Society's ChildS


Smoking

Smoking at home in Thailand to be considered 'domestic violence' if spouse can prove 'health issues arising from second-hand smoke'

Shreya Basak
News18
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 18:43 UTC

Comment: Anti-smokers are mental. Maybe they ought to take up smoking??


Tobacco smoke
© Pixabay/realhardwork
The law aims at curbing smoking at home which might be hazardous for others' health residing under the same roof. In that case it will be considered as a 'domestic violence'.

Smoking in a house in Thailand can now land you in jail. Although not a blanket ban, this is a new law that is supposed to come into effect from today as per reports.

The new law, Family Protection and Development Promotion Act, was initiated by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and was announced in the Royal Gazette on May 22, 2019. The law aims at curbing smoking at home which might be hazardous for others' health residing under the same roof. In that case, it will be considered as 'domestic violence'.

Speaking at the 18th National Conference on Tobacco and Lung Health held in Bangkok in May 2019, Department of Women's Affairs and Family Development chief Lertpanya Booranabundit said, "If it can be proved that the health problems of family members stems from second- or third-hand smoke at home, it can lead to two court trials: one in Criminal Court for 'domestic assault' via smoke and the other at the Central Juvenile and Family Court. This could lead to a court injunction to protect the health of family members, with the smoker being sent to a rehabilitation centre to kick the habit."

Comment: The anti-smoking nonsense has become so ridiculous - why not light up as an antidote!


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Bizarro Earth

Harmful pesticides approved by Bolsonaro's government cause half a billion bees to drop dead in Brazil


Sputnik
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 21:29 UTC
dead honey bees
More than half a billion bees have died in Brazil over the last three months. The cause? Harmful pesticides, according to researchers.

Most of the bee deaths occurred in four Brazilian states: 400 million in Rio Grande do Sul, 7 million in São Paulo, 50 million in Santa Catarina and 45 million Mato Grosso do Sul, according to a report by CBS News. Neonicotinoids and fipronil, both agricultural insecticides banned in Europe, are believed to be the specific culprits behind the deaths.

Aldo Machado, vice president of Rio Grande do Sul's beekeeping association, recently told Bloomberg that his bee colony was completely eliminated 48 hours after some bees began dying.

Comment:

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Black Cat

Flashback Cop who investigated Epstein in Florida dies suddenly

Ian Cohen
Palm Beach Daily News
Fri, 01 Jun 2018 20:19 UTC
Joseph Recarey
Joseph Recarey
He solved murders, obtained confessions, worked overtime, fell in love and brought coworkers lunch.

And he still had time to crack some jokes.

Joseph Recarey, a former Palm Beach detective who had a knack for making others smile, who tackled the island's largest and most important investigations, and who cared deeply for his family and friends, died Friday, May 25, 2018, after a brief illness. He was 50.

"In my opinion, an excellent police officer has to be a good person," said former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter. "And Joe Recarey was among the best people I ever knew."

Recarey was born in Queens, N.Y., before coming to Florida with his family when he was 13. He lived in Royal Palm Beach and worked for the Palm Beach Police Department for more than 20 years beginning in 1991.

Comment: Hmm, thus far, we've not come across sudden deaths directly connected with Epstein. This makes us wonder if there are more...

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Attention

Illinois state senator offers apology for staged Trump assassination photos at fundraiser

Chris Perez
New York Post
Sun, 18 Aug 2019 11:42 UTC
Illinois Sen. Sandoval
© APIllinois Senator Martin Sandoval
A Democratic state senator from Illinois came under fire over the weekend after pictures were posted online showing his supporters at a fundraising event performing a mock assassination of a faux President Trump. "The tolerant left," wrote a Facebook user in response to the incident.

Photos posted by a woman who witnessed the mock assassination on Friday night show supporters of Sen. Martin Sandoval, who represents Illinois' 11th District — which includes parts of Chicago — acting out in front of guests, according to WCIA.

One of them can be seen pointing a fake machine gun at a man wearing a Trump mask and Mexican costume. The individual appears to simulate being shot — grabbing his chest and leaning back. In another photo, Sandoval can be seen standing next to the person holding the gun.

"Why is this ok?" a FB user asked. "I am sickened."
Fake assault
© TwitterFake assault on fake President Trump
Sandoval group
© TwitterPolitical fundraiser for Senator Sandoval • Sandoval stands next to the 'shooter'
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Attention

College survey finds mental health issues are common among trans students

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Inside Higher Ed
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 18:38 UTC
mental health
© Routledge
Gender-nonconforming and transgender students are four times more likely to report mental health issues compared to the rest of their peers, according to a new study that is the largest so far to focus on this population of college students.

Researchers relied on data from the Healthy Minds Study, an annual online report on student mental health from college campuses across the country. The new study examined responses of more than 65,200 students from 71 American institutions who were enrolled in college between 2015 and 2017.

Roughly 1,200 respondents said they had an alternate gender identity, meaning they do not identify with the gender that matches their birth sex. The researchers grouped these students — about 2 percent of the study's sample, which included transgender students, gender-queer students and gender-nonconforming students and others — into a category called "gender-minority students."

