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Scot Peterson, officer who did nothing during Parkland school shooting, arrested and charged with neglecting duty

Tonya Alanez
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 17:22 UTC
Scot Peterson
© Amy Beth Bennett
Ex-Broward deputy Scot Peterson at a first-appearance court hearing on Wednesday, June 5 2019
When every second counted, as students were screaming and dying in their classrooms, school security officer Scot Peterson hid rather than respond. His inaction resulted in his arrest Tuesday on charges of neglecting his duty.

Peterson stood alone in the Broward County Main Jail's prisoner assembly room for his first court appearance Wednesday morning. He is charged with seven counts of child neglect with great bodily harm, three counts of culpable negligence and exposure to harm, and one count of perjury, records showed.

Broward Judge Jackie Powell set bonds totaling $102,000 with conditions that included surrendering his passport. His attorneys noted his passport was at his North Carolina home and argued Peterson should not be required to remain in jail while someone flies there to retrieve it. Powell denied the request.

The extraordinary case of a cop charged with failure to act could land Peterson in prison for up to 97 years - though some experts warn that the charges will be difficult to prove.
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Red Flag

University of Michigan offers course on fake news coverage of Trump

Grace Gottschling
Campus Reform
Tue, 04 Jun 2019 18:36 UTC
cnn building
The University of Michigan is offering a course during the fall 2019 semester on bias and inaccurate reporting in the news media, specifically when it comes to covering President Donald Trump.

"News Media Ethics," COMM 435, will explore what the president has labeled "fake news" reporting. In the course, students will ask: "How do journalists cover the news? Do they report it honestly and truthfully? How valid are claims by critics that news media behaved unethically in their coverage of Donald Trump?"

Elise Boddi, chief administrator in the University of Michigan Communication Studies Department, confirmed to Campus Reform on Monday that, as of that moment, the course is still being offered but noted that things could always change. She added that at this time, there are no plans to cancel the course.
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Eye 1

Amazon's new patent means Alexa will listen to everything you say by default

Peter Dockrill
Science Alert
Tue, 28 May 2019 15:14 UTC
Alexa dot
© Andres Urena/Unsplash
A newly revealed patent application filed by Amazon is raising privacy concerns over an envisaged upgrade to the company's smart speaker systems. This change would mean that, by default, the devices end up listening to and recording everything you say in their presence.

Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant system that runs on the company's Echo series of smart speakers, works by listening out for a 'wakeword' that tells the device to turn on its extended speech recognition systems in order to respond to spoken commands.

On Amazon's devices, the wakeword is 'Alexa', but similar systems control how Apple devices work ('Hey Siri') and also Google's ('Hey Google'), not to mention products from other tech companies.

In theory, Alexa-enabled devices will only record what you say directly after the wakeword, which is then uploaded to Amazon, where remote servers use speech recognition to deduce your meaning, then relay commands back to your local speaker.

Comment: See also:

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Star of David

Cruel and unusual punishment: IDF violence in Gaza leaves 3 children a month disabled for life according to WHO


Middle Ease Monitor
Mon, 03 Jun 2019 14:03 UTC
gaza child amputee israel
© Ali Jadallah - Anadolu Agency
Palestinian student Mohammed Abu Hussain from Gaza, who lost his leg after being shot by an Israeli sniper during "Great March of Return" demonstrations, sits on a chair holding his crutches at the playground of his school in Gaza City, Gaza on 3 September 2018.
At least three children in the Gaza Strip are left permanently disabled every month as a result of armed conflict and Israeli violations, data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed.

The report by the WHO, released on Friday, cited data collected between March 2018 and March 2019, and stated that in the past year alone, a total of 172 Gazans were injured in such a way that they were left disabled for life, 36 of whom were children, meaning that one person is affected every other day.

Amputations make up an overwhelming proportion of permanent disabilities, with the most common cause being high-intensity gunshot wounds resulting in 121 amputations. Health agencies and organisations have warned that the number could rise if Gaza's medical services are not urgently upgraded.
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Handcuffs

Circuit court rules that police can't just arrest someone for cursing at them

Jon Miltimore
Foundation for Economic Education
Tue, 04 Jun 2019 13:50 UTC
police car
© Pixabay
The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a US District Court decision that refused to throw out a civil lawsuit against an Arkansas police officer who arrested a man who yelled a curse word at the officer as he conducted a traffic stop on another citizen.

What Happened

According to court documents, in 2015 Arkansas State Trooper Lagarian Cross was performing a traffic stop on a Fort Smith highway when he heard a passerby yell "f*ck you" out of the window of a moving car. The remark prompted Cross to end his traffic stop and pursue the car. After making the stop, Cross arrested Eric Roshaun Thurairajah on a charge of disorderly conduct, stating the profanity constituted "unreasonable or excessive noise."

Thurairajah spent hours in jail for the utterance, court records say, before the charge was dropped and he was released under his own recognizance.

Thurairajah, however, was not done.
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Attention

Sacramento: Neighbors put out a warning after finding cats cut in half

Anna Giles
CBS Sacramento
Fri, 31 May 2019 13:41 UTC
Blue the cat
© Nancy Olsen
Blue the cat that was found chopped in half.
People in a Sacramento neighborhood said they're finding cats sliced in half and decapitated.

This is happening in the Arden Arcade area and neighbors want to warn others about the problem.

Nancy Olsen lives on Laurelwood Way and said her beloved family cat was found on a nearby school's front lawn, cut in half. She's convinced this isn't a coyote or other wild animal based on how the animal was cut.

