830: Tool Followers

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 03:42

U.S. Internet giants Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Google and Microsoft Corp. pledged to tackle online hate speech in less than 24 hours as part of a joint commitment with the European Union to combat the use of social media by terrorists.

Beyond national laws that criminalize hate speech, there is a need to ensure such activity by Internet users is ''expeditiously reviewed by online intermediaries and social media platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame,'' the companies and the European Commission said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The code of conduct arrives as Europe comes to terms with the bloody attacks in Paris and Brussels by Islamic State, which has used the Web and social media to spread its message of hate against its enemies. The companies said it remains a ''challenge'' to strike the right balance between freedom of expression and hate speech in the self-generated content on online platforms.

''We remain committed to letting the Tweets flow,'' said Twitter's head of public policy for Europe, Karen White, in the statement. ''However, there is a clear distinction between freedom of expression and conduct that incites violence and hate.''

Platforms SuedA French Jewish youth group, UEJF, sued Twitter, Facebook and Google in Paris this month over how they monitor hate speech on the web. In the course of about six weeks in April and May, members of French anti-discrimination groups flagged unambiguous hate speech that they said promoted racism, homophobia or anti-Semitism. More than 90 percent of the posts pointed out to Twitter and YouTube remained online within 15 days on average following requests for removal, according to the study by UEJF, SOS Racisme and SOS Homophobie.

''With a global community of 1.6 billion people we work hard to balance giving people the power to express themselves whilst ensuring we provide a respectful environment,'' said Monika Bickert, head of global policy management at Facebook, in the statement. ''There's no place for hate speech on Facebook.''

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:46

Belgian police have warned citizens not to use Facebook's new Reactions, to protect their privacy.

In February, the site launched six new ways of reacting to a post, alongside the Like button. They were intended partly as a way of answering calls for a ''Dislike'' button '' allowing people to share their feelings about posts without appearing to endorse what had been said.

But the Belgian police now says that the site is using them as a way of collecting information about people and deciding how best to advertise to them. As such, it has warned people that they should avoid using the buttons if they want to preserve their privacy.

''The icons help not only express your feelings, they also help Facebook assess the effectiveness of the ads on your profile,'' a post on Belgian's official police website reads.

The site is able to use the tool to tell when people are likely to be in a good mood and then use that to decide when is the best time to show them ads, the Belgian police has claimed.

How to use Facebook Reactions

''By limiting the number of icons to six, Facebook is counting on you to express your thoughts more easily so that the algorithms that run in the background are more effective,'' the post continues. ''By mouse clicks you can let them know what makes you happy.

''So that will help Facebook find the perfect location, on your profile, allowing it to display content that will arouse your curiosity but also to choose the time you present it. If it appears that you are in a good mood, it can deduce that you are more receptive and able to sell spaces explaining advertisers that they will have more chance to see you react.''

People have pointed out that Facebook's Reactions tool is helpful to advertisers since it was released. Though the site said as it was launched that it was a way of allowing people to react in more complex ways, it also provides valuable data to Facebook about how things make people feel, as well as encouraging them to interact with posts amid worries that people are becoming less and less personal on the site.

Soon after the feature was released, Facebook also confirmed that reacting angrily to a post would be treated as any other kind of engagement with it. Since Facebook treats engaging with a post as an indication that users want to see more things like it, that means that reacting angrily could lead to seeing similar posts and could be sold to advertisers, too.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:34

WFAA

A National Honor Society stole.

A National Honor Society stole. less

PLANO, TEXAS - National Honor Society (NHS) stoles are frequent sight at high school graduation ceremonies around the country, but one Plano Senior High School student is frustrated that he won't be allowed to wear one when he puts on his cap and gown next month.

According to school practices, students are not allowed to wear NHS regalia.

Garrett Frederick has been a National Honor Society member since his sophomore year, dedicating himself to maintaining a high GPA and performing community service hours.

"I'm not just an honor student -- I'm an NHS student. I worked hard. I put in the hours," Frederick said, explaining that he committed to 20 hours of community service every semester.

National Honor Society members frequently wear white satin stoles with an NHS seal during graduation ceremonies to mark their commitment.

Until recently, Frederick thought he'd be able to wear one.

"I was really looking forward to wearing it and being able to say I was a part of it, because I have friends that go to [Plano East High School] and [Plano West High School], and they're all wearing it," he said. "So it's like, I don't know why we're not allowed to wear it. I don't get it."

Frederick's mom is frustrated, too.

She wrote the principal of the school and said she got a message back, saying that graduates do not wear any club or organizational regalia.

KellyAnn Frederick says a National Honor Society sponsor claimed school administrators want everyone to feel included in graduation and not single students out.

National Honor Society members frequently wear white satin stoles with an NHS seal during graduation ceremonies to mark their commitment.

Until recently, Frederick thought he'd be able to wear one.

"I was really looking forward to wearing it and being able to say I was a part of it, because I have friends that go to [Plano East High School] and [Plano West High School], and they're all wearing it," he said. "So it's like, I don't know why we're not allowed to wear it. I don't get it."

Frederick's mom is frustrated, too.

She wrote the principal of the school and said she got a message back, saying that graduates do not wear any club or organizational regalia.

KellyAnn Frederick says a National Honor Society sponsor claimed school administrators want everyone to feel included in graduation and not single students out.

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Tue, 31 May 2016 18:05

In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, radios inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.

One April, 14-year-old Harrison Bergeron, an intelligent and athletic teenager, is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel Bergeron, by the government. They are barely aware of the tragedy, as Hazel has "average" intelligence (a euphemism for stupidity), and George has a handicap radio installed by the government to regulate his above-average intelligence.

Hazel and George watch ballet on television. They comment on the dancers, who are weighed down to counteract their gracefulness and masked to hide their attractiveness. George's thoughts are continually interrupted by the different noises emitted by his handicap radio, which piques Hazel's curiosity and imagination regarding handicaps. Noticing his exhaustion, Hazel urges George to lie down and rest his "handicap bag", 47 pounds (21 kg) of weights locked around George's neck. She suggests taking a few of the weights out of the bag, but George resists, aware of the illegality of such an action.

On television, a news reporter struggles to read the bulletin and hands it to the ballerina wearing the most grotesque mask and heaviest weights. She begins reading in her unacceptably natural, beautiful voice, then apologizes before switching to a more unpleasant voice. Harrison's escape from prison is announced, and a full-body photograph of Harrison is shown, indicating that he is seven feet (2.1 m) tall and burdened by three hundred pounds (140 kg) of handicaps.

George recognizes his son for a moment, before having the thought eliminated by his radio. Harrison himself then storms the studio in an attempt to overthrow the government. He calls himself the Emperor and rips off all of his handicaps, along with the handicaps of a ballerina who he proclaims his "Empress". He orders the musicians to play, promising them royalty if they do their best. Unhappy with their initial attempt, Harrison takes control for a short while, and the music improves. After listening and being moved by the music, Harrison and his Empress dance while flying to the ceiling, then pause in mid-air to kiss.

Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, enters the studio and kills Harrison and the Empress with a ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun. She forces the musicians to put on their handicaps, and the television goes dark. George, unaware of the televised incident, returns from the kitchen and asks Hazel why she was crying, to which she replies that something sad happened on television that she cannot remember. He comforts her and they return to their average lives.

