Society's ChildS


Laptop

Best Buy 'Geek Squad' workers discover child porn on customer's laptop; man arrested

Karma Allen
ABC News
Thu, 02 May 2019 10:40 UTC
Bet Buy store
An Iowa man was arrested this week after Best Buy workers discovered child pornography on his broken laptop.

Robert Watson, 54, of Des Moines, brought his gravy-soaked laptop into a local Best Buy back in August and asked workers to transfer his files onto his new device, according to police.

That's when employees with the store's "Geek Squad" said they found several inappropriate images of underage girls, police said.

"During this file transfer process employees at Best Buy 'Geek Squad' observed multiple images they believed contained child pornography," police said in a complaint. "Once this transfer was complete both computers were collected by Des Moines police as evidence."
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Attention

California high school may remove George Washington mural because it 'traumatizes' students

Graham Piro
The College Fix
Thu, 02 May 2019 14:40 UTC
life of Washington mural
A Northern California public school district may remove a mural of George Washington from the halls of George Washington High School due to concerns that it's offensive and demeaning to Native Americans and African-Americans.

The controversy comes after a working group determined the mural, made up of several panels, "traumatizes students and community members." But advocates for keeping the 83-year-old mural say that removing it ignores the intent of the artist and represents an attempt to erase history.

In 1936, Victor Arnautoff painted the 13 panels that make up the "Life of Washington" mural at the San Francisco Unified School District campus. Arnautoff was a prominent Russian-American painter who created the murals as part of a Works Progress Administration project undertaken during the New Deal.
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Megaphone

UN rights experts lambast Assange's 'disproportionate' prison sentence in UK


RT
Fri, 03 May 2019 17:16 UTC
assange protest
© AFP / Daniel Leal-Olivas
United Nations human rights experts have voiced criticism over the UK's decision to imprison WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for nearly one year for skipping bail, describing the harsh sentence as excessive.

Comprised of five independent experts, the UN rights group said that Assange's 50-week internment at the high-security Belmarsh prison made it seem "as if he were convicted for a serious criminal offense."

Claiming that Assange had received a "disproportionate sentence," the UN experts argued in a statement that his punishment "appears to contravene principles of necessity and proportionality." The statement also described the skipping bail charge as a relatively "minor violation."

The same panel issued an opinion in 2015 that Assange was being arbitrarily detained, after the WikiLeaks figurehead was forced to seek political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, in order to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault.
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Newspaper

French interior minister slammed over fake news of hospital attack by Yellow Vests


RT
Fri, 03 May 2019 17:00 UTC
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner
© AFP / Gerrard JulienInterior Minister Christophe Castaner
Yellow Vests protesters and opposition politicians have slammed French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner for describing an incident at a Paris hospital as an "attack." Social media footage tells a different story.

After thousands of protesters took to the streets of Paris to mark International Workers' Day on Wednesday, Castaner took to Twitter to condemn what he said was an attack on the city's Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital.

The protesters, he said "assaulted nursing staff," and "wounded a policeman mobilized to protect it."

Health Minister Agnes Buzyn described the alleged break-in as "unspeakable," while Prime Minister Edouard Philippe condemned it as "totally irresponsible."
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Attention

Mount Everest is covered in tons of trash and dead bodies - Nepal initiates new clean-up program

Ryan W. Miller
USA Today
Thu, 02 May 2019 13:30 UTC
mt everest trash garbage
© Agence France-PresseThis picture taken on May 23, 2010 shows a Nepalese sherpa collecting garbage, left by climbers, at an altitude of 8,000 metres during the Everest clean-up expedition at Mount Everest.
Mount Everest has a trash problem.

A clean-up team in Nepal recently picked up more than three tons of garbage from the area around the world's highest peak, and they plan to grab a total of 11 tons in a 45 day cleaning initiative that started April 14, local media reported.

"Our goal is to extract as much waste as possible from Everest so as to restore glory to the mountain. Everest is not just the crown of the world, but our pride," Dandu Raj Ghimire, Nepal's tourism director, told reporters earlier this week in Kathmandu, according to the Hindu.
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Brick Wall

WikiLeaks editor denied entry to Ecuadorian Embassy to retrieve Assange's belongings


RT
Fri, 03 May 2019 16:58 UTC
WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson
© Reuters / Henry NichollsWikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson
WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson has failed to retrieve Julian Assange's belongings from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was denied entry in a development which he called "outrageous."

Hrafnsson sought to collect Assange's belongings which were left behind in the embassy after he was arrested on April 11. However, the Icelandic investigative journalist failed to even enter the premises of the diplomatic mission, as, according to him, the Ecuadorian diplomats simply refused to open the door and let him in.

"I sent them an email and told them I would be there at 3 o'clock with a full mandate from Julian Assange, his family and friends and that I am the editor-in-chief of the WikiLeaks. They did not open the door. It is disgraceful," Hrafnsson told a crowd of around 50 Assange supporters that had gathered in front of the embassy following the publisher's extradition hearing.

