Disney accused of appropriation for trademarking Swahili words 'Hakuna Matata'

Disney says that they're protecting their business interests. The last time I looked, "protecting business interests" and "cultural appropriation" are overlapping circles on the Venn diagram of corporate behaviours - it's possible to do both at the same time.

Hi folks Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!

Is there a way you can set the allowed search rate to something higher than ⅟₃₀ Hz for logged-in users?  Sometimes I'm trying to find something in a thread and don't know the exact text of what I'm looking for, and then I keep refreshing the search page until it actually does the search.

I can't believe it took me this long to think of that obvious pun...

But so this isn't a total shitpost, all this flak May has been catching about it - is it just my memory being flaky, or was she not actually in favor of the idea back when the original referendum was happening, and working toward it since being a matter of doing her job to take the instructions presented by the people and Parliament and make the best she can of them? Because at l;east as far as I can see from the reporting I've read about it, she really has gone to the wall and kept on pushing and looking for weak spots to get the best deal the rest of the EU is willing to accept on the whole affair, given that it's going to happen in the first place. That much seems true whether she really believes in it being a good idea or not.

The first day of winter is looking record-breakingly warm and rather wet down here in the Bridgewater Triangle, but today it is.

It's time for the end of season 2 of the Trump Presidency, and wow, were there some twists and turns over the year.  But now, the cliffhangers keep piling on.  It's like Trump saw the season 1 ender for Twin Peaks, and thought hey, I can do more cliffhangers than that.  And then he told Theresa May, "You call that a shambles?  I can show you a better shambles, I'm the most shambolic person I know, believe me."

Key highlights of this week's episode:

• Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, will be out after this season, gave a great Farewell Monologue, where he blamed everyone else for not cooperating, and how his leadership has ballooned the federal budget deficit to $1 trillion.  Guy still looks good though, I think he's doing a David Caruso with his "retirement".
  
• Interior Secretary and man under ethics investigation Ryan Zinke announce his surprise retirement from government.  Just like Game of Thrones, once you get to know these characters, they're gone.
  
• A federal judge in Texas struck down the entire Obamacare law, sending the health care markets into a tailspin.  No one really knows what will happen this time, as the verdict seems prima facie dumb, but we have a new conservative majority on the Supreme Court.  Will we have health care?  Will some of you die?  No time to find out now, because...
  
• Michael Flynn was scheduled to be sentenced for lying to the FBI and both sides said "no jail time, please."  Then the judge threw this out the window, talked about how General Flynn arguably disrespected what the flag stood for.  He asked the prosecutor if Flynn could have been charged with treason; the prosecutor wasn't sure, and asked to look up the statute!  (Spoilers: no it's impossible, there's no statute it's in the Constitution).  But we flew well past the "courtroom actually considers treason charges for respected general who served as National Security Adviser" waterline...
  
• The U.S. Congress shows a rare bipartisan chops, by passing a criminal justice reform bill to reduce sentences (First Step Act) and a huge Farm Bill.  Hemp is now legal!  It looks like we can finally get along and work together.  Until...
  
• After Trump promised to take credit for a government shutdown, we all thought that Congress would just pass a 6 week bill to fund the government.  But Trump is not having it, and threatened to veto and shut it all down unless he gets $5 billion to pay for part of his border wall.  Will they or won't they -- will the government shut down for good?
  
• Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker asked for an informal opinion on whether he could oversee the Special Counsel.  They said that he should recuse himself, informally.  He said, OK, I guess I'm not going to ask for a formal opinion and I'm totally going to oversee the Special Counsel.
  
• Robert Mueller looks to be in the final stages of charging Roger Stone of lying to Congress.  Will he flip?  Sexy spy Maria Butina did flip -- but is she a double-flipper?  Leaked court filings suggest that Mueller's not taking any chances, leaving a gag order in place.  Sexy redheads with gags... uh, moving on.
  
• The Interior Department moved to open all of the North Shore of Alaska to oil drilling.  Public comment is now open.  Will they listen to the public?  (Spoilers: no)
  
• Trump announced to the Defense Department (and incidentally the rest of the world at the same time) on Twitter that the U.S. would withdraw all soldiers from Syria.  Vlad and Bashir gave two thumbs up.
  
• Trump directed DoD to come up with a plan to remove all troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible.
  
• Defense Secretary Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, the last of the so-called "adults in the room", resigned in protest.  Obviously upset about military withdrawals, he penned a letter saying in essence that he believes in alliances and using our military to protect others through partnerships instead of authoritarian intimidation.  He resigned because Mr. Trump does not share those values.
  
• With the government in freefall, will Trump head to Mar-a-Lago tomorrow to vacation with unpaid Secret Service protecting him?  Find out tomorrow!
  

I'm gonna sticky this one so that people can use it as a suggestion box to drop plot bunnies and the like.

One thing I've been itching to do is a deconstruction fic of GATE: The Day the JSDF Fought.  Of course, everyone knows: the shit is just plain broken.

The biggest thing is the complete absence of US Armed Forces.  I'll grant that maybe the JSDF might have been on the scene first, but you can bet that they would have been there to establish the beachhead on Alnus Hill.

The real trick will be writing it so that none of the major characters really get written out of the plot.

Thoughts?  Or other story suggestions?

It seems this was the result of the omnishambles combined with a catastrofuck that President Dumbbell just made in the Middle East, with the Kurds getting the shaft.

Quote:In his resignation letter, Gen Mattis described his views on "treating allies with respect" and using "all the tools of American power to provide for the common defence".
"Because you have the right to have a secretary of defence whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down," Gen Mattis wrote.

GoFundMe For Border Wall Passes $4 Million, 0.4 Percent Of $1 Billion Goal

Some entrepreneurial soul has decided to help some people lighten their wallets and set up a Go-Fund-Me campaign for the White House's resident dumbbell border wall.

How is this supposed to work? Who knows.

I mean, you can give the money to the Treasury, but the Power of the Purse resides with the House (which will turn majority Democrat in a couple of weeks) who decides who gets what money, and I don't see how they expect to compel them to allocate that money to the wall.

A NASA engineer gets revenge on the scum who steal packages from people's doorsteps:



ETA: Oh, and there's an article on CNBC about the guy and the video.