Harrison Bergeron is the fourteen-year-old son, who is 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, a genius, and an extraordinarily handsome, athletic, strong, and brave person. He wants to live as an unimpeded human being and does not want to obey the laws of the government, which has taken on the responsibility of creating equality for the whole American society. He has been jailed by the Handicapper General's office for planning to overthrow the government. To eliminate any "unfair advantages", the Handicapper General forces him to wear the most extreme handicaps reflecting his extraordinary attributes: huge earphones and spectacles intended to make him half blind and give him tremendous headaches, disfiguring makeup in the form of blackened teeth and a red rubber nose to mask his extraordinary looks, and so many weights to compensate his prodigious strength that they make him look more like a junk yard than a man. When he escapes from jail, the government describes him as "a genius and an athlete" and tells people that he should be regarded as extremely dangerous. When Harrison enters the television studio, he is convinced that he can overthrow the government and declares "I am the Emperor! . . . Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!". In addition to this talent and egotism, he also possesses artistic and romantic characteristics. He sings and dances with his Empress, defying gravity while doing so. Tragically, despite Harrison's superior physical prowess and intellectual faculties, he is stopped when the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, shoots him and his Empress down with a shotgun.George Bergeron is Harrison's father and Hazel's husband. A very smart and sensitive character, he is handicapped artificially by the government. Like his son, he has to wear mental handicap earphones in his ears to keep him from thinking intensely and analytically. Because he is stronger than average, he has to wear weights around his neck. When his wife Hazel suggests that he could take these weights off for a while to relax, he rejects the idea. He wants to obey the laws and is unwilling to risk punishment for a little comfort. He believes that the situation in 2081 is better than it had been back in the days when fierce competition reigned in society. He has much respect for the rules and represents the common passive citizen who does not critique a government that manipulates individuals. Obeying the rules, he is even incapable of recognizing the tragic situation when his son has been shot to death - a harsh critique of passiveness towards authority.Hazel Bergeron is Harrison's mother and George's wife. Hazel has what is described as perfectly average intelligence, which means that she cannot think deeply about anything. However, she is a well-intentioned character, a loving wife and mother, who tries to comfort her husband by suggesting he removes his handicap weights. She cries when she sees what happens to her son but due to her impaired faculties quickly forgets the subject of her sorrow. In the end all her kindness counts for nothing as her stupidity outruns her good intentions. Hazel has much in common with the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers.Ballerina, a beautiful dancer who was burdened with an especially ugly mask and excessive weights ("as big as those worn by two hundred pound men"), as she is the fairest, most beautiful and most graceful of the dancers. She reads an announcement card after the stammering announcer is unable to. It is likely, but not stated, that she is the same dancer who Harrison Bergeron takes as his Empress, who is later shot by Diana Moon Glampers for not wearing her handicaps, and dancing with Harrison Bergeron.Diana Moon Glampers, despite appearing in person for only four sentences, represents the oppressive government and enforces the handicapping policies of the government. It is mentioned early on that Hazel resembles Diana, and Hazel mentions improvements she would make to Diana's handicap regulations. She appears ruthless when she kills Harrison and his Empress without warning, and threatens the musicians with a similar fate before the broadcast is interrupted, leaving their future ambiguous. Diana's first and middle names are possibly a reference to Diana, the Roman huntress, virgin goddess of the moon.[3]Here, Vonnegut is influenced by his early work as a journalist. His sentences are short and easily understood so as to be largely accessible.[4] A dystopian setting enhances his social and political critique by imagining a future world founded on absolute equality through handicaps assigned to various above-average people to counter their natural advantages. A similar subject can be found in L. P. Hartley's dystopian novel Facial Justice from the previous year of 1960.

Yet Vonnegut also punctuates his dystopia with humor. Even the most horrifying scenes are underlined by jokes or absurdity. When the news announcer is supposed to read a news bulletin he has to hand it to a nearby ballerina because of his speech impediment, and the ballerina then alters her voice to a "grackle squawk" because it would be "unfair" to use her natural voice, described as a "warm, luminous, timeless melody". This absurdity highlights the madness of the world of "Harrison Bergeron".

A similar dystopian society to that of "Harrison Bergeron" appears in Vonnegut's 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan. When the Space Wanderer returns to Earth he finds a society in which handicaps are used to make all people equal, eradicating the supposedly ruinous effects of blind luck on human society. The narrator claims that now "the weakest and the meekest were bound to admit, at last, that the race of life was fair".

The strong are burdened with "handicaps" (consisting of "bags of lead shot" hung from various parts of the body) and the beautiful hide their advantageous appearance through "frumpish clothes, bad posture, chewing gum and a ghoulish use of cosmetics". Unlike in "Harrison Bergeron", the citizens in The Sirens of Titan choose to wear these handicaps voluntarily as an act of faith towards the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, although it is suggested that not to do so would invite social condemnation. There are no handicaps for above-average intelligence mentioned in The Sirens of Titan. The society of Harrison Bergeron addresses differences in intellectual and cognitive ability and their entailing advantages.

The story has been adapted for the screen at least four times.

PBS adapted several stories, including "Harrison Bergeron", in Between Time and Timbuktu (1972), with Avind Haerum in the title role.In 1995 Showtime produced a full-length made-for-television adaptation entitled Harrison Bergeron, starring Sean Astin as the title character. The adaptation diverged from the plot considerably, featuring Harrison being recruited by the National Administration Center, a secret cabal of geniuses within the government who ensure that the handicapped America functions. Working for the television division, Harrison becomes dissatisfied with the status quo and attempts to start another American revolution by taking over the nation's television broadcasting. He broadcasts old unhandicapped movies and music, while encouraging people to remove their brain handicapping "bands" on their heads.In 2006, a short film also entitled Harrison Bergeron[5] was released. It received direct praise from Vonnegut himself, who said, "I am glad to see the appropriate measures taken with my story."[citation needed]In 2009, another short film called 2081 was based on the original story and starred Armie Hammer as the title character. Joe Crowe, managing editor of the online magazine Revolution Science Fiction, described the movie as "stirring and dramatic" and said it "gets right to the point, and nails the adaptation in about 25 minutes."[6]In 2005 the story was quoted by attorneys in a brief before the Kansas Supreme Court. Vonnegut was quoted as saying that while he did not mind the story being used in the suit, he disagreed with the lawyers' interpretation of it.[7] U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia quoted the story in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin.

^"How does Vonnegut use irony and satire in "Harrison Bergeron"? - Homework Help - eNotes.com". enotes.com. eNotes. 15 July 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2015. "Harrison Bergeron" is structured as satire to offer a critique on people's claims that we should all be equal. Through the story, Vonnegut questions the assumed benefits of having a truly equal society. Throughout the story, ironic situations work in the service of developing the story's theme. For example, Harrison is an extraordinary person: he is physically attractive and strong, he is incredibly intelligent, and he is talented. As a result, he is forced to wear a series of handicaps to make him "equal" to those who are different from him. Ironically, Harrison is able to break free of those handicaps and still be the person who he really is. ^Hattenhauer, Darryl (Fall 1998). "The Politics of Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron""(requires registration). Studies in Short Fiction35 (4). ^Khawaja, Zainab (2011): Socialism, Communism, & Harrison Bergeron.^Allen, William Rodney (1991): Understanding Kurt Vonnegut. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, p. 3.^Harrison Bergeron at the Internet Movie Database^"2081" by Jow Crowe, Revolution Science Fiction, retrieved 2010-01-29^Rothschild, Scott (2005-05-05). "Vonnegut: Lawyers could use literary lesson". LJWorld.com. Retrieved 2009-08-06. Klinkowitz, Jerome (1998): Vonnegut in Fact. The public spokesman of personal fiction. Columbia: University of South Carolina PressLeeds, Marc (1995): The Vonnegut Encyclopedia. An Authorized Compendium. Westport, London: Greenwood PressLeeds, Marc; Reed, Peter J. (1996): The Vonnegut Chronicles. Interviews and Essays. Westport, London: Greenwood PressPetterson, Bo (1994): The World according to Kurt Vonnegut. Moral Paradox and Narrative Form. …bo: …bo University.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:24

Something strange is happening at America's colleges and universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense. Last December, Jeannie Suk wrote in an online article for The New Yorker about law students asking her fellow professors at Harvard not to teach rape law'--or, in one case, even use the word violate (as in ''that violates the law'') lest it cause students distress. In February, Laura Kipnis, a professor at Northwestern University, wrote an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education describing a new campus politics of sexual paranoia'--and was then subjected to a long investigation after students who were offended by the article and by a tweet she'd sent filed Title IX complaints against her. In June, a professor protecting himself with a pseudonym wrote an essay for Vox describing how gingerly he now has to teach. ''I'm a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,'' the headline said. A number of popular comedians, including Chris Rock, have stopped performing on college campuses (see Caitlin Flanagan's article in this month's issue). Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Maher have publicly condemned the oversensitivity of college students, saying too many of them can't take a joke.

Two terms have risen quickly from obscurity into common campus parlance. Microaggressions are small actions or word choices that seem on their face to have no malicious intent but that are thought of as a kind of violence nonetheless. For example, by some campus guidelines, it is a microaggression to ask an Asian American or Latino American ''Where were you born?,'' because this implies that he or she is not a real American. Trigger warnings are alerts that professors are expected to issue if something in a course might cause a strong emotional response. For example, some students have called for warnings that Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart describes racial violence and that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby portrays misogyny and physical abuse, so that students who have been previously victimized by racism or domestic violence can choose to avoid these works, which they believe might ''trigger'' a recurrence of past trauma.

Some recent campus actions border on the surreal. In April, at Brandeis University, the Asian American student association sought to raise awareness of microaggressions against Asians through an installation on the steps of an academic hall. The installation gave examples of microaggressions such as ''Aren't you supposed to be good at math?'' and ''I'm colorblind! I don't see race.'' But a backlash arose among other Asian American students, who felt that the display itself was a microaggression. The association removed the installation, and its president wrote an e-mail to the entire student body apologizing to anyone who was ''triggered or hurt by the content of the microaggressions.''

According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided.This new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion. During the 2014''15 school year, for instance, the deans and department chairs at the 10 University of California system schools were presented by administrators at faculty leader-training sessions with examples of microaggressions. The list of offensive statements included: ''America is the land of opportunity'' and ''I believe the most qualified person should get the job.''

