Society's ChildS


Beaker

Three scientists sue NY state police for forcing them to 'customize' DNA lab test results


RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 19:57 UTC
DNA lab
© Jean-Paul Pelissier / Reuters
Three scientists have filed a lawsuit against a New York State Police crime lab where they were employees, saying the administration retaliated against them after they discovered that staff were using outdated DNA evidence tests to get more convictions.

Shannon Morris, Melissa Lee and Kevin Rafferty are seeking unspecified damages in federal court, AP reports. They filed a complaint last week in which they stated that they were retaliated against after they had objected to the lab's current DNA test and called for the adoption of a more modern and accurate procedure. The agency allegedly refused to acknowledge any flaws in the current system and urged them to keep their mouths shut, they said.

The three claim that the police department was not eager to employ the new method, known as TrueAllele system, which would guarantee better accuracy. Scientists say the police were satisfied with the old testing procedure as it reportedly secured more convictions.
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Dollar

Dirty little secret: Health insurers are actually making scads of money from Obamacare

Michael Hiltzik
Los Angeles Times
Tue, 16 Feb 2016 11:23 UTC
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards
© Melinda Deslatte / APAnother domino falls: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards signs an order expanding Louisiana's Medicaid program on Jan. 12, his first day in office.
For months now, headlines about the Affordable Care Act have focused on complaints from big insurers that they haven't been making money from individual insurance plans mandated by the act.

The big insurer UnitedHealth Group has even whined about losing so many millions it's thinking about withdrawing from the Obamacare marketplace as soon as next year. Others, including Anthem and Aetna, have mentioned that their exchange business isn't yet profitable, though they're not talking about pulling the plug.
It seems that insurers are perfectly happy and prosperous competing in the markets where the government is the payer.

- Healthcare analyst Andrew Sprung
Here's what they haven't been saying so loudly: They're making scads of money from Obamacare — so much that almost universally, they're expanding their participation.

What's the catch? The big profits have come not from the insurance exchanges, but via the ACA's Medicaid expansion, in which the largest insurers have been playing a major role. The same insurance executives who go out of their way to badmouth the ACA's individual exchange plans talk as though they can't get enough of the Medicaid business, especially its managed care component.
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Bullseye

Pepe Escobar: Rest in peace to Umberto Eco, the professor who knew everything

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 19:02 UTC
Umberto Eco
© AFP 2016/ FILES / GIUSEPPE CACACEItalian writer Umberto Eco
Once upon a time in the Italian Renaissance, serious scholars regarded polymath Pico della Mirandola as "the last man who knows everything". In our post-modern wasteland, Il Professore ("the professor") Umberto Eco (1932-2016) was arguably the last neo-Renaissance man to know everything.

Philosopher, semiologist, master of epic erudition, medieval aesthetic specialist, fiction and non-fiction writer, Eco oscillated gleefully between the roles of "Apocalyptic and Integrated" — the title of one of his seminal books (1964). His trademark touch was a delightfully erudite synthesis of tragic optimism — as if he was the supreme erudite dreamer.

Not only he wrote numerous, priceless essays on aesthetics, linguistics and philosophy, and criticized in depth the global mediascape; he was also a best-selling fiction author, from The Name of the Rose (1980) — 14 million copies sold — to Foucault's Pendulum (1988).

Before he became Il Professore, enjoying iconic status, Eco plunged deep into St. Thomas Aquinas, ceased to believe in God and parted ways with the Catholic Church ("Thomas Aquinas miraculously cured me of my faith.") His 1954 philosophy thesis at the University of Turin — guided by a master, Luigi Pareyson — was on Aquinas's aesthetics.
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Airplane

Atlanta airport gives ultimatum to TSA over severe delays


RT
Fri, 19 Feb 2016 22:17 UTC
TSA screening
© Kevork Djansezian
The general manager of the Atlanta International Airport is threatening to privatize security and baggage screening duties, since the shortage of TSA staff is causing severe delays at the world's busiest airport.

