An Italian comedian named Sabina Guzzanti is facing up to five years in jail for making fun of the Pope. Here's the sort of criticizing of religion that can get you in jail in Italy:
"But then, within 20 years the Pope will be where he ought to be — in Hell, tormented by great big poofter devils, and very active ones, not passive ones."
Keelhauling women for insolence appears to be a common theme in these kind of things.
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In a post to Twitter this Tuesday, CNN legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig called on people to review the 9:29 video of Derek Chauvin putting his knee on George Floyd's neck and ask themselves, "Is this a reasonable use of force?"
"Do it again," he wrote. "Another minute of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd. Pause. 'Still reasonable?' Floyd says he can't breathe. Pause. 'Still reasonable?' Floyd goes silent. Hit pause. 'Still reasonable?' Floyd goes limp. 'Still reasonable?'"
Honig writes that once one is done viewing the entire video, they should ask "much longer could Chauvin have kept his knee on Floyd's neck and still been reasonable? Five more minutes? Twenty more minutes? Ever?"
Do it again. Another minute of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd. Pause. “Still reasonable?” Floyd says he can’t breathe.… https://t.co/LJ9LpuhPJ7— Elie Honig (@Elie Honig)1618344091.0
See his entire Twitter thread here.
After President Donald Trump lost his 2020 election, Republicans have looked for ways to stack the deck against Democratic voters to ensure it's more difficult to vote.
Such is the case in Michigan, where one GOP proposal would go so far as to ban links on the Secretary of State's website for people searching for vote-by-mail applications, reported The Guardian's voting rights reporter Sam Levine.
I had missed this, but one GOP proposal in Michigan would even bar the SoS from providing voters with a link on her… https://t.co/KGZyimgquR— Sam Levine (@Sam Levine)1618345106.0
The bill was introduced by Senators Ruth Johnson, Jon Bumstead, Kim LaSata, Kenneth Horn, Lana Theis, Jim Stamas, Dale Zorn, Roger Victory, Tom Barrett, Kevin Daley, Rick Outman and Curt Vanderwall.
Sen. Johnson is the same Republican who proposed a 2018 law that similarly attacked vote-by-mail, oddly after she told the Kalamazoo Regional Chamber that there was "no widespread voter fraud" during the previous election.
As world leaders prepare for this November's United Nations Climate Conference in Scotland, a new report from the Cambridge Sustainability Commission reveals that the world's wealthiest 5% were responsible for well over a third of all global emissions growth between 1990 and 2015.
"Rich people who fly a lot may think they can offset their emissions by tree-planting schemes or projects to capture carbon from the air. But these schemes are highly contentious and they're not proven over time."
—Peter Newell,
Sussex University
The report (pdf), entitled Changing Our Ways: Behavior Change and the Climate Crisis, found that nearly half the growth in absolute global emissions were cause by the world's richest 10%, with the most affluent 5% alone contributing 37%.
"In the year when the U.K. hosts COP26, and while the government continues to reward some of Britain's biggest polluters through tax credits, the commission report shows why this is precisely the wrong way to meet the U.K.'s climate targets," the report's introduction states.
The authors of the report urge United Kingdom policymakers to focus on this so-called "polluter elite" in an effort to persuade wealthy people to adopt more sustainable behavior, while providing "affordable, available low-carbon alternatives to poorer households."
The report found that the "polluter elite" must make "dramatic" lifestyle changes in order to meet the U.K.'s goal—based on the Paris climate agreement's preferential objective—of limiting global heating to 1.5°C, compared with pre-industrial levels.
In addition to highlighting previous recommendations—including reducing meat consumption, reducing food waste, and switching to electric vehicles and solar power—the report recommends that policymakers take the following steps:
"We have got to cut over-consumption and the best place to start is over-consumption among the polluting elites who contribute by far more than their share of carbon emissions," Peter Newell, a Sussex University professor and lead author of the report, told the BBC.
"These are people who fly most, drive the biggest cars most, and live in the biggest homes which they can easily afford to heat, so they tend not to worry if they're well insulated or not," said Newell. "They're also the sort of people who could really afford good insulation and solar panels if they wanted to."
Newell said that wealthy people "simply must fly less and drive less. Even if they own an electric SUV, that's still a drain on the energy system and all the emissions created making the vehicle in the first place."
"Promisingly, we have brought about positive change before, and there are at least some positive signs that there is an appetite to do what is necessary to live differently but well on the planet we call home."
—Cambridge Sustainability Commission
"Rich people who fly a lot may think they can offset their emissions by tree-planting schemes or projects to capture carbon from the air," Newell added. "But these schemes are highly contentious and they're not proven over time."
The report concludes that "we are all on a journey and the final destination is as yet unclear. There are many contradictory road maps about where we might want to get to and how, based on different theories of value and premised on diverse values."
"Promisingly, we have brought about positive change before, and there are at least some positive signs that there is an appetite to do what is necessary to live differently but well on the planet we call home," it states.
The new report follows a September 2020 Oxfam International study that revealed the wealthiest 1% of the world's population is responsible for emitting more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorest 50% of humanity combined.
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