"It's really hard to wrap your head around seeing your animal chopped in half and we don't know where the other half of his body was," she said.

Olsen had been a mother to her cat named Blue for five years. Her son found Blue severed last Saturday while he was out walking.
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NPC

New book 'Superior: The Return of Race Science' perpetuates myth that studying racial differences is racist

Bo Winegard and Noah Carl
Quillette
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 00:01 UTC
female races
© AdobeStock
A review of Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini, Beacon Press, 256 pages (May, 2019)

The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatisation, and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct...
~Charles Darwin, 1871, The Descent of Man

Angela Saini's new book, Superior, is a cautionary tale about the historical legacy, and putative return, of what she calls "race science." As far as we can determine, there are four main theses running through the book:
  • 'Race' is not a meaningful biological category
  • Genes can only contribute to population differences on certain "superficial" traits
  • Studying whether genes might contribute to population differences on non-superficial traits is tantamount to "scientific racism"
  • Almost everyone interested in whether genes might contribute to population differences on these other traits is a "scientific racist"

Comment: Here we have yet another example of how the sciences are under attack from Social Justice academics. Whenever an area of study is deemed to be out-of-bounds, one's red flags should be raised. Political correctness is a scourge on any area of society, but within the sciences, it is truly eggregious.

See also:

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Handcuffs

4 dead, 1 injured in motel shooting in Darwin, Australia - Gunman arrested

Neda Vanovac
ABC
Wed, 05 Jun 2019 11:05 UTC
darwin shooting
© ABC News: Clara Latter
The alleged gunman is being held at Royal Darwin Hospital.
The 45-year-old suspect, who witnesses said was armed with a pump-action shotgun, started his shooting spree at a motel in the CBD about 5:45pm before travelling in a ute to four other locations, including to the outskirts of the city and back again.

He was arrested after calling NT Police and trying to enter police headquarters in what Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said may have been an attempt to hand himself in.

The man was known to police, having been released on parole in January, and was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner told a media conference the incident was not believed to be terror-related.

Comment: This week also saw the deadliest mass shooting in the US so far this year: 12 dead, 4 injured by gunman at Virginia Beach Municipal Center

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Biohazard

How Monsanto manipulates journalists and academics

Carey Gillam
The Guardian
Sun, 02 Jun 2019 05:00 UTC
Roundup
© Mike Blake/Reuters

Monsanto's own emails and documents reveal a disinformation campaign to hide its weedkiller's possible links to cancer.

Over the past year, evidence of Monsanto's deceptive efforts to defend the safety of its top-selling Roundup herbicide have been laid bare for all to see. Through three civil trials, the public release of internal corporate communications has revealed conduct that all three juries have found so unethical as to warrant punishing punitive damage awards.

Much attention has been paid to Monsanto conversations in which company scientists casually discuss ghostwriting scientific papers and suppressing science that conflicts with corporate assertions of Roundup's safety. There has also been public outrage over internal records illustrating cozy relationships with friendly regulators which border on - and possibly cross into - collusion.

Comment: The above is only part of the reason Monsanto (Bayer) should be considered for the Lifetime Acheivement in Planetary Evil award. They are, quite simply, despicable and psychopathic, stopping at nothing to maintain the illusion that their products are safe, injuring and killing millions in the process. The murky, under-handed corporate espionage is simply jaw-dropping. And yet the EPA still recognizes glyphosate as "extremely safe". Nothing to worry about here, obviously.

See also:

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Stock Down

Anti-trust investigation coming? Facebook, Google regulatory woes erode $137 billion from FANG stocks

Elena Popina
Bloomberg
Mon, 03 Jun 2019 18:49 UTC
Facebook Google stock plunge
© Bloomberg
A wave of antitrust probe headlines on Facebook Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. just yanked about $137 billion from FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) stocks' market values.

Some $41 billion evaporated from Facebook on Monday as a person familiar with the matter said the U.S. Federal Trade Commission will oversee antitrust scrutiny into whether the firm's practices harm competition in the digital market under an agreement with the Justice Department. That added to early-morning losses as the group was hammered by a report the Justice Department was preparing an antitrust investigation into Google. Some $52 billion was erased from Google's market value as the stock fell 6.9%, on pace for the lowest close since Jan. 3.

Comment: From Reuters:
Alphabet shares slide 6% on possible DoJ antitrust probe
June 3, 2019 / 6:07 PM

Alphabet Inc's shares closed 6% down on Monday following reports that the U.S. Justice Department may investigate Google for hampering competition.

The potential investigation represents the latest attack on a tech company by the Trump administration, which has accused social media companies and Google of suppressing conservative voices on their platforms online.

Alphabet's market capitalization was reduced by $54 billion as its shares recorded their biggest drop outside earnings since April 2011. Facebook Inc closed 7.5% down, while Amazon.com Inc fell about 5%.

Amazon shares were also pressured by news that the company could face heightened antitrust scrutiny under a new agreement between U.S. regulators, which puts the e-commerce giant under the trade commission's watch.

Evercore ISI analyst Kevin Rippey cut his price target on the Alphabet stock by $50 to $1,200, the second lowest on Wall Street and well below the median price target of $1,350...

Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post said a possible investigation could lead to a breakup.

"To break up Google, the DoJ would likely have to file a lawsuit and convince judges that Google has undermined competition. It is very rare to break up a company but not unheard of," Post wrote in a note...

The U.S. Justice Department has jurisdiction for a potential probe of Apple Inc as part of a broader review of whether technology giants are using their size to act in an anti-competitive manner, two sources told Reuters.
See also:

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