Non-IT News Thread
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Guatemala's new president could give Trump a huge headache on immigration
Guatemala has a new president-elect -- and Donald Trump should probably pay attention.
Alejandro Giammattei, who looks to have secured nearly 60% of the vote in Sunday's poll, has been outspoken in his opposition to a migration deal that his predecessor, Jimmy Morales, signed with the United States last month. For Guatemalans, the result will probably be more of the same: another president who promises to combat corruption and bring an economic revival, but struggles or fails to alter the status quo on either, like Morales. And, worse than Morales, Guatemalan president-elect Giammattei must come to power with only 42% of voters bothering to turn up to the polls, and only 59% of them voting for him. Yet the stakes ahead are regional, if not global. More of the same means more of the economic collapse that preceded Giammattei and sent a record number of Guatemalans heading north, seeking a better life in the United States. In the border mountains of Huehuetenango, nearly 3% of the population has reportedly already fled to the US border since late last year. The conditions they were escaping include: climate change devastating crops; drug cartels running entire villages; flights of trafficker cocaine landing in the forest; and gang violence killing regularly. -
Tanzania governor wants to create a national database for married men in a bid to curb infidelity
The governor of Tanzania's largest city has announced a plan to create and publish a national database of married men to protect women from "heart breaks."
Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Paul Makonda said he has received a lot of complaints from women who were abandoned by their lovers after a marriage proposal, and that the planned database will help combat infidelity.
"I have been receiving complaints from women who have been promised marriage by men, yet the men didn't fulfill the promise. I know women who have been paying bills yet the men walked away ..." Makonda said in native Kiswahili. "If possible we will set up a database in the regional commissioner's office in each region that every man who promises a woman marriage, this should be registered in the database which will allow women to check to see whether the person asking is married ...," Makonda said at a Monday news conference. -
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
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@mlnews sounds like the women of Tanzania need to get better at vetting potential partners and smelling bullshit. "Promise of marriage" don't mean a damn thing, ladies.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
Apparently men's hearts don't get broken.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
Apparently men's hearts don't get broken.
I need to ask some missionary friends of mine about this. They'll be getting back to Tanzania in about a week, lol.
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@dafyre said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
Apparently men's hearts don't get broken.
I need to ask some missionary friends of mine about this. They'll be getting back to Tanzania in about a week, lol.
Do they need to register as being married?
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Greece wildfires leave blackened forests in their wake
Fires have been raging through a "unique, untouched pine forest" on the Greek island of Evia as authorities fight to keep the flames under control.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from nearby villages as the fire broke out in the early hours of Tuesday and ravaged through the dense forest. "It's a huge ecological disaster," acting regional governor Kostas Bakoyannis told AFP. More than 200 firefighters are helping to combat the blaze along with 75 fire engines, nine helicopters and seven planes, the news agency reports. Italy and Spain have offered additional aircraft to help dump water on the forests in an attempt to douse the flames burning through Greece's second-largest island. Other wildfires broke out on the island of Thassos as well as in the central region of Viotia and the Peloponnese. There was also a fire reported in Peania, a suburb of Athens. -
@mlnews said in Non-IT News Thread:
president-elect Giammattei must come to power with only 42% of voters bothering to turn up to the polls, and only 59% of them voting for him.
sounds like the US.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@dafyre said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
Apparently men's hearts don't get broken.
I need to ask some missionary friends of mine about this. They'll be getting back to Tanzania in about a week, lol.
Do they need to register as being married?
Dunno yet. I'll find out, lol.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
What I find interesting is this is an actual priority. Oh well, to each is own.
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@pmoncho said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@mlnews interesting. But not married women?
What I find interesting is this is an actual priority. Oh well, to each is own.
Well... Tanzania. It's not too surprising. In really, really poor countries women often have to pin their hopes on getting married as their only way out of extreme poverty and that desperation can be so significant that they can be easily taken advantage of. The Philippines is famous for this situation and has resulted in it becoming the sex trafficking capital of the world with a US Senator stating that 33% of all visitors to the country are there for the sex trade.
The promise or potential of marriage in a heavily conservative country where women don't have broad rights or access to education and jobs can be way more valuable than it seems in countries where women have access to those things and can work themselves out of poverty.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
work themselves out of poverty.
Why do you think they are in the sex industry in the first play?
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@DustinB3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
work themselves out of poverty.
Why do you think they are in the sex industry in the first play?
Exactly, but most sex trafficking just pays to eat, doesn't get you out of poverty. Sure didn't get me anywhere.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@DustinB3403 said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
work themselves out of poverty.
Why do you think they are in the sex industry in the first play?
Exactly, but most sex trafficking just pays to eat, doesn't get you out of poverty. Sure didn't get me anywhere.
I wonder if this is why so many of these countries have Chastity checks before marriage. Because the men are paranoid about the women having been a part of the sex trade.
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Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking tickets
Best comment:
It seems like the obvious answer is to refund him his forty bucks or whatever and issue him a standard California plate, and add NULL to the forbidden list.
Isn't that the standard procedure when somebody sneaks something vulgar or offensive through the screeners?
$20 says that the column in that table won't accept a NULL value. -
@nadnerB said in Non-IT News Thread:
Geeky license plate earns hacker $12,000 in parking ticket
But even more in lawsuits for falsifying tickets!
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Sudan just got a step closer to full democracy. Big obstacles remain
The Transitional Military Council's Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, and opposition demonstrator Ahmed Al-Rabee, raise hands after signing the historic agreement.
After almost nine months of violence and wrangling, Sudan came a step closer to a civilian government on Saturday when opposition leaders and military generals signed a power-sharing agreement in the capital, Khartoum. The choice of a fearsome commander on the signing table, and the absence of women who played a crucial role in the protest movement, show that obstacles still remain in Sudan's path to full democracy. The agreement follows protests that toppled 75-year-old dictator Omar al-Bashir, ending his 30-year rule over the northeastern African country. -
Jeremy Corbyn: General election will stop Brexit 'crisis'
The Tory party has "failed" the UK and a general election is the "change of direction the country needs", Jeremy Corbyn has said.
The Labour leader said the UK is facing a Brexit "crisis" and vowed to do "everything necessary" to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal. It comes after a leaked government report warned of food and medicine shortages in a no-deal exit. Cabinet minister Michael Gove said it outlined a "worst-case scenario". Speaking in Northamptonshire, Mr Corbyn said he supported recalling Parliament before MPs are due to return in two weeks' time so Brexit could be discussed. He said this would prevent Prime Minister Boris Johnson "having some kind of manoeuvre to take us out on October 31 without any further discussion in Parliament". Parliament could be reconvened if the government put a request in to the Speaker John Bercow. -
Trump tests a materialistic message to voters
President Donald Trump is not waiting for the economy to go south amid growing fears of a recession to wage what could be the defining fight of the 2020 election.
Trump is becoming increasingly nervous that the end of an 11-year expansion could scupper his hopes of a second term and is going on the attack as ill omens and recent stock market slumps haunt the global economy. "Most economists actually say we are not going to have a recession," Trump told reporters in New Jersey on Sunday. "Most of them are saying we will not have a recession but the rest of the world is not doing well like we are doing." A recession does not appear to be an immediate danger in the US but signs of a global slowdown are sprouting up everywhere, hinting that Trump could face a more difficult political environment in 2020 than expected. A successful reelection race in the face of a sluggish economy would represent the biggest sales job of the former real estate mogul's life and he would again rewrite the laws of political gravity.
