Society's ChildS


Biohazard

Insecticide lethal to Monarch Butterflies will be used during biological weapons simulation in Oklahoma


The Mind Unleashed
Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
biological warfare
Biological weapons might be as far from the minds of typical Americans as they are remote in threat potential; yet, the Department of Homeland Security is planning a live simulation of a bio attack - in a small Oklahoma town on the Kansas border.

Unsurprisingly, the town's residents are none too thrilled about the plan.

DHS announced last week it plans the biological weapons simulation for early in 2018 - and, again, during the summer - at the Chilocco Indian School, seven miles north of the town of Newkirk. FOX23 reports a legal notice appearing in local media stated "non-hazardous, non-toxic" chemicals and biological materials will be released on buildings in the area to determine how much protection structures would offer, should a real attack take place.

"I just got sick to my stomach," Dennis Jordan, a resident of Newkirk, told KOCO. "I think if they want to test that stuff, let them go to Los Alamos, you know? I think it's stupid."

Comment: Maybe there is nothing to get worked up about. Remember the Jade Helm psy-ops? On the other hand, this exercise certainly is a data point of sorts.

DHS preparing biological attack drills in Oklahoma using infrastructure resembling residential and apartment buildings

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Attention

Mistaken for a deer: Pickup truck a new victim of botched hunting in NY state


RT
Sun, 26 Nov 2017 20:30 UTC
Deer
© Toby Melville / ReutersIt is the second case of mistaken identity involving hunters and innocent victims in the same area of New York State in less than a week.
For the second time in less than a week, New York state police were called to the woods to respond to a hunting mishap. This time, a brown truck was mistakenly fired upon by a local hunter who mistook it for a deer.

Robert Merritt called 911 at approximately 11:10am local time to report that the truck he and his fellow passenger were travelling in was shot at and disabled as they were heading towards the Wiltsie Road State Lands.

Marvin C. Miller was hunting on the state lands when he mistook the passing brown pickup truck for a deer and fired one round from his 7mm scoped rifle. The round struck the driver's side front fender but thankfully missed both occupants by several feet. Miller did, however, manage to damage the engine compartment enough to bring the truck to a stop. Miller rushed to check that the occupants were ok before authorities arrived on scene.

Comment: See also: Woman 'mistaken for deer' fatally shot by NY hunter while walking her dogs

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Bulb

The politicization of sexual assault and campus counsellors

Irene Ogrizek
Quillette
Sun, 26 Nov 2017 23:41 UTC
Woman on the street
A few years ago, a student came to my office in tears. Earlier in the day she'd stood in the doorway of the computer lab, telling me she didn't think she would make it through class. Her face had been swollen and tear-stained. She was a confident young woman, so her appearance surprised me. When I expressed concern, she said she would drop by my office later. It was the last day of the spring semester.

When she showed up, she told me she'd been sexually assaulted several days earlier. We'd established a good rapport over the semester, and so I did my best to console her. She seemed convinced her life had been ruined, but did not want to go to the police. A visit to a rape crisis centre had left her shaken.

Comment:
The problem with the #MeToo movement

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Robot

Scientists predict rise of "digisexuals" as sexbots become more popular


RT
Sun, 26 Nov 2017 22:47 UTC
sexbots
© Anthony WALLACE / AFP
Academics are arguing that many people will soon be identifying as "digisexuals" and taking their sexual identity from having sex with robots.

While sex robots are currently quite primitive, a new report published in the Journal of Sexual and Relationship Therapy argues that before long they will be able to look, speak and act like real people - and will be specifically designed to fulfill a person's desires.

The report's authors, Neil McArthur and Markie L. C. Twist, from the University of Manitoba, Canada, argue that we need to be ready to deal with the phenomenon when it comes to fruition.

"There is no question, then, that sexbots are coming," McArthur and Twist say. "Our view is that they will represent a different sort of sexual experience from what existing technologies offer. First of all, people will form an intense connection with their robot companions."

"These robots will be tailor-made to meet people's desires, and will do things that human partners cannot or will not do. For this reason, significant numbers of people will likely come to use robots as their primary mode of sexual experience."

Comment: What could possibly go wrong? Bladerunner 2049, here we come...

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Bulb

'Gender-neutral' French banned from government papers

Rory Mulholland
UK Telegraph
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 15:41 UTC
Whole foods gender neutral speech
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has ordered that so-called "inclusive writing" - an attempt to make French grammar more politically correct and gender neutral - must not be used in official government texts.

The ban was the latest twist in a bitter row over "écriture inclusive," which splits up words using a punctuation point called a middot, so that for example the plural word "amis" (friends) becomes "ami·e·s" and "citoyens" (citizens) becomes "citoyen·ne·s."

The new spellings include feminine forms rather than following the rule that plural masculine endings denote both women and men - a practice that the French ministry for gender equality has described as a form of sexual tyranny.

But the initiative has sparked fury among linguistic purists, with the Académie Française, the gatekeeper of the French language, arguing that it poses a "mortal danger" to the purity of French.

The Prime Minister has now come down on the side of the purists, banning "inclusive writing" from official publications.

Comment: An unusual moment of clarity there from the French government that has, in the past, furiously promoted all things post-modern.

