Society's ChildS


Butterfly

Merkel says Facebook, Google 'distort perception,' demands they 'reveal algorithms'


RT
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 08:47 UTC
droopy eyed merkel
© Francois Lenoir/ReutersGermany's Chancellor Angela Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a broadside at internet media giants, accusing them of "narrowing perspective," and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right.


Comment: Obviously it has nothing to do with your immigration policy. Only right wing racists would ever have a problem with that. Right comrades?


"The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others?" said Merkel during a media conference in Berlin on Tuesday.


Comment: What we have here is a confluence of stupid. Take a politician who doesn't understand technology, give them a microphone, and listen as they embarrass themselves with hyperbolic pronouncements and decrees.


"These algorithms, when they are not transparent, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information."

Google uses an algorithm to decide which search results are first shown to a user, while Facebook arranges the order of the news feed, and decides to include certain posts from a user's liked pages and friends, at the expense of others. Both sites also promote links to news articles, often based on a user's own media interests.
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Che Guevara

People Power! Natives declare treaty rights, police admit defeat - cite lack of 'manpower' to remove DAPL protesters

Jack Burns
Free Though Project
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 23:00 UTC
DAPL protestors
Authorities in North Dakota may be feeling the heat from the international attention the Dakota Access Pipeline is getting. They're now saying they lack the manpower to remove the encampment of protesters located on federal land near the controversial pipeline. The announcement may signal a softening of the treatment the protesters, up until now, have been receiving.

For months now, The Free Thought Project's spotlight has been shining on the, some might say, dark and dirty deeds of law enforcement and their treatment of largely Native American peaceful protesters. Attack dogs were unleashed on the protesters in September, injuring six, and an additional 30 protesters, including children, were sprayed with pepper spray. In all, more than 260 people have reportedly been arrested since the protests began in Morton County — over 100 this weekend alone.

The sheriff's office's announcement comes just two days after The Free Thought Project encouraged readers to contact Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier's office demanding him to allow for peaceful protest, even providing a link to a petition for his removal. Spokeswoman Donnell Preskey told The Associated Press the department doesn't "have the manpower" to remove the more than 100 protesters from the property. "We can't right now," she said.
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Sherlock

Controversial DNA search helps nab the 'Grim Sleeper' serial killer

Marisa Gerber
Los Angeles Times
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 20:35 UTC
Grim Sleeper
He roamed the streets of Sacramento for six years, raping women as they walked to work or headed home from parties in the dark.

To keep them from fighting back, he smashed their heads with rocks and wrapped his hands around their necks. Sometimes he threatened them with a gun.

Police became frustrated, unable to identify him even though they had his DNA from the crimes. Desperate for a break, they checked a database of convicted felons, but came up empty-handed.

Finally, they searched for a partial match to see whether he had a relative in the database. They got lucky — the man had a brother in custody, which led authorities to the assailant.

The "Roaming Rapist" is one of a handful of cases that California authorities have quietly solved in recent years using a controversial technique that scours an offender DNA database for a father, son or brother of an elusive crime suspect.
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Gear

Blueprint for social control: The brutal legacy of the Attica prison uprising

Chris Hedges
Truthdig
Sun, 23 Oct 2016 00:00 UTC
Attica Prison Rebellion
Heather Ann Thompson's book "Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy" is a detailed study of the inner workings of America. The blueprint for social control employed before and after the crushing of the Attica revolt is the same blueprint used today to keep tens of millions of poor people, especially poor people of color, caged or living in miniature police states. Thompson meticulously documents the innumerable ways the state oppresses the poor by discrediting their voices, turning the press into a megaphone for government propaganda and lies, stoking the negative stereotypes of black people, exalting white supremacy, ruining the lives of people who speak the truth, manipulating the courts and law enforcement, and pressuring state witnesses to lie to obstruct justice. Her book elucidates not only the past but also the present, which, she concedes, is worse.

