Society's ChildS


Camera

Study finds taking selfies linked to increased happiness in college students


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:32 UTC
selfie
© Murad Sezer / Reuters
Constantly snapping selfies may seem a bit narcissistic, but a new study has found that taking photos on smartphones and sharing them online is actually linked to increased happiness levels among college students.

The research, conducted by academics from the University of California-Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences, studied 41 college students for four weeks. Among them were 28 females and 13 males.

The students were first invited to the lab for an informal interview, and to fill out a questionnaire and consent form. They were then instructed to continue with normal daily activities while taking part in the study.

Each student was assigned one of three types of photos to take, to help researchers determine how smiling, reflecting, and giving to others might impact the participants' moods.

Comment: Perhaps asking students themselves how they felt after taking a selfie was not the best method for judging how selfies affect and transform our personalities:

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Brick Wall

TEPCO dismantles safety wall of Fukushima No. 1 reactor building


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 02:44 UTC
Fukushima Daiichi
© Fukushima Daiichi / YouTubeRipping off the band-aid.
TEPCO has begun decommissioning the outer protective wall which was erected around the Fukushima No.1 reactor building in 2011 following the massive earthquake and tsunami that sent the power station into meltdown. Industrial cranes started the decommissioning of the exterior walls of the cover, which was installed around Fukushima's reactor building on Tuesday, by removing the first 20-ton panel which measured 23 by 17 meters.

This is the first time that the burned reactor has been exposed to the world in almost five years, after the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) went on to construct the cover in October 2011 as a temporary measure following a powerful earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The entire site is highly contaminated with rubble and radioactive dust. TEPCO is taking all necessary precautions to prevent any radioactive dust from escaping the contaminated area.

The utility company, according to Asahi news, hopes to dismantle the remaining 17 panels of the protective cover by the end of the year to assess the state of the reactor's interiors and to remove the 392 fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool in addition to melted nuclear fuel.


Comment: Protective wall removal...contaminated site...what if there is another tsunami in the very near future? They haven't even assessed the internal damage from 5 years ago. Send in the robots!

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USA

Bombshell leak reveals Williams tennis sisters and Rio Olympics gymnast heroine have been doping for years, with WADA's approval


RT
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 16:02 UTC
williams sharapova
Turns out American tennis stars also dope... surprise!
A hacktivist group claims it has uncovered files that show top American athletes including Serena Williams and Simone Biles took banned substances - although their respective sporting federations responded by saying the athletes did not break any rules.

The allegations were published on the website of the hacktivist group Fancy Bear, which described the revelations as being "just the tip of the iceberg."

The documents the group says it hacked from the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) files contain information that Serena Williams, one of the world's greatest ever tennis players, was taking a number of banned substances.

Williams was allowed to take oxycodone, hydromorphone, prednisone and methylprednisolone in 2010, 2014 and 2015, despite the substances being placed on WADA's list of banned substances.

However, the documents released also showed that Williams had been given special permission to take some of the drugs. The authorization was given by Dr. Stuart Miller from the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

Serena's older sister Venus was found to have taken prednisone, prednisolone, triamcinolone and formoterol, which are also on WADA's banned list. However, she was given special dispensation to take the substances as long as she adhered to various conditions regarding the use of the drugs.

Comment: Exceptions can be made for exceptional star athletes from exceptional countries.

Just how many Russian athletes are given "special dispensation" to take banned substances? We're guessing very, very few.

Just because these athletes had a therapeutic use exemption doesn't mean that the situation isn't ridiculously hypocritical. We'd be very interested to know who the doctors were that prescribed the drugs and why the athletes needed them. Plus, the drugs themselves are banned because they enhance performance. There's no getting around that, doctor's note or no doctor's note.

See also: Cultural warfare: US attempt to ban Russia from Olympics for 'cheating' is rank hypocrisy

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X

Norwegian court rules hairdresser Merete Hodne "deliberately discriminated" against Muslim woman


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:09 UTC
Malika Bayan
© Scanpix / Carina Johansen / ReutersMalika Bayan is seen in court during a trial of hairdresser Merete Hodne who refused Malika Bayan access to her hair salon because of wearing a hijab, in Sandnes, Norway September 8, 2016.
A discrimination case in a Norwegian court has sparked renewed debate over Islam's place in Western society, after a Muslim convert wins her case against a hairdresser who refused to serve her for wearing a hijab. The reaction to a court ruling in Rogaland county, southwest Norway, to award compensation to a Muslim woman who was refused service at a hairdresser's has brought tensions surrounding the country's Muslim minority back into the spotlight.

On Monday, Jæren District Court in Rogaland county, southwest Norway, found that hairdresser Merete Hodne "deliberately discriminated" against a Muslim woman, Malika Bayan, when the latter walked into her salon wearing a hijab. The court ordered that Hodne pay Bayan 10,000 kroner ($1,200) in compensation as well as court costs of 5,000 kroner ($750).

In October 2015, 24-year-old Bayan and a friend walked into Hodne's salon in the town of Bryne, where she asked how much it would cost to dye her hair. Hodne, 47, refused and advised Bayan, an ethnic Norwegian Muslim convert, to look elsewhere as she "didn't accept"customers like her. When the case originally went to court, Hodne refused to pay the 8,000 kroner fine, claiming that seeing women in hijabs gave her anxiety.

'What can I say? I get freaked out by the hijab," the Fædrelandsvennen newspaper quoted her as saying during her testimony. "I know that not all Muslims are violent, but before one gets to know them, one can never know."

Comment: What hypocrisy! Hodne and her ilk treat Muslims like they are sub-humans and then have the gall to compare their victims to Nazis.

