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Mass. state police tested out Boston Dynamics' Spot the robot dog - civil liberties groups have concerns

Ally Jarmanning
WBUR News
Mon, 25 Nov 2019 21:08 UTC
robot dogs police
© Michael Dwyer/AP
Robots and police departments are no strangers. In this photo, a member of the Cambridge police bomb squad used a robot during a search for the Boston Marathon bombings suspect in 2013.
Cops have long had dogs, and robots, to help them do their jobs. And now, they have a robot dog.

Massachusetts State Police is the first law enforcement agency in the country to use Boston Dynamics' dog-like robot, called Spot. While the use of robotic technology is not new for state police, the temporary acquisition of Spot — a customizable robot some have called "terrifying" — is raising questions from civil rights advocates about how much oversight there should be over police robotics programs.

The state's bomb squad had Spot on loan from the Waltham-based Boston Dynamics for three months starting in August until November, according to records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and reviewed by WBUR.

Comment: Other videos of the Boston Dynamics unit have surfaced, along with videos of prototypes being developed in other labs:





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Footprints

Not just talking to ourselves - others find us

Patrick Armstrong
Strategic Culture Foundation
Fri, 22 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
Cartoon A Lie
Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired. (Often rephrased as: "You cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into").
- Jonathan Swift
This site has attracted a large stable of writers; by and large, most of the time, generally speaking, we agree with each other pretty well. The point of view of most of the writers is counter Establishment. In today's frenzied Russophobia that opens us to the charges of being Putinbots but, in truth, we write against the prevailing WaPo/NYT/Economist/Guardian view on many subjects. The fact that that commentary is now penetrated with demented fears that Putin is shaping minds and getting his stooges elected and so on, means that any denial of that delusion makes them call us Putin apologists. Just as, to take another case, Tulsi Gabbard's condemnation of Washington's addiction to regime change wars makes her an Assad apologist and - insanity seeks out insanity - Putin's favourite candidate. I have never had a word changed in anything I have written, but then what I write fits the editorial model of Strategic Culture Foundation. And so does what I read there.

On the other side of the divide are the writers and readers of the WaPo/NYT/Economist/Guardian established media. They also generally agree with what they read, approve of each other's writing and nod their heads in agreement. They are in their comfort zone.

Two solitudes - two bubbles. An agreeable agreement bubble for each: different bubbles to be sure but the same warm comfortable feeling of reassurance that they're well-informed.
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House

Why mayors won't rule the world

Joel Kotkin
Quillette
Wed, 27 Nov 2019 00:00 UTC
top of city blocks
© Scott Szarapka/Unsplash
Earlier in this decade, cities — the bigger and denser the better — appeared as the planet's geographic stars. According to Benjamin Barber, author of the 2013 book If Mayors Ruled the World, everyone would be better off if the ineffective, aging nation-state were replaced by rule from the most evolved urban areas. This, Barber argues, would provide the "building blocks" of global governance run by a "parliament of mayors."

In reality, the validity of the "back to the city" meme was never as pronounced as its boosters believed. And now it seems, if anything, to be reversing — first demographically, then economically — as workers and key industries seek more affordable and congenial environments. Furthermore, many elite urban centers are diverging, sometimes radically, from national norms which produces a political conundrum. As big city politics shift ever further to the left, particularly on climate and "social justice" issues, not only are they becoming toxic to the middle class, they are becoming places many avoid rather than models that invite imitation.

Comment: Cities and suburbs naturally create cyclical ebb and flow patterns that spur development and redevelopment according to the fluctuations of cost, demand and incentives. It seems unlikely that political stance is the prime motivating factor in choosing to live in the city or elsewhere.

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Calculator

US cryptocurrency expert accused of assisting North Korea in evading sanctions


NBC News
Fri, 29 Nov 2019 21:14 UTC
Bitfarms
© Lars Hagberg / AFP - Getty Images
Two technicians inspect bitcon mining at Bitfarms in Saint Hyacinthe, Quebec on March 19, 2018.
A man was arrested in California and accused of traveling to North Korea to deliver a presentation on using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that could help the country evade sanctions, federal prosecutors in New York said Friday.

Virgil Griffith, 36, was arrested Thursday at Los Angeles International Airport after he allegedly traveled North Korea in April and provided technological information that could assist in evading sanctions imposed on the country by the U.S., the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York said in a statement. Griffith was set to appear in federal court in Los Angeles Friday.

Griffith is employed by Ethereum a block-chain operating system which has its own cryptocurrency platforms, public postings show.

Comment: See also:

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Handcuffs

Priyanka Reddy case: How police cracked 'Hyderabad Horror' rape-murder in 24 hours

Ashish Pandey
India Today
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 19:18 UTC
priyanka reddy protest
© Reuters / Vinod Babu
Police officers stand guard as people attend a protest demanding justice over the rape and murder of a 27-year-old veterinarian Priyanka Reddy in Hyderabad, India, November 30, 2019
More chilling details emerged on Sunday in the rape and murder case of the Telangana woman doctor whose charred body was found on the outskirts of Hyderabad on Thursday morning.

The 26-year-old veterinarian was brutally gangraped and killed by four lorry workers before they burned her body on Wednesday night in Telangana's Shamshabad. All the four accused were nabbed from their houses on Friday by Cyberabad police.

The four accused were sent to judicial custody for 14 days on Saturday amid high drama with a large crowd facing off against police. Three cops were suspended on Saturday for a delay in registering an FIR in the case.

Cyberabad police filed the remand report on Sunday, four days after the vet was found with her body burnt under a culvert in Chatanpally on the Hyderabad-Bengaluru national highway.