A crowd which staged an improvised rally in front of the mission chanted: "respect the law", "free Assange" and "open the door." Some of the demonstrators were also holding placards that read: "Free Assange" and "Free Speech."
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Bullseye

Cambridge University fires young scholar for 'pseudoscientific racism'

Claire Lehmann
Quillette
Thu, 02 May 2019 16:45 UTC
Noah Carl
We live at a time where academic freedom is under threat from ideologues and activists of all persuasions. The latest threat comes from St Edmund's College, Cambridge, where administrators appear to have capitulated to a mob of activists (students and academics) who mounted a campaign to have a young scholar fired for "problematic" research. The back-story was covered by Quillette last December.

The norms of academia-which have been built up and preserved by institutions such as Cambridge for centuries-demand that academics engage with each other in a scholarly manner. That is, if one academic has a problem with the methods or conclusions of another's research, he or she should address those concerns within journals, according to established procedures, which other scholars can then read and respond to, including the academic whose research is being challenged.

Today, due to the hyper-specialisation of academic fields, most academics will not be able to judge the quality of scholarship that is published in journals outside their field. That's why when research is peer-reviewed it is done by experts in the specific field in which the research was carried out, not by a random selection of university professors. Just as a professor of English will not be able to judge a study conducted within chemical engineering, a chemical engineer will not be able to assess a scholarly essay on Shakespeare's sonnets.

Comment: More on Dr Carl's research:
Much of Dr Carl's research focuses on how intelligence and other psychological characteristics affect beliefs and attitudes. Papers include: Leave and Remain voters' knowledge of the EU after the referendum of 2016, Cognitive Ability and Political Beliefs in the United States, and his most cited paper, published in Intelligence in 2014, Verbal Intelligence is correlated with socially and economically liberal beliefs.

Which of these, or any of Dr Carl's other papers, contain "vital errors in data-analysis"? We're not told. Nevertheless, on the strength of these allegations alone, with no supporting evidence provided, the letter's authors have invited people to sign the petition-and hundreds have.

So why all the fuss? Dr Carl's crime is that he has defended intelligence researchers who've written about the taboo topics of race, genes and IQ and argued that stifling debate in these areas is likely to cause more harm than allowing them to be freely discussed by academics. It appears to be this, and the fact that he spoke at the London Conference of Intelligence in 2017 alongside some of these researchers (although he did not himself speak about race, genes or IQ at that conference), that is the basis for the accusation, made in the letter, that he is guilty of "pseudoscientific racism."


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Snakes in Suits

Baltimore Mayor Pugh resigns amid growing children's book scandal

Ian Duncan, Jean Marbella and Luke Broadwater
The Baltimore Sun
Thu, 02 May 2019 16:38 UTC
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh
© Baltimore SunBaltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh resigned Thursday, apologizing for the harm she has caused to the city's image amid a growing scandal over her sales of a self-published children's book series.

It was the latest blow to the leadership of a city that's seen two mayors resign in scandal in less than a decade and a third one decline to seek another term after a riot over police misconduct and a soaring murder rate.

Pugh, a Democrat, submitted a letter of resignation with Thursday's date filled in by hand. Her resignation is effective immediately, her attorney Steven Silverman said at a 96-second news conference at his offices in downtown Baltimore.

Pugh did not attend, Silverman took no questions and there was no indication when she would emerge from the seclusion she's imposed on herself since her last news conference March 28.
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X

Some companies are considering banning handshakes to 'remove confusion' over appropriate touch

Alexandria Hoff
CBS Philly
Mon, 29 Apr 2019 16:39 UTC
handshake
© CBS 3
Have you ever been approached with a two-cheek kiss? Well, if you didn't expect it, it's totally awkward, made worse if the timing is mismatched.

It's those kinds of greetings that has made companies think twice about physical contact in the workplace. So where does that leave handshakes?

A survey by TotalJobs found that three out of four people want all physical contact banned at work. The idea is to remove confusion over what kind of touch is appropriate.

Some companies are now considering whether they should prohibit handshakes.

"I think that's going a little too far. I've never had a problem with it," one woman said.

"I think it's a show of mutual respect," said one man.
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V

'Danger to our time': Iconic Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei joins pro-Assange rally in Berlin


RT
Fri, 03 May 2019 16:34 UTC
assange
© Global Look Press / Wolfgang Kumm
The Chinese contemporary artist Ai Wei Wei has taken part in a protest against the extradition of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the US. Ai warned that such a development would pose a threat to the freedom of speech.

"This chaos reflects a real danger to our society and to our time because Julian Assange is very symbolic for freedom of speech and freedom of press," the iconic artist and activist told Ruptly video news agency as he joined dozens of protesters, who gathered near the Brandenburg Gate - one of the best-known landmarks of the German capital - to support Assange, who is now fighting against his extradition to the US.

"We are all Julian Assange," read a large banner that the demonstrators unfurled. Ai warned that if the extradition case moves forward, it would "pose a danger to all journalists and all individuals, who are defending the very essential rights" of the freedom of speech and the freedom of press.
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