Last year, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the US state of Georgia handled 22.7 million passengers, more than Beijing, Dubai or Tokyo. However, due to the lack of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staff, many of those passengers experienced very long wait times.

Should the TSA refuse to increase the number of staff at the airport, Hartsfield-Jackson's management will have to privatize the screening staff, General Manager Miguel Southwell has said.

In a letter to TSA administrator Peter Neffenger, Southwell said despite efforts to decrease traveler wait times at security checkpoints, "things appear to be only getting worse."

"It is for this reason that we are giving serious consideration to your agency's Screening Partnership Program" (SPP), which allows US airports to apply for "qualified private contractors," he wrote in a letter sent February 12, and obtained by WSBTV on Thursday.

Hartsfield-Jackson staff have conducted "exhaustive research with current SPP airports," the manager said. "Barring the implementation of some transformational technology or a dramatic shift in staffing allowances in the next 60 days, Hartsfield-Jackson will take steps to launch SPP," Southwell said.

Comment: Delays caused by strip searches, unwarranted pat-downs and molesting passengers. Are there enough terrorists going to, or inside the U.S., to justify the existence of the TSA?

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Fire

Kiev's fascist '3rd Maidan' just as delusional: Calls for resignations, new elections, forming 'popular govt', martial law, Russian sanctions


RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 16:29 UTC
kiev maidan
© Gleb Garanich / ReutersPeople attend an anti-government rally at Independence Square in central Kiev, Ukraine, February 21, 2016.
Protesters who gathered for a mass rally in central Kiev announced the creation of their own "popular government" and demanded the immediate ouster of the Ukrainian cabinet and president, as well as the resignation of traitors and the dissolution of the parliament.

Hundreds of people joined the protest on the Kiev's central Maidan square on Sunday on the second anniversary of the bloody Euromaidan riots that led to an overthrow of the government in 2014 and major unrest in the country.

The number of protesters, according to TASS, amounted to about 300 people, while AP puts their numbers at about 1,000. The rally was organized by a group of nationalists called 'Revolutionary Right Forces' that consists of the former members of a different far-right organization, including the ultra-nationalist Right Sector movement as well as the Azov volunteer militia battalion, which sports many far-right zealots in its ranks.


Comment: Meanwhile, from Poroshenko:
The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, considers the events of Maidan-3 ("Popular Assembly" and their riots at Russian banks and Moscow's representative offices) a provocation by the Kremlin, reports "Ridus". He believes that the activists received instructions and slogans from Moscow.

"The Kremlin propaganda has done everything to make this day look different. But this provocation of theirs did not work", — said the Ukrainian President.
He doesn't disappoint!

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Question

Surrey transit police investigating four passengers struck with mystery illness; unknown powder reportedly left on bus


The Province
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 18:11 UTC
Surrey buses
© Ric Ernst, PNGTransit users cue to board a Coast Mountain bus at the Surrey Central Exchange, one station in the Translink infrastructure in Surrey, B.C. Thursday March 12, 2015.
Transit Police are investigating after four people riding a bus in Surrey fell ill. Surrey RCMP said they received a report of a possible hazardous substance on a bus just before noon on Sunday.

The bus was at 96th Avenue and King George Blvd. when four passengers told the driver they "were not feeling well."

"Preliminary witness accounts suggested that the patrons on the bus may have been exposed to an unknown substance," said the press release. "However, subsequent checks by the Surrey Fire Department and investigating agencies found no evidence of any hazardous materials.The patrons were treated and released at scene."

Reports indicated an unknown powder was left on the bus that may have caused some passengers to cough.
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Heart - Black

Germany: Onlookers cheer and try to prevent firefighters putting out the blaze engulfing a planned refugee center


RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 03:15 UTC
Bautzen fire
© Rico Loeb / AFPFire fighters try to extinguish a fire at a former hotel that was under reconstruction to become a home for asylum seekers on February 21, 2016 in Bautzen east of Dresden.
A planned refugee center in Bautzen in the German state of Saxony was badly damaged after a huge fire ripped through the building much to the delight of onlookers, who cheered and tried to prevent firefighters from extinguishing the flames.