The gruesome rape and murder case, which is being perceived as another 'Nirbhaya', has sparked national outrage.

The following details are from the latest official report filed by the police. Here's how events unfolded between the fateful night of November 27 (Wednesday) and the morning of November 28 (Thursday), when the vet's body was found.

Comment: All four men have confessed to the rape-murder, which continues to inspire large protests in the region:



Protesters are demanding the men be hanged or burned to death. Authorities are promising to fast-track legal proceedings.

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Attention

German special forces discover hoax bomb after hostage standoff with ax-wielding man & his dog at slots hall


RT
Sat, 30 Nov 2019 19:09 UTC
germany police
Special operations unit has tackled an ax-wielding man with a hoax bomb who triggered panic and a hostage situation at a slot machine hall in Lower Saxony. So far, authorities see no signs of "political or religious motivation."

Four people, including a manager, were inside when a man armed with an ax and accompanied by a dog entered the small gambling venue in the city of Buchholz around 11:00am local time and started smashing slot machines and threatening patrons. One of the guests failed to flee and had to barricade himself inside a restroom, forcing authorities to cordon off the area and deploy a special operations unit SEK to resolve the potentially dangerous hostage situation.


Several hours into the standoff, armed officers managed to overpower and tackle the attacker, but had to shoot his dog which charged at them amid the raid. No one else was injured in the incident.

During a search, police discovered several "containers with protruding cables" on the man's body, but the bomb disposal team said the device was a hoax.

The 29-year-old suspect was taken to a mental ward for psychiatric evaluation. While his identity and motives remain unclear, authorities were swift to rule out "political or religious motivation," at least at this early stage of the investigation.

Comment: Incidents of people losing it in nonsensical attacks and erratic behavior like this tend to come in clusters. Was there something 'in the air' this weekend?

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Star of David

Palestinian shot in back amid laughter in shocking video comes forward to tell the whole story

Yumna Patel
Mondoweiss
Wed, 27 Nov 2019 18:54 UTC
Karam Qawasmi shot in back idf
© Screencap/Yumna Patel
Karam Qawasmi recounts being shot by laughing Israeli soldiers.
A Palestinian man who was recorded last year in a shocking encounter where he was shot in the back while walking away from the camera with his arms stretched above his head has come forward with new allegations of abuse surrounding the incident.

The grainy video was made in 2018 by Israeli soldiers and films Karam Qawasmi in a tunnel as a sponge-tipped bullet strikes him in the back, he then falls to the ground. The clip picks up Qawasmi's screams of pain as well as laughter, which Qawasmi says came from the Israeli soldiers off-camera who fired at him. The video was leaked to media earlier this month.

Comment: Leaked footage shows shocking moment Israeli policewoman shoots Palestinian in the back 'for fun'

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X

Rejection rejected: Over 28,000 asylum seekers in Germany applied again after leaving or being deported


RT
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 11:54 UTC
Migrants and police
© Migrants from Albania and Kosovo are being deported at the Munich international airport. REUTERS / Michaela Rehle
Migrants from Albania and Kosovo are being deported at the Munich international airport.
Thousands of foreigners who sought asylum in Germany before leaving the country subsequently returned to apply again, government data shows. Hundreds tried five times of more.

The subject of unwelcome foreigners coming back despite the government's best efforts to get rid of them is topical in Germany at the moment. Last week, a court ordered the expulsion of Ibrahim Miri, a criminal leader of Lebanese origin who sought asylum in Germany despite having been deported just months earlier. After landing back in Beirut, Miri pledged to come back to Germany and try for a third time.

His case stands out somewhat, but is hardly isolated. In fact, government figures show that there are currently 28,283 people seeking asylum in Germany despite having left the country at least once either voluntarily or as part of a deportation process. This year, 3,243 returnees re-applied for asylum.
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Pocket Knife

Non-lethal, but dead-on: Watch Russian cops use massive birch log to disarm knife-wielding man


RT
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 12:02 UTC
Man with knife
© RT
Known as the Russian national tree, birch also works well as a Taser, apparently - at least this is how these local policemen tackled a violent knifeman, whom they didn't want to shoot because they "pitied" the erratic man.

Starting off as a typical 'meanwhile in Russia' video, the undated clip, which surfaced on social media this week, quickly turns into a tense and thought-provoking standoff. The video begins in the middle of an altercation between three traffic police officers and a man wielding a knife and a traffic baton - which he apparently yanked from the cops.

The profanity-laced exchange, possibly filmed by another officer, involved the traffic police demanding that the man lay down his arms, while threatening to use deadly force. One cop is indeed holding the knifeman at gunpoint.

But the man, clearly acting erratically, keeps advancing while waving his knife and shouting: "Come on, shoot! I don't give a f**k."
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Ambulance

19 killed, 21 injured in Russia after commuter bus plummets from bridge into frozen river


RT
Sun, 01 Dec 2019 13:10 UTC
Flipped bus
© Siloviki / Telegram
A packed bus ruptured a tire and skidded off a bridge, landing upside down in a frozen river in Russia, killing at least 19 passengers. Rescuers fought to free survivors as the vehicle was still at risk of becoming submerged.

The bus fell six meters (about 20 feet) from a bridge over the Kuenga River while traveling from the city of Chita to Sretensk in Zabaykalsky Region in Russia's Far East on Sunday. Harrowing video footage from the scene shows first responders swarming the damaged bus, which lay upside down on a bloodied snowy surface, with its roof completely smashed in and windows shattered.

Calls for help and wailing were heard in the background. "It's scary," one person said, while walking around the bus.
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