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Crusader

Austrian cardinal: Muslims want 'Islamic conquest of Europe'


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 19:41 UTC
Austrian muslims
© Heinz-Peter Bader / Reuters
Many Muslims would be glad to see Europe conquered by Islam, an Austrian cardinal and leading future candidate for the papacy said. He also warned that the Christian heritage of Europe risked disappearing, with the statements raising much controversy online.

"Will there now be a third Islamic attempt to conquer Europe? Many Muslims think that and want that, and they say 'Europe is at the end,'" Cardinal Christoph Schönborn said, as cited by the Archdiocese of Vienna.

He was speaking during the church festival "Holy Name of Mary." The holiday commemorated the victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

He asked God to have mercy on Europe as people of Europe "are in danger of forfeiting our Christian heritage."
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Pistol

Family gets $780K after cop tries to kill their dog & shoots their 4yo daughter instead

Andrew Emett
Free Thought Project
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:04 UTC
4 yr old girl shot by police
Responding to the house of a woman requesting medical treatment, a Columbus police officer arrived at the front door and immediately shot her 4-year-old daughter when attempting to kill their dog. Fearing that a jury would award the family substantially more money, the Columbus City Council unanimously approved a $780,000 settlement with the innocent girl's family on Monday.

After interviewing the victim of a hit-and-run incident on June 19, 2015, Officer Jonathan Thomas was returning to his patrol car when he heard a woman from another house calling for help. Andrea Ellis had cut her arm on a piece of broken glass, and her sister, Brandie Kelly, called 911 to request an ambulance. While Kelly was on the phone with a 911 dispatcher, she noticed Officer Thomas outside and called out to him for medical assistance.
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Camcorder

Bully cop Sgt. Stephen Matakovich - used unnecessary force 56 times & injured 17 people

Andrew Emett
The Free Thought Project
Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:13 UTC
Sgt. Stephen Matakovich
© thingsthatsuck.infoSgt. Stephen Matakovich
Caught on video savagely beating a teenage football fan and falsifying arrest reports, a fired police sergeant has recently been accused by the district attorney of using more force than necessary at least 56 times. Establishing a pattern of violence and falsifying reports, Allegheny County prosecutors introduced the new evidence on Monday in preparation for the ex-cop's upcoming state trial.

On November 28, 2015, a surveillance video captured off-duty police Sgt. Stephen Matakovich ordering 19-year-old Gabriel Despres to leave Heinz Field. In his arrest report, Matakovich falsely claimed that Despres adopted an "aggressive posture" and appeared ready to attack him.

But according to the video, Despres calmly stood with his arms down at his sides when Matakovich suddenly shoved the teen to the ground and began punching him in the head. Although Despres did not provoke the attack and did not appear to fight back, the off-duty cop repeatedly struck him while several other security guards watched.
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Attention

Violent clashes over austerity program as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visits Naples


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 04:32 UTC
clashes naples
© RT
Fierce clashes broke out in the Italian city of Naples as hundreds rallied against the arrival of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Denouncing his austerity policies, protesters lit flares and broke through police cordons.

Hundreds of Italians took to the streets in Naples this week to vent their anger at policies being pushed through by Renzi's government. They included changes to labor laws, education reforms, and the implementation of austerity policies. The protests were organized by several left-wing activists and teachers who said that the policies threaten to wreck the country's already weak economy.

Angry protesters tried Monday to make their way into the main opera house in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo, where Renzi was due to arrive but they were blocked by police on their way. The group turned violent hurling dustbins and throwing street benches.

In April, anti-Renzi demonstrations in Pisa resulted in several arrests and injuries.
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Sheriff

Sperm-sniffing police dog Billie recruited to track down rapists


RT
Wed, 14 Sep 2016 15:01 UTC
Billie the dog
© Derbyshire police
Police in Derbyshire have employed a specially-trained dog, Billie the cocker spaniel, to track down sex offenders by sniffing out their semen.

Unlike many police dogs that specialize in identifying drugs, bombs or blood, Billie is trained to find DNA evidence used in sex cases by tracking down traces of human sperm.

His nose is so sharp he can detect as little as a milliliter of semen, which is about a third of the average ejaculation, more than a year after it was deposited indoors.

Billie can even smell eight-week-old sperm outside if it is "protected from the worst of the weather."
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Hearts

While Western countries freak out at prospect of integrating tiny Muslim minorities, Islam thrives in Putin's Russia

Rebecca Miller
National Interest
Mon, 13 Apr 2015 13:19 UTC
cathedral mosque moscow
Thousands of Muslims pray at the recently renovated and expanded Cathedral Mosque in Moscow. Can you imagine this scene ever taking place in Washington, DC?
Vladimir Putin has made religion a central part of his public image, using Orthodoxy as a way to bolster for his political agendas. But Orthodoxy is not the only religion that experienced a revival in the post - Cold War period; among other religions, Islam, once shunned by the Soviet state, has increasingly been embraced by the Russian state.

This was a major theme of an April 7 presentation at George Washington University's Elliott School by Bulat Akhmetkarimov, a PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). At the event, titled "Islam and the Dynamics of Ethno-Confessional Regimes in Russia, 1990-2012," Akhmetkarimov discussed the Russian state's attitudes toward religion and how attitudes toward Islam have evolved in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

As the largest religious minority in Russia, Muslims make up roughly 11 percent of Russia's total population. Based on statistics provided by Pew Research Center, this percentage is predicted to increase to roughly 13 percent by 2030 and nearly 17 percent percent by 2050, with about twenty million Muslims in Russia.

Comment: What a tricky piece of data for Westerners to make sense of.

Liberals hate Putin, but want to welcome Muslim refugees.

Conservatives want to like Putin, but are terrified of Muslims.

Hmmm... How do SOTT readers reconcile the two viewpoints?

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