Read Follow-Up NotesThe press has typically described these developments as a resurgence of political correctness. That's partly right, although there are important differences between what's happening now and what happened in the 1980s and '90s. That movement sought to restrict speech (specifically hate speech aimed at marginalized groups), but it also challenged the literary, philosophical, and historical canon, seeking to widen it by including more-diverse perspectives. The current movement is largely about emotional well-being. More than the last, it presumes an extraordinary fragility of the collegiate psyche, and therefore elevates the goal of protecting students from psychological harm. The ultimate aim, it seems, is to turn campuses into ''safe spaces'' where young adults are shielded from words and ideas that make some uncomfortable. And more than the last, this movement seeks to punish anyone who interferes with that aim, even accidentally. You might call this impulse vindictive protectiveness. It is creating a culture in which everyone must think twice before speaking up, lest they face charges of insensitivity, aggression, or worse.

Writer Greg Lukianoff sits down with Atlantic editor in chief James Bennet to discuss the response to his cover story.We have been studying this development for a while now, with rising alarm. (Greg Lukianoff is a constitutional lawyer and the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends free speech and academic freedom on campus, and has advocated for students and faculty involved in many of the incidents this article describes; Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who studies the American culture wars. The stories of how we each came to this subject can be read here.) The dangers that these trends pose to scholarship and to the quality of American universities are significant; we could write a whole essay detailing them. But in this essay we focus on a different question: What are the effects of this new protectiveness on the students themselves? Does it benefit the people it is supposed to help? What exactly are students learning when they spend four years or more in a community that polices unintentional slights, places warning labels on works of classic literature, and in many other ways conveys the sense that words can be forms of violence that require strict control by campus authorities, who are expected to act as both protectors and prosecutors?

Power, identity, and speech in the new American universityRead moreThere's a saying common in education circles: Don't teach students what to think; teach them how to think. The idea goes back at least as far as Socrates. Today, what we call the Socratic method is a way of teaching that fosters critical thinking, in part by encouraging students to question their own unexamined beliefs, as well as the received wisdom of those around them. Such questioning sometimes leads to discomfort, and even to anger, on the way to understanding.

But vindictive protectiveness teaches students to think in a very different way. It prepares them poorly for professional life, which often demands intellectual engagement with people and ideas one might find uncongenial or wrong. The harm may be more immediate, too. A campus culture devoted to policing speech and punishing speakers is likely to engender patterns of thought that are surprisingly similar to those long identified by cognitive behavioral therapists as causes of depression and anxiety. The new protectiveness may be teaching students to think pathologically.

How Did We Get Here?It's difficult to know exactly why vindictive protectiveness has burst forth so powerfully in the past few years. The phenomenon may be related to recent changes in the interpretation of federal antidiscrimination statutes (about which more later). But the answer probably involves generational shifts as well. Childhood itself has changed greatly during the past generation. Many Baby Boomers and Gen Xers can remember riding their bicycles around their hometowns, unchaperoned by adults, by the time they were 8 or 9 years old. In the hours after school, kids were expected to occupy themselves, getting into minor scrapes and learning from their experiences. But ''free range'' childhood became less common in the 1980s. The surge in crime from the '60s through the early '90s made Baby Boomer parents more protective than their own parents had been. Stories of abducted children appeared more frequently in the news, and in 1984, images of them began showing up on milk cartons. In response, many parents pulled in the reins and worked harder to keep their children safe.

The flight to safety also happened at school. Dangerous play structures were removed from playgrounds; peanut butter was banned from student lunches. After the 1999 Columbine massacre in Colorado, many schools cracked down on bullying, implementing ''zero tolerance'' policies. In a variety of ways, children born after 1980'--the Millennials'--got a consistent message from adults: life is dangerous, but adults will do everything in their power to protect you from harm, not just from strangers but from one another as well.

These same children grew up in a culture that was (and still is) becoming more politically polarized. Republicans and Democrats have never particularly liked each other, but survey data going back to the 1970s show that on average, their mutual dislike used to be surprisingly mild. Negative feelings have grown steadily stronger, however, particularly since the early 2000s. Political scientists call this process ''affective partisan polarization,'' and it is a very serious problem for any democracy. As each side increasingly demonizes the other, compromise becomes more difficult. A recent study shows that implicit or unconscious biases are now at least as strong across political parties as they are across races.

So it's not hard to imagine why students arriving on campus today might be more desirous of protection and more hostile toward ideological opponents than in generations past. This hostility, and the self-righteousness fueled by strong partisan emotions, can be expected to add force to any moral crusade. A principle of moral psychology is that ''morality binds and blinds.'' Part of what we do when we make moral judgments is express allegiance to a team. But that can interfere with our ability to think critically. Acknowledging that the other side's viewpoint has any merit is risky'--your teammates may see you as a traitor.

Social media makes it extraordinarily easy to join crusades, express solidarity and outrage, and shun traitors. Facebook was founded in 2004, and since 2006 it has allowed children as young as 13 to join. This means that the first wave of students who spent all their teen years using Facebook reached college in 2011, and graduated from college only this year.

These first true ''social-media natives'' may be different from members of previous generations in how they go about sharing their moral judgments and supporting one another in moral campaigns and conflicts. We find much to like about these trends; young people today are engaged with one another, with news stories, and with prosocial endeavors to a greater degree than when the dominant technology was television. But social media has also fundamentally shifted the balance of power in relationships between students and faculty; the latter increasingly fear what students might do to their reputations and careers by stirring up online mobs against them.

We do not mean to imply simple causation, but rates of mental illness in young adults have been rising, both on campus and off, in recent decades. Some portion of the increase is surely due to better diagnosis and greater willingness to seek help, but most experts seem to agree that some portion of the trend is real. Nearly all of the campus mental-health directors surveyed in 2013 by the American College Counseling Association reported that the number of students with severe psychological problems was rising at their schools. The rate of emotional distress reported by students themselves is also high, and rising. In a 2014 survey by the American College Health Association, 54 percent of college students surveyed said that they had ''felt overwhelming anxiety'' in the past 12 months, up from 49 percent in the same survey just five years earlier. Students seem to be reporting more emotional crises; many seem fragile, and this has surely changed the way university faculty and administrators interact with them. The question is whether some of those changes might be doing more harm than good.

The Thinking CureFor millennia, philosophers have understood that we don't see life as it is; we see a version distorted by our hopes, fears, and other attachments. The Buddha said, ''Our life is the creation of our mind.'' Marcus Aurelius said, ''Life itself is but what you deem it.'' The quest for wisdom in many traditions begins with this insight. Early Buddhists and the Stoics, for example, developed practices for reducing attachments, thinking more clearly, and finding release from the emotional torments of normal mental life.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a modern embodiment of this ancient wisdom. It is the most extensively studied nonpharmaceutical treatment of mental illness, and is used widely to treat depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and addiction. It can even be of help to schizophrenics. No other form of psychotherapy has been shown to work for a broader range of problems. Studies have generally found that it is as effective as antidepressant drugs (such as Prozac) in the treatment of anxiety and depression. The therapy is relatively quick and easy to learn; after a few months of training, many patients can do it on their own. Unlike drugs, cognitive behavioral therapy keeps working long after treatment is stopped, because it teaches thinking skills that people can continue to use.

The goal is to minimize distorted thinking and see the world more accurately. You start by learning the names of the dozen or so most common cognitive distortions (such as overgeneralizing, discounting positives, and emotional reasoning; see the list at the bottom of this article). Each time you notice yourself falling prey to one of them, you name it, describe the facts of the situation, consider alternative interpretations, and then choose an interpretation of events more in line with those facts. Your emotions follow your new interpretation. In time, this process becomes automatic. When people improve their mental hygiene in this way'--when they free themselves from the repetitive irrational thoughts that had previously filled so much of their consciousness'--they become less depressed, anxious, and angry.

The parallel to formal education is clear: cognitive behavioral therapy teaches good critical-thinking skills, the sort that educators have striven for so long to impart. By almost any definition, critical thinking requires grounding one's beliefs in evidence rather than in emotion or desire, and learning how to search for and evaluate evidence that might contradict one's initial hypothesis. But does campus life today foster critical thinking? Or does it coax students to think in more-distorted ways?

Let's look at recent trends in higher education in light of the distortions that cognitive behavioral therapy identifies. We will draw the names and descriptions of these distortions from David D. Burns's popular book Feeling Good, as well as from the second edition of Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders, by Robert L. Leahy, Stephen J. F. Holland, and Lata K. McGinn.

Higher Education's Embrace of ''Emotional Reasoning''Burns defines emotional reasoning as assuming ''that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: 'I feel it, therefore it must be true.''‰'' Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define it as letting ''your feelings guide your interpretation of reality.'' But, of course, subjective feelings are not always trustworthy guides; unrestrained, they can cause people to lash out at others who have done nothing wrong. Therapy often involves talking yourself down from the idea that each of your emotional responses represents something true or important.

