Society's ChildS


Brain

Army investing $10 million in portable brain injury diagnostic device

Army
© Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters
The US Army has earmarked $10 million for developing a portable device capable of assessing traumatic brain injuries on the field. However, it's not expected to enter service before 2021 at the earliest.

The contract for $9,990,947 was awarded to the California-based Neural Analytics, Inc, which develops technology to measure, diagnose and track brain health. The contract was awarded at a "firm fixed price," the Army Times reported citing Pentagon documents.

The Lucid System is designed to be used by a soldier after just 30 minutes of training and would allow officers to assess traumatic brain injuries on the spot.

"Our objective is to build an instrument for someone with little or no training that they can use reliably," Leo Petrossian, CEO of Neural Analytics, told the Army Times.

Eye 1

Essex police officer: It's psychopathic behavior, "clearly none of them share any guilt'

Sidney Cooke was said to be the leader of a child sex ring, known as the Dirty Dozen, who are suspected of abusing and killing young boys

Sidney Cooke
Sidney Cooke
A figure who had a 'strange way with young children' was the way paedophile Sidney Cooke was described to police as they investigated the disappearance of a seven-year-old boy.

The picture that would later emerge was horrifying, a man who was apparently involved in a sex ring used by paedophiles - trading in the abuse of young boys who would, according to a police officer "become their meat."

Megaphone

Anne Robinson says she is in despair over fragile modern women who are 'unable to deal' with the 'sex pest' in the work place

Anne Robinson
© DAVID VENNIAnne Robinson has caused a stir with her comments.
Anne Robinson has caused widespread outrage after saying women nowadays are "fragile" and unable to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace, compared to her generation which was more "robust".

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she was "in despair" over the way women have remained silent over sexual harassment.

Ms Robinson drew particular attention to the fact MPs appeared to know about their "sex pest" colleagues, and said nothing until after the Weinstein allegations caused many industries to be scrutinised.

She said: ""It's not always women who aren't in a position of power. If a woman is clever enough to become an MP, and even a former female cabinet minister is speaking about this, why hasn't she spoken out?

Comment: See also: 'Dirty dossier' names 36 Tory MPs accused of sleazy behavior


House

'Displacement effect: 'Sweden's housing asylum seekers deprives other vulnerable groups - report

Asylum seeker
© Global Look PressPolice at the accommodation for asylum seekers in Sweden.
Sweden is allocating housing to asylum seekers at the expense of other vulnerable groups, according to a report seen by the country's national broadcaster SVT. The country's government blames the municipalities, saying they are not building enough houses.

The report by Sweden's county administrative boards said that around 60 percent of the country's municipalities said they had experienced a 'displacement effect,' meaning other vulnerable groups were having a harder time finding housing because of the right to housing for asylum seekers.

The municipalities are required by law to arrange housing for those appointed by the Migration Board.

"As a consequence, others who need housing go without; we are not obliged to supply housing for them," Thed Carlsson, head of social services in southern Hässleholm municipality, told SVT.

War Whore

Los Angeles police are arresting citizens for speaking 20 seconds over their allotted time at city meetings

Cops
The Los Angeles Police Department has apparently been arresting residents for speaking 20 seconds longer than their allotted time at public city hearings. Now the ACLU of Southern California is fighting an ordinance that could make it even harder for residents to speak out-especially those who dissent against the practices of the LAPD. If passed, the ordinance will make it "an arrestable offense to violate any posted rules of public facilities" and would empower law enforcement to make criminal trespass charges, tighten restrictions on speaking time and shut down criticism at meetings.

X

North Korea calls Trump 'mentally ill' and 'dotard' in propaganda leaflets dropped over Seoul

Butcher a mad dog Trump!
© ReutersThe text in Korean reads "For the peaceful world without war and for the future of mankind" (top) and "Butcher a mad dog Trump!"
North Korea has dropped insulting messages about US President Donald Trump over the South Korean capital, Seoul.

The fliers were stuffed into balloons and contained notes branding the US president as "mentally ill" and a "dotard," meaning someone who is weak or senile.

The insults appear to be Kim Jong-un's response to comments delivered by Trump to the UN General Assembly last month in which the US president referred to the North Korean leader as a "rocket man."

