Society's ChildS


Attention

Low US unemployment and other myths

unemployment job board
© Postmedia News
Media propaganda maintains the myth, including a NYT report in its latest edition, saying:

An "unemployment rate (was achieved) below the 4 percent threshold," the Times calling it a "milestone," claiming it indicates a "tight...labor market..."

Reality is polar opposite. Trump crowed about the phony Friday Labor Department (BLS) report tweeting: "JUST OUT: 3.9% Unemployment. 4% is Broken!"

America's privileged class never had things better. Unreported is continuation of protracted main street depression conditions.

Economist John Williams reverse engineers monthly employment numbers based on how calculated in 1980.

Beaker

City of Salisbury would be wiped out if 100g of Novichok was used in ex-spy poisoning, claims inventor

Vladimir Uglev
© The Bell / east2west newsRussian scientist Vladimir Uglev said 100 grams of Novichok would have killed everyone in Salisbury
A scientist who developed lethal nerve agent Novichok has claimed the entire population of Salisbury would have been wiped out if 100 grams had been used - as had been claimed.

Reports surfaced overnight that 100g of the deadly substance had been used when ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the Wiltshire city.

Since then the the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has conceded 'it probably should be milligrams'.

Russian scientist Leonid Rink, who helped develop the lethal poison, today said: "The whole of Salisbury would have died from this amount.

"This is an insane amount, this is a combat amount."

The remark came after Ahmet Uzumcu, the head of the OPCW told the New York Times that Novichok could have been applied as a liquid or aerosol.

He said: "For research activities or protection you would need, for instance, five to 10 grams or so, but even in Salisbury it looks like they may have used more than that, without knowing the exact quantity, I am told it may be 50, 100 grams or so, which goes beyond research activities for protection."

Comment: As for Douma: US weapons inspector: 'Western claims that Assad used chemical weapons totally bogus'


Footprints

California: Exodus surges with no letup in home prices

For Sale Signs
© Diane's Blog - WordPress.comCalifornia on the market
The median sale price for a home in California is more than double that in the rest of the nation.

Say goodbye to Hollywood, Billy Joel sang in 1976. Now, in the midst of a deepening housing crisis, thousands of people are following that advice. Over a million more people moved out of California from 2006 to 2016 than moved in, according to a new report, due mainly to the high cost of housing that hits lower-income people the hardest.

"A strong economy can also be dysfunctional," noted the report, a project of Next 10 and Beacon Economics. Housing costs are much higher in California than in other states, yet wages for workers in the lower income brackets aren't. And the state attracts more highly-educated high-earners who can afford pricey homes.

There are many reasons for the housing crunch, but the lack of new construction may be the most significant. According to the report, from 2008 to 2017, an average of 24.7 new housing permits were filed for every 100 new residents in California. That's well below the national average of 43.1 permits per 100 people.

If this trend persists, the researchers argued, analysts forecast the state will be about 3 million homes short by 2025.
CA net domestic migration chart
© Census Bureau/Next 10/Beacon Economics.

Comment: Increasing numbers of fires statewide and multiple seasons of drought have also contributed to the lack of housing and the California exodus.


Footprints

Flynn working the campaign trail for Troy Downing in Montana to unseat Jon Tester

MichaelFlynn
© NYPostMichael Flynn
Donald Trump and Michael Flynn are collaborating again.

No, the president and his former national security adviser aren't formally working hand-in-hand. Nor are they on the same team.

But as Trump continues to wage an all-out war on Montana's Democratic Senator Jon Tester for the Senator's role in derailing White House physician Ronny Jackson's bid to serve as the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Flynn is set to go after the Montana Democrat from a different vantage point.

The retired Lieutenant General, who pled guilty to lying to the FBI while serving the Trump administration, will be hitting the campaign trail this coming week. And he will be doing so for Troy Downing, a Republican businessman and Air Force veteran competing to win the Republican nomination, next Sunday in Billings. This is the second time that Flynn has appeared at a campaign event for a Republican candidate this year. Previously, he spoke at an event for GOP candidate Omar Navarro, who is mounting a longshot bid to defeat Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

While Flynn is not exactly an in-demand hype man for Republican candidates across the country, his status as the most prominent victim of Robert Mueller's probe has given him a certain cachet within Trump-loving circles.

