Society's ChildS


Mr. Potato

Liberals livid after deal for gov shutdown ends without agreement on protection of immigrants

Elana Schor
Politico
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 14:09 UTC
Liberals Livid shut down US gov
© Reed Saxon/AP PhotoUnited We Dream executive director Cristina Jiménez, whose group has mobilized its grass roots to push for Dreamer protection, tweeted that "Dems failed to fight & use their leverage to protect immigrant youth."
Liberal activists are furious with Democratic senators after most of them agreed to reopen the federal government without a firm path to shielding young immigrants from deportation.

As the third day of the shutdown dawned, liberal advocates and immigration groups fired off a joint statement blasting as "unacceptable" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's offer merely to hold a vote on immigration - with no promises for action from the House or White House - in exchange for Democratic votes to reopen the government. But three hours later, Democratic senators agreed to just those terms - sparking anger on the left.

"Millions of people flooded the streets of every major American city to stand up to Trump this weekend," tweeted Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the influential activist network Indivisible. "Your constituents want you to fight. How can you possibly not understand that?"

Comment: Also See:

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Dollars

Crimea given green light to open 'Russian Las Vegas' casino zone next year


RT
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:54 UTC
roulette wheel
© Eric Gaillard / Reuters
A casino zone will be opened in Crimea next year, according to the head of the Russian region, Sergey Aksenov. The project, which was first announced in 2014, has now been given the green light.

The opening is scheduled for September next year, and the land will have been allocated by this February, Aksenov told TASS.

"There is a large operator ready to invest in the project. There are subtleties, mostly linked to the Western sanctions, so there is a need to remain anonymous about who will do it," Aksenov said. The unnamed casino operator is ready to invest 8 billion rubles (about $150 million) in the project, he added.
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Cell Phone

Oops: Hawaii governor late in retracting false missile alert because he 'forgot' his Twitter login


RT
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:48 UTC
no missile threat hawaii
© Instagram / @sighpoutshrug / Reuters
Governor of Hawaii David Ige failed to avert moments of horror for citizens caused by a false ballistic missile alert as he did not know the login and password for his Twitter account, local media have reported.

On January 13, an emergency alert of an incoming ballistic missile and calls to seek shelter caused panic among Hawaii residents. It took officials more than half an hour to retract the false warning and reassure the terrified residents that there was no danger.

The retraction of the alarm might have come earlier though...

Ige was aware of the false alert just two minutes after it went out to residents' phones, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser newspaper. However, the governor confessed that he could not access social media to tackle the situation immediately as he could not recall the password for his Twitter account.
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Megaphone

Cathy Newman interview with Jordan Peterson highlighted how feminist zealots want to crush rational thinking

Melanie Phillips
The Times
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 16:40 UTC
Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman
© Channel 4Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman
If you want to know what the culture war is about, look no farther than the spectacular eruption in Britain during the past few days over Jordan Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Toronto.

Peterson came to prominence in 2016 when he refused to adhere to a proposed new Canadian anti-discrimination law, under which it was claimed that personal pronouns would have to be replaced by preferred transgender activist terms such as ze or zir.

The issue for him was liberty. No one, he declared, had the right to dictate what language people should use.

For this stand, he was compared to Hitler, had his lectures drowned out by white noise and was forced to rely on crowdfunding after his grant application to continue his academic research was rejected. He said he feared for his life.
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Heart - Black

Israeli man rapes, murders elderly neighbor, feeds remains to dog


Sputnik
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:29 UTC
prison bars man jail
© Pixabay
An Israeli citizen has been jailed for life after violently raping and murdering his 66-year-old neighbor in 2014.

The Beersheba district court sentenced Avraham Yalma, 37, to life imprisonment with an additional 15 years in jail after convicting the man for raping and murdering his elderly neighbor who was a volunteer helping Holocaust survivors.

According to the judge's verdict, Yalma met the victim upon her return from volunteer work, took her to his apartment, ruthlessly raped and murdered her. He then left the dead body on the floor and let his dog, an American Staffordshire Terrier, feed on the victim's remains.
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Pistol

School shooting in Kentucky leaves one student dead, five other students shot


RT
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 16:10 UTC
Marshall County High School
© marshall.kyschools.usMarshall County High School
One student has been confirmed dead and at least five students were shot Tuesday morning at a high school in Kentucky. The school was placed on lockdown and emergency responders are already on scene.