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Clipboard

"#MeToo" aftermath list: All the men accused of multiple degrees of sexual misconduct


USA Today
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 21:12 UTC
#MeToo, sexual harassment
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Since the allegations of sexual abuse by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced on Oct. 5, women have been stepping forward to publicly share their stories of sexual misconduct.

Although many of the accusations originally focused on Hollywood, men across industries including tech, business, politics and media are facing consequences for claims ranging from sexual harassment to rape.

Below is a list (organized alphabetically) of powerful men who have been accused since the Weinstein scandal broke:

Comment: Note the range of "offences" - from relatively benign to criminal. Yet all get lumped together - they're all on the same list, after all. Or perhaps bad "pick-up" attempts are now equivalent to violent rape? If so, the future is looking bleak.

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Attention

Fourth survivor of the Las Vegas shooting massacre dies of unrelated causes

Deniz Kofteci
Circa
Sat, 25 Nov 2017 20:51 UTC
Roy McClellan
© FacebookRoy McClellan, 52, was killed Nov. 17 when he was struck by a Chevrolet Camaro in Pahrump, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas.
A man who survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas on October 1st was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Nevada on November 17. He is the fourth survivor to die since the shooting massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival.

Roy McClellan's widow, Denise, was with him during the shooting.

"It was just ear-piercing. I was like oh my gosh, what is that noise? This is horrible," she told our affiliate KSNV news.

She says her and her husband ran for their lives but even as bullets rained down around them, her husband Roy stopped to help people along the way.

She says her husband had been in therapy since the shooting. "It was really messing with his head and he was going to therapy," she said.

"This isn't what I wanted for him. I don't understand why he wasn't taken at the shooting, but a month later he was taken this way," said McClellan. "I hope my husband found peace and he's safe now."
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Eye 1

Dozens of law enforcement agencies are using Stingray technology to track suspects without a warrant


RT
Sun, 26 Nov 2017 20:42 UTC
police camera room
© Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Dozens of police departments across the US are using special devices to track suspects without warrants. However, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) catchers also capture data from regular people on the street.

The technology, which was developed for the military, mimics cell phone towers and tricks phones into routing signals through them. This allows police to a track suspect's location. The machines even allow police to get the location of a phone without the user making a call or sending a text. The most common of these devices is called a "StingRay."

Such devices can also collect the phone numbers a person has been calling and texting and even intercept the content of communications.

At least 72 state and local law enforcement departments in 24 states and 13 federal agencies use the devices, according to a new report from AP. The report notes that further details are hard to come by because the departments that use IMSI catchers must take the unusual step of signing non-disclosure agreements overseen by the FBI.

Comment: See also:

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Stop

Best of the Web: Ridiculous! YouTube censors Christian videos because content describes and supports values of Russian Faith

David Curry
Russia Insider
Mon, 20 Nov 2017 00:00 UTC
Really YouTube?
Really YouTube?
Two weeks ago, I was summarily informed in a brief email from YouTube that our Russian Faith channel-on which we had spent hundreds of hours of hard work and which complements the Russian Faith website, which I own, had been 'terminated.' No reason was given other than a very general one which could mean anything.

Russian Faith is a new media project I started in September: a website, YouTube channel (now banned), Facebook, and Twitter - to cover Christian issues in general, and the huge story of the renaissance of Christianity in Russia.

This dramatic turn by both government and society in Russia is very important not just for Christians, but for the whole world, regardless of their religious views, because it has so many ramifications important to us Americans.

It should affect our foreign policy, and it contrasts with the hostility to Christian values in our own Western societies. It is a fact that Russia has emerged as the leading defender of world Christianity, and it is a disgrace that liberal forces in the US elites and the government are among Christianity's most hostile foes - both at home and abroad.

Comment: How symbolic that a website named Russian Faith has been so needlessly and egregiously attacked in this way. But it also fits the 'Big Picture'. And that 'Big Picture' is to drag down, demonize and undermine anything and anyone who would seek to have Russia succeed as a nation and as a people - on nearly every level - and in whatever way it can.

But here's the thing: Every time we see one of these attacks, more and more people get to see and know for themselves just how biased, irrational and pathological this impetus towards Russia's destabilization actually is.

See:

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Treasure Chest

Trove of metal objects removed from Indian man's stomach


RT
Sun, 26 Nov 2017 17:06 UTC
Nails
© imagebroker / Simon Belcher / Global Look Press
Ever felt hungry so much you'd eat a nail or a coin? One Indian man definitely did, as astonished surgeons discovered around seven kilograms of inedible metal items inside his abdomen after he complained of a stomach-ache.

Having suffered from stomach pains for three months, the 35-year-old man had been admitted to the Satna hospital in the Indian state of Mathya Pradesh, as the Independent reports. Doctors first suspected food poisoning until carrying out an endoscopy - only to discover a trove of metal objects inside.

Named as Maksud Khan, the man reportedly gulped down hundreds of coins, 1.5 kg of nails, shaving blades, glass shards, stones and a 15-centimeter piece of rusted iron shackle. "We were shocked to discover coins, nails and nut-bolts in his stomach. We come across such a case for the first time in our career," said Dr Priyank Sharma, who led the surgical team, which removed a total of seven kilograms of assorted junk.
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