Society's Child

The tragedy of Robin Williams' undiagnosed brain disease

Susannah Cahalan
The New York Post
Sat, 05 May 2018 18:44 UTC

Robin Williams struggled to remember his lines.

This was unusual for the hyperverbal, Oscar-winning actor, and it hit him hard in Vancouver in 2014 during the filming of Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, the third movie in the successful family franchise.

"He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible," makeup artist Cheri Minns recalled. "I said to his people, 'I'm a makeup artist. I don't have the capacity to deal with what's happening to him.' "

Minns suggested to Williams that he return to stand-up to get out of his rut and reclaim some of his lost confidence. But he refused.

"He just cried and said, 'I can't, Cheri. I don't know how anymore. I don't know how to be funny.' "

First time US district court allows EyeDetect lie detector test results as evidence

Converus
Thu, 19 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC

After determining EyeDetect's scientific evidence sufficiently validates the technology, a New Mexico district court judge grants a Daubert Motion to accept the technology's test results as evidence.

For the first time since its release, EyeDetect test results will be allowed as evidence, thanks to a New Mexico judicial district court judge granting the defendant's Daubert motion. The trial date for this case is set for mid-May. The accused passed the EyeDetect test with a "credible" score.

EyeDetect is the world's first nonintrusive lie detection technology that accurately detects deception in 30 minutes by analyzing eye and other behaviors. It's currently used by more than 450 customers in 40 countries worldwide in 25 different languages. Several U.S. law enforcement agencies use EyeDetect to screen job candidates, including the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office in Las Cruces, NM.

"It's a significant milestone to have EyeDetect test results admitted as evidence in court," said Converus President and CEO Todd Mickelsen. "Attorneys with strong cases can now use EyeDetect to exonerate their clients."

Comment: The five Daubert factors include:

whether a method can or has been tested;
the known or potential rate of error;
whether the methods have been subjected to peer review;
whether there are standards controlling the technique's operation; and
the general acceptance of the method within the relevant community.

Kentucky: Judge Timothy Nolan pronounced guilty of human trafficking, 28 felonies, 22 victims

Red Pill
The Goldwarer
Fri, 04 May 2018 00:00 UTC

Breaking news to report out of Kentucky where former US District Judge Timothy Nolan has been found guilty of human trafficking in a case where he's previously been charged with a whopping 28 felonies including charges of rape, human trafficking, witness tampering, prostitution, unlawful transaction with a minor and sodomy. In total there were 22 victims of Timothy Nolan, each of whom he claimed that he was innocent of the allegations throughout the accusations and the trial.

The 71-year-old Campbell County Court Judge Timothy Campbell was handed down the guilty verdict in a courtroom where several of those victims were present, including one who claimed that she was Nolan's sex-slave, as reported by local NBC affiliate WLWT Channel 5.

Court documents describe Nolan as a grotesque individual who preyed upon innocent women and children, saying that he "used the money, drugs, housing, threats to call the probation office, and violent acts, as means to coerce, deceive and force the women to engage in the commercial sexual activity."

Pedophile substitute teacher charged with 66 counts of child sexual exploitation after child porn discovered on DVD player

The Goldwater
Mon, 07 May 2018 18:51 UTC

Disturbing news to report coming out of Atlanta, Georgia region where a former substitute teacher has been arrested on a stunning 66 counts of child sexual exploitation against prepubescent minors.

According to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, they were first tipped off about 65-year-old Ernest Shaw after he gave someone in Nicholson, Georgia a DVD player as a gift.

Once that unidentified person clicked through the multimedia files stored into the DVD player, they would discover perverse images and videos depicting minor children engaged in forced sexual acts with adults.

This led to that individual contacting the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, who later obtained a search warrant for Shaw's residence at 301 J.S. Williamson Court in Nicholson, Georgia.

Inside the home authorities discovered several other videos and images depicting the forced sexual assault of countless children, at which time he was taken into custody for further interrogation.

Fragile GWU students start petition to remove "extremely offensive" Colonials mascot

Teri Webster
The Blaze
Sun, 06 May 2018 18:42 UTC

George Washington University Colonials mascot

More than 200 George Washington University students have signed a petition to eliminate the school's mascot and nickname because they find "Colonials" extremely offensive.

Why is it offensive to them?

Students say they object to the "Colonials" connection to colonization and "systemic oppression," according to the group's petition. "Hippos" or "Riverhorses" would be more acceptable, the petition states.

The Colonials mascot has been in effect since 1926 as a nod to the university's namesake, George Washington. It was intended to reference colonial America and the Continental Army, according to published reports.

But across the nation, people are taking offense to everything from school mascots to park statues, often running successful campaigns to get them removed.

Comment: Dear GWU petitioners, we, as citizens of the world, believe it is of great exigence that you please shut up and please stop presuming to speak for us. Your jargon-laden offense-taking, no matter how innocent the intention, is received as extremely offensive by people with a modicum of common sense. Try getting worked up about something that actually matters.

FBI ignoring judiciary committee request: Will not collect Page, Strzok work messages sent on insecure 'non-FBI' accounts

Alex Pappas and Brooke Singman
Fox News
Mon, 07 May 2018 18:29 UTC

Lisa Page and Peter Strzok

Strzok's text refers to inter-agency meeting.

An FBI official says the bureau is not working to collect messages between anti-Trump FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, despite the request to do so from a top Republican senator as well as evidence suggesting they communicated about "work-related" matters on non-FBI accounts.

In a letter this week to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, Charles Thorley, the acting assistant director of the FBI's office of congressional affairs, said FBI employees are "required to adhere to record keeping policies in place where communications constitute records under the Federal Records Act."

But Thorley said "the FBI is not otherwise obligated to collect and/or retain all communications between its employees."