Emotional reasoning dominates many campus debates and discussions. A claim that someone's words are ''offensive'' is not just an expression of one's own subjective feeling of offendedness. It is, rather, a public charge that the speaker has done something objectively wrong. It is a demand that the speaker apologize or be punished by some authority for committing an offense.

There have always been some people who believe they have a right not to be offended. Yet throughout American history'--from the Victorian era to the free-speech activism of the 1960s and '70s'--radicals have pushed boundaries and mocked prevailing sensibilities. Sometime in the 1980s, however, college campuses began to focus on preventing offensive speech, especially speech that might be hurtful to women or minority groups. The sentiment underpinning this goal was laudable, but it quickly produced some absurd results.

What are we doing to our students if we encourage them to develop extra-thin skin just before they leave the cocoon of adult protection?Among the most famous early examples was the so-called water-buffalo incident at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1993, the university charged an Israeli-born student with racial harassment after he yelled ''Shut up, you water buffalo!'' to a crowd of black sorority women that was making noise at night outside his dorm-room window. Many scholars and pundits at the time could not see how the term water buffalo (a rough translation of a Hebrew insult for a thoughtless or rowdy person) was a racial slur against African Americans, and as a result, the case became international news.

Claims of a right not to be offended have continued to arise since then, and universities have continued to privilege them. In a particularly egregious 2008 case, for instance, Indiana University''Purdue University at Indianapolis found a white student guilty of racial harassment for reading a book titled Notre Dame vs. the Klan. The book honored student opposition to the Ku Klux Klan when it marched on Notre Dame in 1924. Nonetheless, the picture of a Klan rally on the book's cover offended at least one of the student's co-workers (he was a janitor as well as a student), and that was enough for a guilty finding by the university's Affirmative Action Office.

These examples may seem extreme, but the reasoning behind them has become more commonplace on campus in recent years. Last year, at the University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota, an event called Hump Day, which would have allowed people to pet a camel, was abruptly canceled. Students had created a Facebook group where they protested the event for animal cruelty, for being a waste of money, and for being insensitive to people from the Middle East. The inspiration for the camel had almost certainly come from a popular TV commercial in which a camel saunters around an office on a Wednesday, celebrating ''hump day''; it was devoid of any reference to Middle Eastern peoples. Nevertheless, the group organizing the event announced on its Facebook page that the event would be canceled because the ''program [was] dividing people and would make for an uncomfortable and possibly unsafe environment.''

Because there is a broad ban in academic circles on ''blaming the victim,'' it is generally considered unacceptable to question the reasonableness (let alone the sincerity) of someone's emotional state, particularly if those emotions are linked to one's group identity. The thin argument ''I'm offended'' becomes an unbeatable trump card. This leads to what Jonathan Rauch, a contributing editor at this magazine, calls the ''offendedness sweepstakes,'' in which opposing parties use claims of offense as cudgels. In the process, the bar for what we consider unacceptable speech is lowered further and further.

Since 2013, new pressure from the federal government has reinforced this trend. Federal antidiscrimination statutes regulate on-campus harassment and unequal treatment based on sex, race, religion, and national origin. Until recently, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights acknowledged that speech must be ''objectively offensive'' before it could be deemed actionable as sexual harassment'--it would have to pass the ''reasonable person'' test. To be prohibited, the office wrote in 2003, allegedly harassing speech would have to go ''beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive.''

But in 2013, the Departments of Justice and Education greatly broadened the definition of sexual harassment to include verbal conduct that is simply ''unwelcome.'' Out of fear of federal investigations, universities are now applying that standard'--defining unwelcome speech as harassment'--not just to sex, but to race, religion, and veteran status as well. Everyone is supposed to rely upon his or her own subjective feelings to decide whether a comment by a professor or a fellow student is unwelcome, and therefore grounds for a harassment claim. Emotional reasoning is now accepted as evidence.

If our universities are teaching students that their emotions can be used effectively as weapons'--or at least as evidence in administrative proceedings'--then they are teaching students to nurture a kind of hypersensitivity that will lead them into countless drawn-out conflicts in college and beyond. Schools may be training students in thinking styles that will damage their careers and friendships, along with their mental health.

Fortune-Telling and Trigger WarningsBurns defines fortune-telling as ''anticipat[ing] that things will turn out badly'' and feeling ''convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.'' Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define it as ''predict[ing] the future negatively'' or seeing potential danger in an everyday situation. The recent spread of demands for trigger warnings on reading assignments with provocative content is an example of fortune-telling.

The idea that words (or smells or any sensory input) can trigger searing memories of past trauma'--and intense fear that it may be repeated'--has been around at least since World War I, when psychiatrists began treating soldiers for what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. But explicit trigger warnings are believed to have originated much more recently, on message boards in the early days of the Internet. Trigger warnings became particularly prevalent in self-help and feminist forums, where they allowed readers who had suffered from traumatic events like sexual assault to avoid graphic content that might trigger flashbacks or panic attacks. Search-engine trends indicate that the phrase broke into mainstream use online around 2011, spiked in 2014, and reached an all-time high in 2015. The use of trigger warnings on campus appears to have followed a similar trajectory; seemingly overnight, students at universities across the country have begun demanding that their professors issue warnings before covering material that might evoke a negative emotional response.

In 2013, a task force composed of administrators, students, recent alumni, and one faculty member at Oberlin College, in Ohio, released an online resource guide for faculty (subsequently retracted in the face of faculty pushback) that included a list of topics warranting trigger warnings. These topics included classism and privilege, among many others. The task force recommended that materials that might trigger negative reactions among students be avoided altogether unless they ''contribute directly'' to course goals, and suggested that works that were ''too important to avoid'' be made optional.

It's hard to imagine how novels illustrating classism and privilege could provoke or reactivate the kind of terror that is typically implicated in PTSD. Rather, trigger warnings are sometimes demanded for a long list of ideas and attitudes that some students find politically offensive, in the name of preventing other students from being harmed. This is an example of what psychologists call ''motivated reasoning'''--we spontaneously generate arguments for conclusions we want to support. Once you find something hateful, it is easy to argue that exposure to the hateful thing could traumatize some other people. You believe that you know how others will react, and that their reaction could be devastating. Preventing that devastation becomes a moral obligation for the whole community. Books for which students have called publicly for trigger warnings within the past couple of years include Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (at Rutgers, for ''suicidal inclinations'') and Ovid's Metamorphoses (at Columbia, for sexual assault).

Jeannie Suk's New Yorker essay described the difficulties of teaching rape law in the age of trigger warnings. Some students, she wrote, have pressured their professors to avoid teaching the subject in order to protect themselves and their classmates from potential distress. Suk compares this to trying to teach ''a medical student who is training to be a surgeon but who fears that he'll become distressed if he sees or handles blood.''

However, there is a deeper problem with trigger warnings. According to the most-basic tenets of psychology, the very idea of helping people with anxiety disorders avoid the things they fear is misguided. A person who is trapped in an elevator during a power outage may panic and think she is going to die. That frightening experience can change neural connections in her amygdala, leading to an elevator phobia. If you want this woman to retain her fear for life, you should help her avoid elevators.

But if you want to help her return to normalcy, you should take your cues from Ivan Pavlov and guide her through a process known as exposure therapy. You might start by asking the woman to merely look at an elevator from a distance'--standing in a building lobby, perhaps'--until her apprehension begins to subside. If nothing bad happens while she's standing in the lobby'--if the fear is not ''reinforced'''--then she will begin to learn a new association: elevators are not dangerous. (This reduction in fear during exposure is called habituation.) Then, on subsequent days, you might ask her to get closer, and on later days to push the call button, and eventually to step in and go up one floor. This is how the amygdala can get rewired again to associate a previously feared situation with safety or normalcy.

Students who call for trigger warnings may be correct that some of their peers are harboring memories of trauma that could be reactivated by course readings. But they are wrong to try to prevent such reactivations. Students with PTSD should of course get treatment, but they should not try to avoid normal life, with its many opportunities for habituation. Classroom discussions are safe places to be exposed to incidental reminders of trauma (such as the word violate). A discussion of violence is unlikely to be followed by actual violence, so it is a good way to help students change the associations that are causing them discomfort. And they'd better get their habituation done in college, because the world beyond college will be far less willing to accommodate requests for trigger warnings and opt-outs.

The expansive use of trigger warnings may also foster unhealthy mental habits in the vastly larger group of students who do not suffer from PTSD or other anxiety disorders. People acquire their fears not just from their own past experiences, but from social learning as well. If everyone around you acts as though something is dangerous'--elevators, certain neighborhoods, novels depicting racism'--then you are at risk of acquiring that fear too. The psychiatrist Sarah Roff pointed this out last year in an online article for The Chronicle of Higher Education. ''One of my biggest concerns about trigger warnings,'' Roff wrote, ''is that they will apply not just to those who have experienced trauma, but to all students, creating an atmosphere in which they are encouraged to believe that there is something dangerous or damaging about discussing difficult aspects of our history.''