"America by the early twenty-first century had, in disturbing ways, come to resemble America in the late nineteenth century," Thompson writes near the end of her book. "In 1800 the three-fifths clause gave white voters political power from a black population that was itself barred from voting, and after 2000 prison gerrymandering was doing exactly the same thing in numerous states across the country. After 1865, African American desires for equality and civil rights in the South following the American Civil War led whites to criminalize African American communities in new ways and then sent record numbers of blacks to prison in that region. Similarly, a dramatic spike in black incarceration followed the civil rights movement—a movement that epitomized Attica. And just as businesses had profited from the increased number of Americans in penal facilities after 1870, so did they seek the labor of a growing captive prison population after 1970. In both centuries, white Americans had responded to black claims for freedom by beefing up, and making more punitive, the nation's criminal justice system."
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Heart

Muslims mistake synagogue for mosque in Israeli airport, use prayer shawls as prayer mats - amazingly, nothing happens


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 17:31 UTC
muslims pray airport synagogue
© Yossi Cohen / Facebook Muslim family mistakenly prays in airport synagogue
Jews in Israeli Ben Gurion International Airport were quite taken aback after they saw several Turkish Muslims praying in the airport's synagogue, apparently mistaking it for a mosque.

The footage was released by Facebook user Yossi Cohen on Monday. "Today at the synagogue in Ben Gurion airport," he wrote under the video.

They were all members of one Turkish family, according to Breaking Israeli news. They were apparently looking for a place to pray and found a synagogue which was empty. It was just before the holiday of Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday that marks the end of the annual cycle of public Torah readings and the beginning of a new cycle. Religious Jews do not usually travel on such days.


The family used the available Jewish prayer shawls, also known as tallits, as prayer mats. Tallits are shawls traditionally worn over the clothes by religious Jews during prayers.

Comment: What a refreshing reaction. Facebook commenter David Auman added (automatic translation):
Why is there really no place for Muslims to pray ben gurion airport? At the airport in turkey. They set a place for Jews to pray. (leave it were an issue in one small room with a partition in the middle, one half is for Christians and Jews and the other half... but at least they thought of us)


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Stormtrooper

Cops had woman put in mental hospital after she "asked them for a warrant"

Jocelyn Rardin
Courthouse News Service
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 17:27 UTC
Riverside Virginia hospital
A Virginia woman claims in court that Newport News police illegally entered her home and then wrongfully imprisoned her in a psychiatric ward against her will for six days.In a complaint filed in the Hampton City Circuit Court on Oct. 4, Hieda Keeler claims that on Nov. 18, 2015, she was home alone when two city police officers knocked on her door and asked if she needed help.

Keeler says she asked the officers if they had a warrant to enter her home, and when they said they did not, she told the she did not need help, was no threat to herself or others, and that they were to leave her property. But instead of leaving, the officers called for assistance, causing an untold number of additional officers and a fire truck to respond to the scene.

Keeler claims the police then broke down her front and back doors and placed her in handcuffs. According to the complaint, the police then removed $360 in cash from Keeler's purse, and three case files related to the theft of $300,000 of Keeler's personal property.
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Attention

PM Medvedev among those evacuated due to fire threat at Russia's innovation hub forum


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 17:07 UTC
medvedev innovation forum fire
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and other participants of a forum at Russia's innovation hub at Skolkovo have been evacuated after smoke was detected and alarm systems went off, local media report.

Participants of the tech event run by Skolkovo Innovation Center were evacuated after smoke and fumes were spotted inside the building, according to TASS.

People taking part in the event, including PM Medvedev, were asked to leave the building "for safety reasons."

The fire reportedly broke out on the second floor of the building and was promptly extinguished, according to TASS.

Skolkovo's fire protection unit told the news agency that the incident was provoked by a short circuit, believed to have occurred inside a dome sitting atop the building.
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Wolf

Anti-Trump violence on the rise as Election Day approaches

Matthew Vadum
Lifezette
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 16:52 UTC
violence aganist trump supporters
Media pays little attention to escalating attacks, thousands of threats against Trump supporters

While the mainstream media has been working day and night promoting Hillary Clinton's candidacy, it has largely ignored or downplayed violent attacks against supporters of Donald Trump.

