) to stop using license plate readers (LPR). The BPD previously used 14 LPRs, which enabled them to track the movements of “as many as 4 million vehicles a year,” according to the Globe. Law enforcement policies vary a whole lot when it comes to the use of LPRs from state to state. What is clear is that the technology can be used to conduct warrantless surveillance on whomever the police department sees fit. Another eye-raising element of Boston’s use of LPRs was data that indicated a stolen Harley Davidson motorcycle came up on the plate scanners 59 times during a six-month period, but the stolen vehicle was never found or even stopped. As the ACLU pointed out, this means that the surveillance technology isn’t even being used for its stated purpose of targeting stolen vehicles. Boston will not resume LPR usage until greater oversight and regulation are implemented to protect the civil rights of both the police officers and citizens of the city. Instead of continuing work on this massively intrusive space-age surveillance program, the BPD will begin working on finding solutions to Boston’s unique wintertime parking situation that do not involve using dining-room chairs and fisticuffs to determine where people get to leave their cars.
Even the ‘Harvard Business Review’ Thinks a Lot of Jobs Don’t Pay Shit
Peter Cappelli’s blog, It’s Not OK That Your Employees Can’t Afford to Eat, makes a lot of salient points about how preposterous it is to think that it is possible for full-time workers at minimum wage jobs to get by and not struggle tremendously. Cappelli is professor of management at the Wharton School and the diligent kind of guy who will actually do the math to make it clear that those working for $7.25 per hour only make $1,160 per month rather than just write a vague, profane headline about it. His piece for the Harvard Business Review focuses on how corporations have focused their attention on satisfying their shareholders’ desires while ignoring those of their employees. Cappelli also discusses the morality of minimum-wage labor and how shareholders should be embarrassed for encouraging it. While fixing our inequitable economic system won’t be easy, the author does suggest that one Ivy League-approved way to reduce the disparity between “the haves” and “the have nots” is to steal a massively profitable social media idea from people like the Winklevoss brothers, since most of the public is slightly creeped out by twins and unlikely to side with them in resulting court cases.
Fox News Knows Santa Claus and Jesus Were White Guys Who Lived Near Savages
For journalistically inclined folks like Megyn Kelly of Fox News, the 12th month of the year is as good a time as any to make it clear to young viewers that Santa Claus and Jesus were good, hard-working Caucasians. A discussion brought on by Slate writer Aisha Harris’s piece “Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore,” detailing how white Santa made her feel bad as a child, veered wildly off track when Kelly finally had enough of listening to a black person tell her how the holidays should be. The host stuck up for white people across the land, noting, “Santa just is white. But this person is arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa. But you know, Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we’re just debating this because someone wrote about it, kids.” In typical Fox fashion, Kelly missed the point that Harris proposed replacing white Santa with a penguin to represent multiculturalism. After expertly explaining the current situation up in the North Pole, Kelly went on to make note of how it was messed up for the Jews to leave Christ on the cross for three days in the sweltering heat of the Middle East when they knew that his fair skin and soft blue eyes weren’t meant to be out in the hot sun all day.
Man Beats Black Friday Crowds; Steals Massage Chairs from Truck Stop
While most of you were waiting for Thanksgiving obligations to mercifully come to an end, a more enterprising individual in the Tristate set in motion a plan straight out of Ocean’s Eleven. In this case, the Bellagio was a truck stop in Boone County, Ky., and the role of the vault’s contents was played by two massage chairs. Crimestoppers said the suspect cut through one padlock and used a pick on the other. Local authorities are looking for information on the crime. To deter from future massage-chair thefts at the truck stop, its owners plan on positioning their replacements between the realistic shotguns attached to Big Buck Hunter Pro and Big Buck Hunter Safari.
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