The new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion or debate.In an article published last year by Inside Higher Ed, seven humanities professors wrote that the trigger-warning movement was ''already having a chilling effect on [their] teaching and pedagogy.'' They reported their colleagues' receiving ''phone calls from deans and other administrators investigating student complaints that they have included 'triggering' material in their courses, with or without warnings.'' A trigger warning, they wrote, ''serves as a guarantee that students will not experience unexpected discomfort and implies that if they do, a contract has been broken.'' When students come to expect trigger warnings for any material that makes them uncomfortable, the easiest way for faculty to stay out of trouble is to avoid material that might upset the most sensitive student in the class.

Magnification, Labeling, and MicroaggressionsBurns defines magnification as ''exaggerat[ing] the importance of things,'' and Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define labeling as ''assign[ing] global negative traits to yourself and others.'' The recent collegiate trend of uncovering allegedly racist, sexist, classist, or otherwise discriminatory microaggressions doesn't incidentally teach students to focus on small or accidental slights. Its purpose is to get students to focus on them and then relabel the people who have made such remarks as aggressors.

The term microaggression originated in the 1970s and referred to subtle, often unconscious racist affronts. The definition has expanded in recent years to include anything that can be perceived as discriminatory on virtually any basis. For example, in 2013, a student group at UCLA staged a sit-in during a class taught by Val Rust, an education professor. The group read a letter aloud expressing their concerns about the campus's hostility toward students of color. Although Rust was not explicitly named, the group quite clearly criticized his teaching as microaggressive. In the course of correcting his students' grammar and spelling, Rust had noted that a student had wrongly capitalized the first letter of the word indigenous. Lowercasing the capital I was an insult to the student and her ideology, the group claimed.

Even joking about microaggressions can be seen as an aggression, warranting punishment. Last fall, Omar Mahmood, a student at the University of Michigan, wrote a satirical column for a conservative student publication, The Michigan Review, poking fun at what he saw as a campus tendency to perceive microaggressions in just about anything. Mahmood was also employed at the campus newspaper, The Michigan Daily. The Daily's editors said that the way Mahmood had ''satirically mocked the experiences of fellow Daily contributors and minority communities on campus '... created a conflict of interest.'' The Daily terminated Mahmood after he described the incident to two Web sites, The College Fix and The Daily Caller. A group of women later vandalized Mahmood's doorway with eggs, hot dogs, gum, and notes with messages such as ''Everyone hates you, you violent prick.'' When speech comes to be seen as a form of violence, vindictive protectiveness can justify a hostile, and perhaps even violent, response.

In March, the student government at Ithaca College, in upstate New York, went so far as to propose the creation of an anonymous microaggression-reporting system. Student sponsors envisioned some form of disciplinary action against ''oppressors'' engaged in belittling speech. One of the sponsors of the program said that while ''not '... every instance will require trial or some kind of harsh punishment,'' she wanted the program to be ''record-keeping but with impact.''

Surely people make subtle or thinly veiled racist or sexist remarks on college campuses, and it is right for students to raise questions and initiate discussions about such cases. But the increased focus on microaggressions coupled with the endorsement of emotional reasoning is a formula for a constant state of outrage, even toward well-meaning speakers trying to engage in genuine discussion.

What are we doing to our students if we encourage them to develop extra-thin skin in the years just before they leave the cocoon of adult protection and enter the workforce? Would they not be better prepared to flourish if we taught them to question their own emotional reactions, and to give people the benefit of the doubt?

Teaching Students to Catastrophize and Have Zero ToleranceBurns defines catastrophizing as a kind of magnification that turns ''commonplace negative events into nightmarish monsters.'' Leahy, Holland, and McGinn define it as believing ''that what has happened or will happen'' is ''so awful and unbearable that you won't be able to stand it.'' Requests for trigger warnings involve catastrophizing, but this way of thinking colors other areas of campus thought as well.

Catastrophizing rhetoric about physical danger is employed by campus administrators more commonly than you might think'--sometimes, it seems, with cynical ends in mind. For instance, last year administrators at Bergen Community College, in New Jersey, suspended Francis Schmidt, a professor, after he posted a picture of his daughter on his Google+ account. The photo showed her in a yoga pose, wearing a T-shirt that read I will take what is mine with fire & blood, a quote from the HBO show Game of Thrones. Schmidt had filed a grievance against the school about two months earlier after being passed over for a sabbatical. The quote was interpreted as a threat by a campus administrator, who received a notification after Schmidt posted the picture; it had been sent, automatically, to a whole group of contacts. According to Schmidt, a Bergen security official present at a subsequent meeting between administrators and Schmidt thought the word fire could refer to AK-47s.

Then there is the eight-year legal saga at Valdosta State University, in Georgia, where a student was expelled for protesting the construction of a parking garage by posting an allegedly ''threatening'' collage on Facebook. The collage described the proposed structure as a ''memorial'' parking garage'--a joke referring to a claim by the university president that the garage would be part of his legacy. The president interpreted the collage as a threat against his life.

It should be no surprise that students are exhibiting similar sensitivity. At the University of Central Florida in 2013, for example, Hyung-il Jung, an accounting instructor, was suspended after a student reported that Jung had made a threatening comment during a review session. Jung explained to the Orlando Sentinel that the material he was reviewing was difficult, and he'd noticed the pained look on students' faces, so he made a joke. ''It looks like you guys are being slowly suffocated by these questions,'' he recalled saying. ''Am I on a killing spree or what?''

After the student reported Jung's comment, a group of nearly 20 others e-mailed the UCF administration explaining that the comment had clearly been made in jest. Nevertheless, UCF suspended Jung from all university duties and demanded that he obtain written certification from a mental-health professional that he was ''not a threat to [himself] or to the university community'' before he would be allowed to return to campus.

All of these actions teach a common lesson: smart people do, in fact, overreact to innocuous speech, make mountains out of molehills, and seek punishment for anyone whose words make anyone else feel uncomfortable.

Mental Filtering and Disinvitation SeasonAs Burns defines it, mental filtering is ''pick[ing] out a negative detail in any situation and dwell[ing] on it exclusively, thus perceiving that the whole situation is negative.'' Leahy, Holland, and McGinn refer to this as ''negative filtering,'' which they define as ''focus[ing] almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notic[ing] the positives.'' When applied to campus life, mental filtering allows for simpleminded demonization.

Students and faculty members in large numbers modeled this cognitive distortion during 2014's ''disinvitation season.'' That's the time of year'--usually early spring'--when commencement speakers are announced and when students and professors demand that some of those speakers be disinvited because of things they have said or done. According to data compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, since 2000, at least 240 campaigns have been launched at U.S. universities to prevent public figures from appearing at campus events; most of them have occurred since 2009.

Consider two of the most prominent disinvitation targets of 2014: former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the International Monetary Fund's managing director, Christine Lagarde. Rice was the first black female secretary of state; Lagarde was the first woman to become finance minister of a G8 country and the first female head of the IMF. Both speakers could have been seen as highly successful role models for female students, and Rice for minority students as well. But the critics, in effect, discounted any possibility of something positive coming from those speeches.

Members of an academic community should of course be free to raise questions about Rice's role in the Iraq War or to look skeptically at the IMF's policies. But should dislike of part of a person's record disqualify her altogether from sharing her perspectives?

If campus culture conveys the idea that visitors must be pure, with r(C)sum(C)s that never offend generally left-leaning campus sensibilities, then higher education will have taken a further step toward intellectual homogeneity and the creation of an environment in which students rarely encounter diverse viewpoints. And universities will have reinforced the belief that it's okay to filter out the positive. If students graduate believing that they can learn nothing from people they dislike or from those with whom they disagree, we will have done them a great intellectual disservice.

What Can We Do Now?Attempts to shield students from words, ideas, and people that might cause them emotional discomfort are bad for the students. They are bad for the workplace, which will be mired in unending litigation if student expectations of safety are carried forward. And they are bad for American democracy, which is already paralyzed by worsening partisanship. When the ideas, values, and speech of the other side are seen not just as wrong but as willfully aggressive toward innocent victims, it is hard to imagine the kind of mutual respect, negotiation, and compromise that are needed to make politics a positive-sum game.

Rather than trying to protect students from words and ideas that they will inevitably encounter, colleges should do all they can to equip students to thrive in a world full of words and ideas that they cannot control. One of the great truths taught by Buddhism (and Stoicism, Hinduism, and many other traditions) is that you can never achieve happiness by making the world conform to your desires. But you can master your desires and habits of thought. This, of course, is the goal of cognitive behavioral therapy. With this in mind, here are some steps that might help reverse the tide of bad thinking on campus.