"In the early hours of Sunday a fire broke out at the Husarenhof , which is currently under reconstruction and planned to be used as a refugee center in the future," Thomas Knaup, Bautzen Police spokesperson, told RT's Ruptly video agency.

Previously, Husarenhof was a hotel and restaurant.

There were no casualties as a result of the incident as the building was empty due to the time.

"The causes of the fire are still not clear," Knaup said, adding that a criminal investigation has been initiated.

Comment: Absolutely heartless.

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Bad Guys

Rape culture: 1 in 5 women in the UK are sexually assaulted in school


RT
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 15:28 UTC
school children
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
More than a fifth of British women experienced unwanted sexual contact while in school, a new survey has found.

Children's charity Plan UK found that 22 percent of women reported having suffered unwanted sexual touching, groping, flashing, sexual assault or rape while they were "in or around" school.

The disturbing findings, based on over 3,700 interviews including more than 2,000 women, indicate that 61 percent of the women who said they were sexually harassed never reported the abuse.

Though the charity says girls are "especially vulnerable" to sexual violence and bullying at school, the results of the survey suggest a third of adults of both genders have suffered unwanted sexual contact while at school.
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Quenelle

Thousands protest throughout Japan against relocation of US military base in Okinawa


RT
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 14:31 UTC
protests japan US military base
Thousands of people encircled Japan's parliament to protest against the relocation of a US military base on Okinawa island. At the same time more students marched through the streets objecting the government's plan to allow Japanese military to fight overseas.

The protesters, holding signs reading "No" or "Protect Henoko" and chanting "Don't build the base" staged a rally against the Japan's government intention to relocate the functioning US marine base Futenma, stationed in a densely populated area of Ginowan, to a facility in Henoko, also on Okinawa.

Over 28,000 people joined the rally, according to Kyodo news agency. Opposition rallies were also held in the cities of Toyama, Okayama, Sapporo, Nagoya and Osaka.

Comment: The Japanese have had more than enough of the US military presence:

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Dollars

Daesh has 'fallen on hard times': Bankrupt jihadists accept only dollars


Sputnik
Sun, 21 Feb 2016 16:36 UTC
jihadi dollars
© twitter.comDaesh Dollar Days
While a growing number of countries around the world are actively looking to ditch the dollar for mutual trade, due to its precarious financial condition one very unexpected group is now insisting on dollar only payments, according to a report by AP.

The jihadist militant group seems to be experiencing grave financial difficulties: it is having trouble meeting its expenses due to Russian airstrikes ruining its oil infrastructure and low oil prices, forcing the group to cut salaries in half and start accepting only US dollars for payments, according to AP report.

The long-cherished dream of Daesh to have its own gold, silver and copper-backed currency seems to be forgotten thing of the past. The Islamist group is apparently suffering from a shortage of cash, the agency reports citing some residents escaping from Raqqa, the group's stronghold in Syria.

It has reportedly cut salaries by half across its self-declared caliphate and has urged the residents of Raqqa to pay for "taxes" and utility fees, such as water and electricity, in black-market American dollars. Reports also suggest that the militants are now releasing detainees for a cut-rate price of $500 each. There are shortages of necessities, electricity is rationed and prices for basic commodities are spiraling out of reach.

Comment: Economic resources are shrinking for IS/Daesh as countries shut down its many sources of funds. Its faux economy is based on extortion, robberies, ransom and smuggling, embezzlement, taxation of territories under their military control, and devalued oil. Without any real and long-lasting, productive and positive means of legitimate income, IS/Daesh is dependent and self-defeating. It has to continue all the above to remain viable -- a closed and dwindling economic loop.

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