Comment:

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Target

Rio de Janeiro: Police sniper kills armed man holding dozens hostage on bus

Stephen Sorace
Fox News
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
The armed man was neutralized after a four-hour standoff with police.
© ReutersThe armed man was neutralized after a four-hour standoff with police.
A Brazilian police sniper fatally shot an armed man who held dozens of people hostage on a public bus in Rio de Janeiro after a four-hour standoff, officials said.

The hostage-taker, armed with a gun and a knife, was seen on Brazilian TV exiting the passenger bus and being immediately surrounded by police. He was reportedly arrested at the scene. Rio de Janeiro Gov. Wilson Witzel later confirmed the man had died.

All of the hostages were released unharmed, Rio de Janeiro State Military Police said.

The hostage situation began around 5:30 a.m. local time Tuesday on a busy bridge linking Niteroi to downtown Rio de Janeiro. Police shut down traffic to the bridge - leaving hundreds of vehicles lined up in both directions - and placed a sniper on a nearby perch.
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Camera

Best of the Web: Daily Mail: Ghislaine Maxwell staged LA photo with close friend and attorney

Louise Boyle
Daily Mail
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 17:06 UTC
ghislaine maxwell
© New York PostAugust 15, 2019: Ghislaine Maxwell in California?
The first picture of Ghislaine Maxwell in more than three years was staged by her close friend and attorney, Leah Saffian, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

A photo of Maxwell, 57, was published last week at an In-N-Out Burger joint in Los Angeles, the day after DailyMail.com broke the world exclusive that Epstein's alleged madam had been living under the radar at a Massachusetts mansion with her boyfriend Scott Borgerson for the past three years.

The In-N-Out burger joint picture was published by the New York Post on Thursday after they obtained it from Saffian, 60.

In the picture, Maxwell is seen staring at the camera with a tray of food and two drinks. A dog, which is understood to be Saffian's dog named Dexter, is at her feet.


Comment: The pooch in question:
dexter
Saffian's social media accounts included pictures of her dog Dexter (pictured), who also has his own Facebook page and Instagram account
ghislaine maxwell

Maxwell is reading a book in the picture but the title is not visible. The New York Post named the book as, The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives.


Comment: Obviously Maxwell wouldn't stage a photo reading Ostrovsky's By Way of Deception.


According to the photograph's metadata, reviewed by DailyMail.com, the photograph is tagged with 'Meadowgate'. Metadata provides information about the rights of the photograph to users.

Saffian is president of Meadowgate Media Investments Inc, according to public records.
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Sheriff

Early Epstein accuser Alicia Arden: Police could have stopped him in 1997 but didn't take me seriously

Katie Campione and Jennifer Peltz
Associated Press
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 16:50 UTC
alicia arden
© AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File
More than two decades before Jeffrey Epstein took his own life, a woman went into a California police station and filed one of the earliest sex-crime complaints against him: that he groped her during what she thought was a modeling interview for the Victoria's Secret catalog.

Alicia Arden said she never heard back from investigators about her complaint. No charges ever came of it. And to this day she sees it as a glaring missed opportunity to bring the financier to justice long before he was accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls and women.

"If they would have taken me more seriously than they did, it could have helped all these girls," said Arden, an actress and model. "It could have been stopped."

With recent scrutiny focused on Epstein's life , wealth and connections to powerful people , his early brush with the law has been something of a mystery. After Arden's 1997 complaint to Santa Monica police first came to light several years ago, the department said little about it and Epstein's lawyers said only that police discounted her allegations.
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Red Flag

Paging Big Brother: In Amazon's bookstore, Orwell gets a rewrite

David Streitfeld
NY Times
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 16:40 UTC
books
© Damien Maloney for The New York Times
In George Orwell's "1984," the classics of literature are rewritten into Newspeak, a revision and reduction of the language meant to make bad thoughts literally unthinkable. "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words," one true believer exults.

Now some of the writer's own words are getting reworked in Amazon's vast virtual bookstore, a place where copyright laws hold remarkably little sway. Orwell's reputation may be secure, but his sentences are not.

Over the last few weeks I got a close-up view of this process when I bought a dozen fake and illegitimate Orwell books from Amazon. Some of them were printed in India, where the writer is in the public domain, and sold to me in the United States, where he is under copyright.
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Red Flag

Jordan Peterson tweets video trashing deepfakes as 'threat to Western democracies'

Zara Muradyan
Sputnik
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 14:21 UTC
jordan peterson
© CC BY 2.0 / Gage Skidmore / Jordan Peterson
A neural network, called "NotJordanPeterson", has been trained to produce deep fake audios that mimic the voice of the Canadian psychologist, making him say things he never actually said - and people are already freaking out.

Canadian clinical psychologist, best-selling author, and culture warrior Jordan Peterson has tweeted a YouTube video revealing the danger of deepfakes for current and future generations just days after an audio spoofing website replicating his voice was discovered online.

Aside from the fact that the video, posted on the YouTube channel The Thinkery, addressed the "NotJordanPeterson" neural network that can make the AI model say anything one wants in the professor's voice, it also took a look at some potentially disturbing consequences of the further development of such technology.
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