Arrow Down

Judge faults GSA for inadequate response to FOIA re: Trump hotel documents

Trump Hotel
© Alex Brandon/AP
In the latest zig-zag in the legal battle over President Trump's profiting from his lease of his Washington luxury hotel, a federal district judge on Thursday faulted the General Services Administration for inadequately responding to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Judge Beryl Howell, chief of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled in the case brought by the nonprofit transparency group American Oversight that GSA, though it had delivered thousands of emails from the Trump transition team, had not "adequately supported" its decisions to redact some documents and withhold some email attachments in the name of privacy.
"While the FOIA request does not explicitly refer to attachments, the scope of the request for 'all records reflecting communications' plainly covered parts of email communications that were in the form of an attachment," the judge wrote in instructing GSA to turn over more documents. "GSA's blinkered literalism, distinguishing emails from email attachments, is at odds with the agency's 'duty to construe a FOIA request liberally.' "
American Oversight's original request, filed in April 2017, asked for records relating to the Trump presidential transition team's contacts with GSA regarding Trump's controversial continued status as owner of the Trump International Hotel that his company created in the federally owned and historically protected Old Post Office building.

Attention

Iran labels $6B US court verdict a 'mockery' of justice, Americans and 9/11 attack victims

9/11 labeled
© NYC Aviation Unit/Gulf News/KJN9/11
Accusing Washington of attempts to "rewrite history," Iran has firmly rejected as a "mockery" of the justice system the US court's recent default ruling which ordered Tehran to pay over $6 billion in damages to 9/11 victims.

"Issuing such an absurd and unacceptable verdict mocks not only the international legal system but also the survivors and families of the victims of the September 11 attacks," Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Bahram Kasemi said Sunday, rejecting the New York court's decision.

Last week, Manhattan's District Judge George Daniels made a default ruling (issued in the absence of a defendant) that found Tehran liable for the deaths and ordered its entities to pay over $6 billion in compensations to the families of more than 1,000 victims of the September 11 attacks.

Accusing the US of attempting to "rewrite history," the Foreign Ministry stressed that the country reserves the right to respond to any "illegal procedures" and asserted that the ruling was obviously "politically" motivated.

The spokesman also rejected similar past verdicts against Iran, reiterating that the country had nothing to do with organizing or financing the 9/11 attacks. Previously Judge Daniels had issued default judgments against Iran, in 2011 and 2016, ordering the Islamic republic to pay billions of dollars to victims of the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Comment: Outrageous. This judge should be disbarred. See also from 2011 and the same judge: Iran Rejects New York Judge's Finding that Tehran is Liable in Sept. 11 Attacks


Info

Lebanon preliminary election results show great victory of Hezbollah and allies

A Lebanese woman
© AP Photo / Hassan AmmarA Lebanese woman casts a ballot at a polling station during the Lebanon's parliamentary elections in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, May 6, 2018
The Hezbollah Shiite party along with its political allies may secure a victory in the recent Lebanese parliamentary election, Al Mayadeen TV reported on Monday, citing preliminary vote results. The Hezbollah leader called it "political and moral victory" for the resistance.

Commenting on the general election Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday said he was satisfied with the result of his Tayyar Al-Mustaqbal (Future Movement) Sunni party.

Comment: Lebanese citizens have voted in the parliamentary elections that were held in the country for the first time since 2009. Official results of the vote, which come amid Hezbollah's resolve to expand its representation in the parliament, are not expected until Tuesday.
Ali Da'amoush, a member of the executive council of the paramilitary and political Shiite movement Hezbollah, has claimed that that the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia had meddled in the May 6 parliamentary elections in Lebanon.

"The parliamentary elections are really sensitive because of some foreign meddling and the Americans and Saudis along with the Israelis are interfering in the elections by supporting certain parties in a bid to weaken the resistance and prevent it from forming a strong fraction in Lebanon's future parliament," Da'amoush told Iran's Fars news agency.



Attention

Looks like Facebook's lead attorney lied to Congress while under oath

John Kennedy/Colin Stretch
© Vanity Fair/AP NewsSenator John Kennedy (R-LA) • Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch
Facebook's general counsel Colin Stretch may have not been completely truthful while under oath when taking questions in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 31, 2017.

Stretch was being grilled by Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) about the extent of Facebook's ability to profile users on the social media website. Stretch told Kennedy that Facebook had done away with the ability of employees to compile or access profiles on individual users. Here's a transcript of their relevant remarks:

Comment: See also:


Family

The tragedy of Robin Williams' undiagnosed brain disease

Robin Williams
© Getty ImagesRobin Williams
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.' "

Eye 1

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

EyeDetect
© Converus
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.