The suspect has been apprehended by police according to Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin who confirmed the "tragic shooting" by saying one person has been confirmed dead with "multiple others wounded", however much is still unknown, he wrote on Twitter.

"Please do not speculate or spread hearsay...Let's let the first responders do their job and be grateful that they are there to do it for us," he wrote.
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Books

Oxford University wants women to get better grades in math and science exams - so they now get extra time

Alex Matthews
Daily Mail
Sun, 21 Jan 2018 11:19 UTC
Oxford University
Oxford University has extended time for maths and computer science exams in a bid to help women get better grades (file photo)
Oxford University has extended time for maths and computer science exams in a bid to help women get better grades.

Undergraduates were given 105 minutes to complete their papers, rather 90.

There was no change in difficulty or the length of questions and female students were said to do better as a result.

Dons trialed the changes to allow women to achieve higher results, with just seven female maths finalists achieving firsts last year compared with 45 men.

The proposals were put forward to reduce the 'undue effects of time pressure' which the prestigious university believe effects women more than men, reports the Sunday Times.

Comment: See also: Five Feminist Lies We Take For Granted

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Handcuffs

Inspectorate alleges sex abuse victims in UK prison being strip-searched too often


RT
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 15:12 UTC
HMP & YOI Peterborough prison
© GoogleHMP & YOI Peterborough has been using heavy force and strip searches against women
Sex abuse victims in prison are being "over" strip-searched in embarrassing and degrading punishments in a UK jail, which houses both female and male inmates.

Use of force at Peterborough women's jail has also been branded "too high" by concerned officials who found the jail to be "unsafe" for inmates. Conditions at the jail were heavily criticized over concerns that the women are neglected, while operations are focused on the men's side because it poses more danger.

HMP and YOI Peterborough is the only prison in England and Wales that holds both women and men on a single site. HM Inspectorate of Prisons found formerly abused women in the prison, many of whom have experienced rape and molestation, are "too often" forced to remove their clothes before being searched.

Comment: There indeed should be records of strip-searching. Since there isn't, one has to question how the inspectorate reached the conclusion that it is being over-used and targeting victims of sex abuse.

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Light Sabers

Social media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter unleash 'counterspeech' psy-op to protect people from 'extremism'

Jake Anderson
The AntiMedia
Thu, 18 Jan 2018 11:08 UTC
george orwell
If you're a radical or search for "extremist" content online, the biggest social networks and internet companies on Earth will soon be converting you into a docile moderate, or at least, they will try.

Facebook, Google, and Twitter have been screening and filtering extremist content for years, but on Wednesday, the gatekeepers of the internet confirmed to Congress that they are accelerating their efforts and will target users who may be exposed to extremist/terrorist content, redirecting them instead to "positive and moderate" posts.

Representatives for the three companies testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation to outline specific ways they are trying to combat extremism online. Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren't just tinkering with their algorithms to restrict certain kinds of violent content and messaging. They're also using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to manufacture what they call "counterspeech," which has a hauntingly Orwellian ring to it. Essentially, their goal is to catch burgeoning extremists, or people being radicalized online, and re-engineer them via targeted propagandistic advertisements.

Comment: In fact it already has. Their use of vague language is by design, and thus can be used to call almost anything 'extremist' or 'radicalization'. Content that exposes one to the truth or goes against the official line can and will be treated as such the further we go down this road. See also:

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Biohazard

'Chaos' as central London station closed and 1,500 people evacuated after gas main leak


RT
Tue, 23 Jan 2018 15:09 UTC
London gas leak
© London Fire Brigade / Twitter
Some 1,450 people have been evacuated from a nightclub and a hotel, and major station Charing Cross is closed after a gas main ruptured in the Strand, central London.

Witnesses have described "chaos" as doormen at the Heaven nightclub ordered them to leave after the alarm was raised at around 2am. Guests at the hotel were moved into emergency accommodation.
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