Comment: If the official material is bad, just imagine what was being sent on Strzok's and Page's personal accounts.

UN: Climate change the "single biggest threat to life" on earth - actual pollution not even mentioned

Thomas D. Williams, PhD
Breitbart
Fri, 04 May 2018 18:32 UTC

The United Nations Climate Change Secretariat released its first ever annual report this week, in which it held up its "Gender Action Plan" as a key to increasing the participation of women in responding to global warming.

"Climate Change is the single biggest threat to life, security and prosperity on Earth," said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa at the roll-out of the report.

"This annual report shows how UN Climate Change is doing everything it can to support, encourage and build on the global response to climate change," Espinosa said, adding that "UN Climate Change's mandate is to lead and support the global community in this international response, with the Paris Agreement and the Convention being the long-term vehicles for united global climate action."

In his foreword to the report, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, expressed a similar conviction that global warming poses a singular threat to the world in the third millennium.

"Climate change is the defining challenge of our time," Guterres warned, "yet it is still accelerating faster than our efforts to address it. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are higher than they have been for 800,000 years, and they are increasing. So, too, are the catastrophic effects of our warming planet - extreme storms, droughts, fires, floods, melting ice and rising sea levels."

Comment: It's debatable whether all those effects are due to human causes. And if the earth survived CO2 levels this high 800,000 years ago, perhaps the earth has an inbuilt feedback mechanism to take care of it, as in, an ice-age rebound?

Ipsos poll finds young British Muslims becoming more liberal - but more religious too

Zack Hassan
UK Independent
Mon, 07 May 2018 17:58 UTC

With the narratives on the topic of Islam turning stale, you'd be forgiven for thinking that nothing was changing. We have all seen critics of Islam and immigration point to conservative social attitudes among Muslims as proof of some deeper problem with Islam, and call on them to integrate.

Muslim apologists, in return, warn about the dangers of Islamophobia, cheer about celebrities like Mohammad Salah and Nadiya Hussein, and reiterate the well-known fact that Muslims consistently identify more strongly with Britain than other Brits do. Other Muslims, like Maajid Nawaz, instead acknowledge there is a problem and propose a "reformation" to address it, to lukewarm reception from everybody else.

So far, so boring. It would be easy to think that there's a straight choice: either be more British by being less Muslim, or be more Muslim while being less British.

So when Ipsos MORI released a review last month of all the major polling data on Muslim social attitudes to date, it's surprising that no one picked up on the significance of its findings. Delve into the detail and what you find is something completely new.

What it showed is that Muslims are becoming more liberal. But what was surprising was that they're not becoming less religious; if anything, the data suggests the opposite. The report noted rising religious observance over the 2005-2009 period, saying "this rise was particularly evident in the younger (16-29) age group (from 68 per cent to 80 per cent)" compared to 73-79 per cent for all Muslims.

Comment: If true, this survey shows some positive trends among second-generation Muslim immigrants. That's not to say conservative critics don't have some valid points, though. The surveys still show that a significant minority support the establishment of an Islamic state - anywhere from 2-7%. That's anywhere from 55,000 to 200,000 UK Muslims. Then again it's probably safe to say that 6% of any population is crazy.

Also, what role the wave of migrants will have is up for debate, in the UK and in Europe as a whole. It doesn't seem likely that their beliefs would match up with second-generation Brits who have lived their entire lives in the country.

Boy believed to be brain dead revived after parents sign consent for organ donation

RT
Mon, 07 May 2018 18:03 UTC

A miracle occurred as a 13-year-old boy in the US, believed to be brain dead following a traffic accident, was revived after his parents signed consent for organ donation.

The parents were told it would be nearly impossible for their son to recover from his injuries, and that he would most likely be a "vegetable" for the rest of his life. However, as soon as the doctors decided to withdraw life support, he defied all the grim predictions and regained consciousness.

Comment: Also see:
Danish teen wakes from the "dead" just as doctors prepare to harvest her organs

Ten countries hold 74% of the world's total private wealth

Jeff Desjardins
Visual Capitalist
Fri, 04 May 2018 17:50 UTC

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

According to market research company New World Wealth, the world has accumulated $215 trillion in private wealth, a 12% increase over the last year.

Incredibly, the vast majority of this wealth - about 73.5% - is held by just 10 countries:

Telling the truth? What a fucking joke. Liz Cheney is the spawn of Satan.

tekdude

Why, even Inspector Clouseau could crack this case. His first and most important clue was THE GREAT DECEPTION (CB), from there on out it was an...

Solare

The covid smokescreen is slowly being lifted. This is bad. Really bad. I f the US go for this crap it is just a question of time for Canadians...

Demore

I can see a devious actor impersonating a witless dictator to ridicule and bring down a country. From memory and experience I know that worked...

codis

THE HIGHER LAW I think, for maximum safety and security, all citizens deemed to be of the 'lower type', should have their brains removed and...

nedlud

Society's Child

The tragedy of Robin Williams' undiagnosed brain disease

First time US district court allows EyeDetect lie detector test results as evidence

Kentucky: Judge Timothy Nolan pronounced guilty of human trafficking, 28 felonies, 22 victims

Pedophile substitute teacher charged with 66 counts of child sexual exploitation after child porn discovered on DVD player

Fragile GWU students start petition to remove "extremely offensive" Colonials mascot

FBI ignoring judiciary committee request: Will not collect Page, Strzok work messages sent on insecure 'non-FBI' accounts

UN: Climate change the "single biggest threat to life" on earth - actual pollution not even mentioned

Ipsos poll finds young British Muslims becoming more liberal - but more religious too

Boy believed to be brain dead revived after parents sign consent for organ donation

Ten countries hold 74% of the world's total private wealth

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