But assaults on Trump supporters appear to be growing increasingly common as Election Day approaches and tensions intensify. Reports of Trump lawn signs and banners being stolen and defaced are everywhere on social media.

Making matters worse, undercover video evidence emerged showing senior Democrat operatives Robert Creamer and Scott Foval acknowledging using dirty, likely illegal tricks against the Trump campaign. Their goal was to generate negative media coverage of Trump rallies by fomenting violence at them. The media eagerly used the various fisticuffs and melees the Democrats created to attempt to discredit Trump by depicting his supporters as violent, knuckle-dragging crazies.

The videos, shot by ACORN slayer James O'Keefe's group Project Veritas Action, show Foval on camera saying his agents "infiltrate" Trump events. "It doesn't matter what the friggin' legal and ethics people say, we need to win this motherf****er." He adds, "we're starting anarchy here."

Creamer, previously convicted of felony bank fraud, has visited the Obama White House more than 300 times. In one of the videos, he says Hillary Clinton personally knows about the false flag operation. Her campaign "is fully in it," Creamer confirms. "Hillary knows through the chain of command what's going on."


Comment: See all three of the videos released by Project Veritas so far here. The Killary-bots are not happy.

Clinton Campaign, White House Squirm after Project Veritas Exposes DNC Dirty Tricks

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Eye 2

Drug tunnel equipped with rails, lights, ventilation discovered at US-Mexico border


RT
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 05:11 UTC
tunnel
© Jorge Duenes / Reuters
A long cross-border drug tunnel has been discovered running beneath Mexico towards the US. Starting at a house, the tunnel was well equipped for transiting loads of drugs which were allegedly bound for buyers in America.

The tunnel was found 23 feet (7 meters) underground, according to Mexican prosecutors. It measured nine feet (3 meters) wide and four feet (1.2 meters) tall, and was 1,689 feet (514 meters) long. It was equipped with ventilation and lighting, and had rails for pushing packages of drugs through the passageway.

It began at a house in Tijuana, Mexico, where prosecutors found more than "two metric tons of marijuana," AP reported. Prosecutors originally estimated that five tons of marijuana could be inside the house, but were unable to enter the premises without court permission.

Comment: See also: Mexican drug lord 'El Chapo' caught because he was attempting to make biographical film

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Evil Rays

White Helmets Fraud: Terrorist Support Group, Not Humanitarians - But West Loves Them!

Rick Sterling
Consortium News
Sun, 23 Oct 2016 16:31 UTC
white helmets
Humanitarian terrorists.
The saturation of propaganda from massive investments by Western interests in NGOs like the "White Helmets" has skewed the public's understanding of foreign crises, such as Iraq in 2003 and Syria today, writes Rick Sterling.

Across the mainstream Western media, the "White Helmets" are hailed as heroic first responders rescuing injured civilians in rebel-controlled parts of Syria. The U.K. Guardian and The Independent urged the Nobel Committee to award this year's Nobel Peace Prize to the "White Helmets." As it turned out, they didn't get that one, but they did receive the prestigious 2016 "Right Livelihood Award."


Comment: This is the same Guardian that recently quoted a terrorist in Aleppo to support the idea that there are no terrorists in Aleppo... See: Absurd! The Guardian cites terrorist leader to prove there are no terrorists in Aleppo


On the U.S. side of the Atlantic, the "White Helmets" are treated with similar uncritical acclaim. They were the subject of the Oct. 17 TIME magazine cover story. Netflix has released a special "documentary" movie about them. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has gushed over them for years, helping the group's one-sided depiction of events inside Syria shape the pro-rebel narrative that is pretty much all the American and European publics hear about Syria.

Comment: Vanessa Beeley puts it succinctly: "they are acting as a terrorist support group."



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