The biggest single step in the right direction does not involve faculty or university administrators, but rather the federal government, which should release universities from their fear of unreasonable investigation and sanctions by the Department of Education. Congress should define peer-on-peer harassment according to the Supreme Court's definition in the 1999 case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education. The Davis standard holds that a single comment or thoughtless remark by a student does not equal harassment; harassment requires a pattern of objectively offensive behavior by one student that interferes with another student's access to education. Establishing the Davis standard would help eliminate universities' impulse to police their students' speech so carefully.

Universities themselves should try to raise consciousness about the need to balance freedom of speech with the need to make all students feel welcome. Talking openly about such conflicting but important values is just the sort of challenging exercise that any diverse but tolerant community must learn to do. Restrictive speech codes should be abandoned.

Universities should also officially and strongly discourage trigger warnings. They should endorse the American Association of University Professors' report on these warnings, which notes, ''The presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual.'' Professors should be free to use trigger warnings if they choose to do so, but by explicitly discouraging the practice, universities would help fortify the faculty against student requests for such warnings.

Finally, universities should rethink the skills and values they most want to impart to their incoming students. At present, many freshman-orientation programs try to raise student sensitivity to a nearly impossible level. Teaching students to avoid giving unintentional offense is a worthy goal, especially when the students come from many different cultural backgrounds. But students should also be taught how to live in a world full of potential offenses. Why not teach incoming students how to practice cognitive behavioral therapy? Given high and rising rates of mental illness, this simple step would be among the most humane and supportive things a university could do. The cost and time commitment could be kept low: a few group training sessions could be supplemented by Web sites or apps. But the outcome could pay dividends in many ways. For example, a shared vocabulary about reasoning, common distortions, and the appropriate use of evidence to draw conclusions would facilitate critical thinking and real debate. It would also tone down the perpetual state of outrage that seems to engulf some colleges these days, allowing students' minds to open more widely to new ideas and new people. A greater commitment to formal, public debate on campus'--and to the assembly of a more politically diverse faculty'--would further serve that goal.

Thomas Jefferson, upon founding the University of Virginia, said:

This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

We believe that this is still'--and will always be'--the best attitude for American universities. Faculty, administrators, students, and the federal government all have a role to play in restoring universities to their historic mission.

Common Cognitive DistortionsA partial list from Robert L. Leahy, Stephen J. F. Holland, and Lata K. McGinn's Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders (2012).

1. Mind reading. You assume that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. ''He thinks I'm a loser.''

2. Fortune-telling. You predict the future negatively: things will get worse, or there is danger ahead. ''I'll fail that exam,'' or ''I won't get the job.''

3. Catastrophizing.You believe that what has happened or will happen will be so awful and unbearable that you won't be able to stand it. ''It would be terrible if I failed.''

4. Labeling. You assign global negative traits to yourself and others. ''I'm undesirable,'' or ''He's a rotten person.''

5. Discounting positives. You claim that the positive things you or others do are trivial. ''That's what wives are supposed to do'--so it doesn't count when she's nice to me,'' or ''Those successes were easy, so they don't matter.''

6. Negative filtering. You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. ''Look at all of the people who don't like me.''

7. Overgeneralizing. You perceive a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. ''This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.''

8. Dichotomous thinking. You view events or people in all-or-nothing terms. ''I get rejected by everyone,'' or ''It was a complete waste of time.''

9. Blaming. You focus on the other person as the source of your negative feelings, and you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. ''She's to blame for the way I feel now,'' or ''My parents caused all my problems.''

10. What if? You keep asking a series of questions about ''what if'' something happens, and you fail to be satisfied with any of the answers. ''Yeah, but what if I get anxious?,'' or ''What if I can't catch my breath?''

11. Emotional reasoning. You let your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. ''I feel depressed; therefore, my marriage is not working out.''

12. Inability to disconfirm. You reject any evidence or arguments that might contradict your negative thoughts. For example, when you have the thought I'm unlovable, you reject as irrelevant any evidence that people like you. Consequently, your thought cannot be refuted. ''That's not the real issue. There are deeper problems. There are other factors.''

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:58

Everyone in America is talking about the gorilla that was shot at the Cincinnati zoo last week. Not all of the conversation makes sense. Take for example these tweets that equate the killing of the gorilla with ''white privilege.''

[Scroll Down for Video]

That's right, it wasn't bad parenting, poor enclosure design, or an inquisitive child that caused Harumbe to be killed. It was racism. On with the tweets.

There's a logic there. And the author isn't saying it's exactly the same, just that it sounds familiar.

White privilege! No doubt about it. There's no surprise that zoos are a leftover vestige of our colonial past, and since white people are the only people who go to zoos, I'd say Hood Intellect is onto something. White people love them some zoos.

Ah, here's an argument central to the black lives matter movement. The 4-year-old, who weighed in somewhere around 30 pounds, give or take, goes up against a gorilla that weighs 440 pounds''but the gorilla didn't have a firearm, so he clearly wasn't a threat.

Now we're seeing a trend. And it is a dangerous trend. We'll come back to that. Cracker. Now that stings.

The trend is this tendency to equate the gorilla with black people. It isn't enough that we anthropomorphize the gorilla, giving it a human name and human characteristics, but these people are now equating the gorilla with a black man.

Thankfully, it hasn't escaped the notice of some who have the power to call this ludicrous tendency for what it is. If I was to call it, it would be just another example of white privilege. God help anyone who makes this kind of racist conflation of gorillas or monkeys and any human beings. That, I thought, we really had put behind us.

LOL. I'm not sure this is a LOL matter. But I know it isn't worthy of this response below, unless Paul Joseph Watson was simply wanting to throw gas on the flames.

There's one little problem with their whole theory. It wasn't a 4-year-old white boy. His parents are Deonne Dickerson and Michelle Gregg, pictured here:

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:09

Photo of Jeep 2-in-1 Safety Harness courtesy of Amazon

Photo of Jeep 2-in-1 Safety Harness courtesy of Amazon

The tragic death over the weekend of Harambe, the endangered lowland mountain gorilla shot dead at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden after a 3-year-old boy fell into his enclosure, has touched off a roaring debate:

Is the zoo to blame for creating an inadequate enclosure, and then for needlessly killing Harambe when a tranquilizer might have been sufficient? Or is it the child's parents' fault for letting the boy out of their sight long enough to have made his way in?

A change.org petition calls for the Cincinnati Zoo, Ohio's Hamilton County Child Protection Services and the Cincinnati Police Department to hold the parents responsible. Meanwhile, his mother defended herself in a Facebook post (since deleted) saying, basically, ''accidents happen.''

The truth is that responsibility lies with a number of people. But the better question the incident raises may instead be: How can we prevent a similar tragedy from happening?

Some have suggested subjecting children to a sort of leash law.

''She should have [had] her child on a leash so she knew he was safe,'' wrote one commenter at the Heavy. ''Time to fasten your child into a stroller or a child leash,'' wrote another at Hollywood Life.

Putting a harness and a leash on your toddler has long been a controversial approach: helpful, or humiliating? They are, no doubt, physically effective: Parents who use child safety harnesses can't help but keep their child in line; they are literally tethered together. And in the case of Harambe, a leash would certainly have prevented the child from making even a fraction of the effort he needed to make to get into the enclosure (provided his parent was firmly holding onto the other end, of course, and who among us hasn't seen a puppy running around trailing behind a leash without an owner?)

But child leashes are also enabling, and debilitating; they absolve the child from having to listen to a parent, and the parent from having to teach their kids to listen, follow rules, be safe and use common sense.

Young children are, to varying degrees, unpredictable, impulsive, thoughtless. They don't learn to resist all of these behaviors in the name of safety for themselves and others without parents' careful, consistent and verbal input. It is work. It's not supposed to be easy.

A leash? That's easy. It's a Band-Aid, not a parenting tool. After all, what happens when dogs that can only stay put when on a leash are unleashed? They run away.

And, well, humans are not pets. Unlike dogs, children grow and evolve. They become too big for leashes, but when it's time to untether them, they may have little more self-control with which to face the world than when they were toddlers. Leashes are ridiculous.

Some children are easier to teach to listen than others. But those children who don't learn easily need more work '-- they don't need to be treated like pets. Parents, meanwhile, need to pay better attention. Enabled by and conditioned by technology, we live in a time when being present and alert isn't a priority.

We are on our phones constantly (the glut of videos of the incident is small proof; did one of the people not think to put down the phone and run for help, or toward the little boy?) Whether it's on the train, driving in our car, or watching TV, we are constantly multitasking in the name of connectivity. Which, of course, has led to the greatest disconnect we've ever experienced.

Leashing our responsibilities would simply give us even more freedom to be less present. Wrap a leash around your wrist, and guess what: You've still got two thumbs to text.

By all accounts, the Cincinnati Zoo enclosure was not unsafe. The 3-year-old who entered Harambe's enclosure did not do so accidentally. Some onlookers reported hearing him tell his mother that he was going to go into the water.