Comment: See also: 'Mad Dog' Trump leaflets 'blown' in from N. Korea strewn over Seoul


Brick Wall

Corey Feldman: 'Everything you're seeing is building up to what I believe is a dam breaking open'

Corey Feldman
© NBC
Corey Feldman sat down on Monday for his first TV interview since launching a campaign to finance a film that would expose a pedophile ring in Hollywood.

Speaking to Matt Lauer on the "Today" show, Feldman did not reveal the names of his alleged harassers from his days as a child star, citing legal ramifications, but he did vow to eventually "release every single name that I have any knowledge of."

Comment:


Pirates

Former editor of NYTM says FBI uncovered US anarchists links to Al qaeda and ISIS in plot to destroy Trump

  • Bestselling author Edward Klein is set to release his latest book All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump
  • Klein makes the shocking revelation that an FBI investigation discovered collusion between American anarchists and ISIS and Al-Qaeda
  • 'This is the greatest challenge to law enforcement since the Weather Underground and the Black Panther Party,' the FBI report declared
  • It reveals the FBI sent a task force to Germany to report on radical groups that planned to protest President Trump's attendance at this year's G20 Summit
  • The investigation determined that U.S.-backed anarchist/radical groups had traveled to Germany and took part in the violence
  • There was also evidence that three key leaders of an Oakland group met in Hamburg with a leader of the Al-Qaeda
  • The foreign terrorists were helping them acquire the weapons they are seeking, primarily bomb-making equipment and toxic chemicals and gasses
Edward Klein All out war Trump
The cover of the book and the author
Edward Klein is the former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine and the author of numerous bestsellers including his fourth book on the Clintons, Guilty as Sin, in 2016. His latest book is All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump will be released October 30, 2017

A secret FBI investigation of the violent 'resistance' movement on college campuses against President Trump has led to an alarming discovery-the collusion between American anarchists and foreign terrorists in the Islamic State and Al qaeda, according to a confidential 'Informational Report' by FBI field offices.

Comment: We would love to see the evidence for this claim, if there is actually any. As much as both head-chopping jihadists and violent anarchists deserve to be called terrorists, the fact is that ideologically they remain unlikely bedfellows. On the other hand, if this is true, they are doing a great disservice to Western civil society at large by blurring even further the lines between actual terrorists and everyone else. If so-called "left-wing protesters" work with Islamic terrorists, then anyone is suspect.


Chart Pie

How religious Americans voted in the 2016 election

The 2016 presidential exit polling reveals little change in the political alignments of U.S. religious groups. Those who supported Republican candidates in recent elections, such as white born-again or evangelical Christians and white Catholics, strongly supported Donald Trump as well. Groups that traditionally backed Democratic candidates, including religious "nones," Hispanic Catholics and Jews, were firmly in Hillary Clinton's corner.

While earlier in the campaign some pundits and others questioned whether the thrice-married Trump would earn the bulk of white evangelical support, fully eight-in-ten self-identified white, born-again/evangelical Christians say they voted for Trump, while just 16% voted for Clinton. Trump's 65-percentage-point margin of victory among voters in this group - which includes self-described Protestants, as well as Catholics, Mormons and others - matched or exceeded the victory margins of George W. Bush in 2004, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
2016 election poll

Calculator

If you look behind neoliberal economists, you'll discover the rich: How economic theories serve Big Business

milton friedman
Milton Friedman
The road to serfdom - sponsored by big business

Social classes have always embraced ideas and social philosophies. Not only to understand and interpret the real world, but most importantly to change it to their benefit. These theories (primarily in social science) have become beweaponed ideas called ideologies, as they are used to influence rather than to understand the human universe. Of course the two are related: the nature of our understanding, i.e. what we consider important and what we leave out from our theoretical framework, is called modelling.

But what if modeling is just an euphemism for modern ideologies? Think of the efforts of neoclassical macroeconomics - for instance, DSGE models - to find the philosophical notion of equilibrium, irrespective of the non-equilibrium nature of the real world, let alone income inequalities. (But also think of Mannheim's paradox that the critique of an ideology - like this article - is also ideological.)