Accessing the enclosure, meanwhile, required the child crawl through a series of barriers, through wires, and then across a moat. He was determined, and without adequate supervision '-- by his parents or any number of the adults in the area '-- he achieved his goal.

To the question of how can parents keep better track of their kids in these kinds of potentially dangerous places? The answer is, simply, parent. Do your job.

Editor's note: Peggy Drexler is the author of ''Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family'' and ''Raising Boys Without Men.'' She is an assistant professor of psychology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and a former gender scholar at Stanford University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Trademark and Copyright 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:14

A vegan cafe in the historic center of Tbilisi was forced to cancel an English-language video screening over the weekend when a group described by witnesses as far-right extremists threw meat into patrons' vegan dinners and started a brawl.

The staff at Tbilisi's Kiwi Cafe called police on the evening of May 29 after more than a dozen men carrying meat attacked restaurant customers and staff.

The clash spilled onto the street outside and neighbors joined in the brawl -- some reportedly fighting against the restaurant's staff and customers, as well as the meat eaters. Minor injuries were reported.

The attackers fled before police arrived and no arrests were made. Police briefly detained some cafe staff members for interrogation.

Taken out of the context of recent events in Tbilisi, the incident could be dismissed by some as part of a backlash that has emerged on social media recently against anticarnivorous vegan rhetoric in Western counterculture. (That reaction is illustrated by a trending YouTube clip called If Meat Eaters Acted Like Vegans.)

But within the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and considering the angry nature of the violence at Kiwi Cafe, there are darker concerns.

A statement issued on May 30 through Kiwi Cafe's Facebook page described the incident as "an antivegan provocative action" and called the attackers "neo-Nazis" who support "fascist ideas."

The statement said the same group had come to the neighborhood a month earlier and asked a nearby shopkeeper whether foreigners or members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community frequented the cafe.

Kiwi Cafe is a counterculture-style gathering place that opened in Tbilisi about a year ago. It is popular with foreigners and employs foreign, English-speaking staff as well as Georgians.

On May 29, the cafe was screening English-language episodes of an American animated, sci-fi sitcom called Rick And Morty when the confrontation began.

Customers said the group of rowdy Georgian men entered the cafe as the screening was under way, wearing sausages around their necks and carrying slabs of meat on skewers.

According to the Kiwi Cafe statement, "they pulled out some grilled meat, sausages, and fish and started eating them and throwing them at us, and finally they started to smoke.... They were just trying to provoke our friends and disrespect us."

Witnesses said the brawl broke out after the men were told to calm down and leave the cafe, which is designated as a "no smoking" area.

'Georgians For Georgia'

Just three days before the attack at Kiwi Cafe, during Georgia's May 26 celebrations marking independence from the former Soviet Union, a group of Georgian nationalist extremists marched in the streets of Tbilisi chanting and carrying banners with the slogan "Georgians for Georgia."

For Georgians, that slogan is an obvious twist on a catchphrase that has specific, dark connotations in the country: "Georgia for Georgians." The phrase was among the anti-Soviet slogans that emerged from Georgia's chaotic rebirth as an independent post-Soviet republic.

For many Georgians, the slogan brings back memories of policies and declarations by Georgia's first post-Soviet president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, that were aimed at protecting the Georgian state and ethnic Georgians.

It also recalls the atmosphere that led ethnic minorities, supported by Russia, to declare independence in Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The slogan also stirs memories of the tense atmosphere in the newly independent Caucasus country when Georgia's armed ethnic conflicts broke out during the early 1990s.

In 2005, then-President Mikheil Saakashvili declared that "Georgia for Georgians" was a "poisonous nationalistic slogan."

But since 2013, when violent threats against gay activists in Tbilisi forced them to cancel a gay-pride parade in the Georgian capital, the slogan has appeared as spray-painted graffiti near Heroes Square in the city center alongside Nazi swastikas and racist slogans.

Kiwi Cafe said on May 30 that it was continuing to work and was "ready to accept all customers regardless of their nationality, race, appearance, age, gender, sexual orientation, or religious views."

For now, it remains unclear whether the premeditated meat assault against the vegan cafe was merely a prank against an alternative culture hangout that turned violent.

But some Tbilisi residents are concerned that the xenophobic overtones of the violence at Kiwi Cafe, taken together with the march by right-wing nationalists in Tbilisi just three days earlier, could mark the emergence of organized political actions by Georgian ultranationalists.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Georgian Service

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 05:06

The owners of a vegan cafe in the country of Georgia say group of neo-Nazis started throwing grilled meat at patrons. It happened over the weekend at the Kiwi Cafe in the capital city of Tbilisi.

The cafe was holding an English-language movie screening when the group came in and started the violence.

They pulled out grilled meat, sausages, fish and started eating them and throwing them at customers before starting to smoke, which is forbidden at the cafe.

When the owners tried to get them to leave a fight started and spilled into the street. The cafe owners say neighbors, who are not happy with a vegan establishment being located there, joined in the fight.

The attackers left before police arrived although the cafe owners say some of their workers were brought to a police office for interrogation.

The owners of the cafe in the former Soviet republic say there has been another recent incident where the group had been asking questions about whether foreigners, gays or other members of the LGBT community had frequented the cafe.

The incident comes amid growing concerns about far-right nationalism in the country. In April a group of masked youth took to the streets to protest immigration and Islamization.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 07:29

Image caption No harmless prank but rather intimidation - the owners of Tbilisi's vegan cafe denounced the sausage-wielding nationalists A vegan cafe in Tbilisi has appealed for public solidarity after being invaded by ultra-nationalists wielding grilled meat and sausages.

More than a dozen men stormed into the Kiwi cafe in the Georgian capital on Sunday evening, the cafe said, shouting and throwing meat at patrons.

A brawl erupted but the attackers fled before police arrived.

Police are now investigating, and say they have questioned the attackers and cafe staff. Nobody has been arrested.

The cafe has appealed for public support, saying it was no prank but a case of intimidation by neo-Nazis.

The attackers wore strings of sausages round their necks and threw chunks of meat onto customers' plates, the BBC's Rayhan Demytrie reports from Tbilisi.

They are known as the Bergmann group, and a social media page shows their attacks on people of Arab or African origin, our correspondent reports. One photograph shows members making the Nazi salute.

Alternative lifestylesThe Kiwi cafe is in a traditional part of old Tbilisi, and is popular among young people sporting unconventional hairstyles, tattoos and body piercings.

Image copyrightKiwi cafeImage caption The cafe says the progressive causes it espouses - animal rights, human freedom and equality - divide public opinion in Georgia Image caption The cafe has pro-vegetarian notices in English and Russian opposing testing on animals Image caption The green cafe stands out among traditional buildings in Tbilisi Most Georgians are Orthodox Christians and many see unorthodox lifestyles as a corrupting influence from the West.

The cafe said it had drawn some local hostility because of "the way we look, music that we listen to, ideas we support, and the fact that we don't eat meat" and backing of causes such as rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

"During these hard times you can support us just by visiting our cafe, we will be very grateful if you come to show everyone that here are a lot of us who care about the issue!" the Kiwi cafe said in a statement on Facebook.

It later told the BBC it had received strong messages of solidarity - from Georgia and abroad - but that people had also left angry comments trying "to defend those fascists".

It said it was also appealing for financial contributions to install security cameras in case of repeat incidents.

The incident comes amid growing concerns about the rise of far-right nationalism in Georgia.

Last week, hundreds of nationalists marched through central Tbilisi - waving Georgian flags and anti-communist banners, reports said - to mark independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Homophobia is also commonplace in Georgia, correspondents say. The country made world headlines in 2013 when a small group of LGBT activists were attacked by a large mob led by an orthodox priest.

Image caption It is a place where "people who care about animals, social issues and the environment" can meet, the cafe says Neighbours' 'baseless hatred'The cafe statement blames Sunday's incident on the group of men who came into the premises, talking loudly, throwing meat and smoking, and then "yelling, laughing, and talking to us sarcastically".

These people "were neo-Nazis... who support fascist ideas", the cafe said.

Some minor injuries were sustained.

The police arrived only after the attackers had left, but the cafe said even some of those officers behaved aggressively, "yelled with anger, said that we are guilty of what had happened".

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Mon, 30 May 2016 17:08

By Milena Veselinovic, Dominique Heckels and Angela Dewan CNNLONDON (CNN) -- Eighteen Albanian migrants rescued off Britain's southern coast over the weekend might have thought they were sailing to a new life of opportunity. Instead they have found themselves the latest political football in the contentious debate over whether the UK should leave the European Union.

Immigration has been a hot-button issue in discussions on the so-called Brexit, a term used to describe the June 23 referendum on whether Britain will exit the EU.

A sea and helicopter rescue was launched off the Kent coast to reach the migrants, traveling with two British nationals in a dinghy, the UK Home Office said. They were taken to Dover for questioning by border force officers.

The rescue has raised concerns the English Channel may become the new Mediterranean Sea, which has seen the biggest movement of asylum seekers into Europe since World War II. At least 1,475 migrants have died this year making the perilous journey in the Mediterranean in crowded boats, according to the International Organization for Migration.

A recent refugee-swap deal between the EU and Turkey has dramatically slowed the flow of boats crossing the Mediterranean, and now there's concern migrants will make longer overland journeys to France and cross the English Channel, a busy shipping route that poses serious risks to the small dinghies used by refugees. It is unclear how such a small boat made it so close to the British coast.

Politicians campaigning to leave the EU have been quick to renew their calls following the rescue.

In a tweet, the Vote Leave campaign quoted Home Secretary Theresa May as saying free movement in the EU "makes it harder to control immigration." As a member of the EU, Britain must welcome citizens of other member nations as residents and allow them to work in the country.

Another tweet cited Parliament member Iain Duncan-Smith, who says Britain is losing control of its borders.

Right-wing media also raised a red flag, with The Sun describing the English Channel as the "new front line" of the migrant crisis.

But the National Crime Agency told CNN that people crossing the channel is nothing new.

A representative said the Albanian case received more media attention because a rescue effort was involved, but it warned that people smugglers may be looking to Britain's smaller ports as entry points.

At a media briefing last month, the deputy director of border policing command for the agency said gangs are being paid as much as £12,000 ($17,500) to smuggle people into the UK on inflatable boats.

The agency could not confirm exact figures of migrants trying to cross the channel, but it said that rigid-hulled inflatable boats, known as RHIBs, have long been used to transport migrants across the narrow stretch of sea.

TM & (C) 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

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Tue, 31 May 2016 12:18

"I am appalled by it. It should be neutral," exclaimed one angry Brit after seeing that Brexit voters are being sent postal ballots with a guide that strongly suggests they should vote for Britain to remain in the European Union.

The "How to vote by post" forms were sent out last week...

And, as The Telegraph reports, this has prompted furious complaints from anti-EU campaigners, as the step-by-step guide includes advice to "read the instructions carefully, then complete your ballot paper" above an image showing a pencil in a hand ticking a box to "remain a member of the European Union."

"When i first saw these instructions I was disgusted... The Electoral Commission should never have allowed this to be sent."

Experts say there is a risk that the forms could be challenged in court because they appear to guide the choice of voters.

Bernard Jenkin - the MP who oversees the conduct of the referendum - noted "any subliminal messaging by authorities purporting to be neutral is absolutely forbidden and it should be reported to the Electotal Commission," and Arron Banks - a backer of the Leave.EU campaign - exclaimed "to send out postal votes with instructions showing people how to vote and favoring the "remain" campaign is the latest outrage... we will be asking our lawyers to contact the electoral commission for an explanation."

Officials defended the design of the instruction leaflet, saying "the placement of a pen graphic is incidental... it could not be construed as indicating how to vote."

But the chief executive of Electoral Administrators warned "clearly this has not followed good practice."

* * *

It seems that the establishment is leaving nothing to chance. With 'Project Fear' now complete - as politicians enter the dark period of propaganda prior to the vote - the manipulation will continue until the status quo is maintained... for now, the polls suggest the establishment is going to have do more...

Average:Your rating: NoneAverage: 4.8(35 votes)

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:26

Dutch PM Mark Rutte, pictured, warned the EU would impose immigration controls on Britons if the UK border was closed to them

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte today warned Britain of retaliation from the EU if a Brexit vote produces tough new border rules.

Vote Leave cheerleaders Boris Johnson and Michael Gove hit the campaign trail today with a blueprint for imposing an Australian-style points system for work visas by 2020 if the UK decides to quit the EU on June 23.

The system would be designed to end automatic entry based on nationality and instead look to skills that fill specific vacancies - with other tests such as good English skills also imposed.

But Mr Rutte today warned if Britain imposed such restrictions, the rest of the EU would have no choice but to impose similar rules in return.

He told the BBC: 'I was very much surprised by the Johnson/Gove proposals to make it harder for Europeans to work in the UK if Britain were to vote to leave the EU.

'I think it would be very bad news for the UK, for the Netherlands, for Europe as a whole, for two reasons.

'First of all, take the Netherlands and the UK, we are both sea-faring nations.

Our ability to create jobs, our future growth, is built on the free market. It's built on open borders.

'And, secondly, it would be unavoidable, inevitable, for us and for many others in Europe to follow the same proposals, to implement a points-system also in the rest of the European Union.

'So you would get a race to the bottom. And that is exactly what you don't want.'

Mr Johnson and Mr Gove, alongside Priti Patel and Labour Brexiteer Gisela Stuart, earlier promised to create a 'genuine Australian-style points-based immigration system' by the 2020 general election if voters back Brexit.

It would end the automatic right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK, with immigration instead based on skills and qualifications without discrimination on grounds of nationality.

The Brexiteers also claimed some 77,000 jobseekers came to the UK from the EU last year under free movement rules, despite it being Government policy that people coming from Europe should have a job offer in place first.

They repeated their attack on the Prime Minister for promising to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, again saying it was 'corrosive of public trust'.

Senior Tories Boris Johnson, Priti Patel and Michael Gove took their campaign to the The Old Chapel Wetherspoon pub in Darwen last night as they campaigned for Brexit and their proposed alternative immigration policy

Mr Gove and Mr Johnson pulled pints while at the bar in an event with JD Wetherspoon chief Tim Martin, who backs Brexit

Speaking on a visit to the clothing factory of the uniform supplier Simon Jersey in Accrington on the first day of a Vote Leave battle bus tour in Lancashire Mr Johnson rejected the idea he is making a pitch for a potential post-Brexit government.

He said: 'All we are saying is what any government could do and we are saying after we vote leave on June 23 it will be up to the Government to take back control.

'Not just of immigration policy but obviously of huge sums of money, of our ability to set our economic and political priorities and to stop the situation where 60 per cent of the law going through the Palace of Westminster comes from the EU.'

When pushed on whether he and his Brexiteer colleagues are setting out an an alternative vision for government he said: 'The answer to that is no.'

Team Brexit has been on the road in the north west of England today, visiting Preston and Accrington on the Vote Leave battle bus

Boris admits he is NOT promising a points-based immigration system will definitely happen after Brexit as George Osborne slams the 'fantasy politics' of Vote LeaveBoris Johnson today admitted he was not promising a points-based immigration system would happen after Brexit but instead outlining an option that could be followed.

The Vote Leave champion, joined by Tory ministers Michael Gove and Priti Patel, today spelled out a detailed blueprint for the Australian-style borders system - and said it could be in place by 2020.

But pressed on the campaign trail in Accrington today, Mr Johnson conceded he was not detailing an alternative vision for government if Britain backs Brexit on June 23.

With polling day just three weeks away the detailed plan was seen as an attempt to flesh out a vision for what a post-Brexit Britain would look like.

But the scheme was derided as 'fantasy politics' by George Osborne - a leading Remain advocate - who seized on a report by international think tank OECD which warned against quitting the EU.

Boris Johnson, pictured on a campaign visit to the Simon Jersey factory in Accrington, today admitted he was not promising an alternative government despite suggesting his immigration plan could be in place by 2020

Mr Johnson's proposals, which would have seen English imposed as a key skill for work visas, was rejected out of hand by Dutch premier Mark Rutte who warned the EU would be forced to retaliate against British workers.

Speaking on a visit to the clothing factory of the uniform supplier Simon Jersey in Accrington on the first day of a Vote Leave battle bus tour in Lancashire Mr Johnson rejected the idea he is making a pitch for a potential post-Brexit government.

He said: 'All we are saying is what any government could do and we are saying after we vote leave on June 23 it will be up to the Government to take back control.

'Not just of immigration policy but obviously of huge sums of money, of our ability to set our economic and political priorities and to stop the situation where 60 per cent of the law going through the Palace of Westminster comes from the EU.'

When pushed on whether he and his Brexiteer colleagues are setting out an an alternative vision for government he said: 'The answer to that is no.'

Joey Essex brands Boris 'a bit nutty' and complains politicians are using too many 'long words that no-one understands' as he joins the Brexit battle for new TV show Joey Essex has branded Boris Johnson 'a bit nutty' as he tried to meet him on the EU referendum campaign trail today.

The Only Way Is Essex reality TV star said he wanted to understand comments the former Mayor of London had made about Brussels rules on bananas.

The 25-year-old, who is making a documentary about the referendum, has already met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor Ed Miliband, Ukip leader Nigel Farage and former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg on the campaign trail.

But he said he had been left confused by them and was still undecided.

Reality star Joey Essex, left, branded Boris Johnson, right, a 'bit nutty' before meeting him on the Vote Leave battlebus during a tour of the north west, pictured

He said: 'In my head I'm 50:50 about the whole situation because I don't know.

'They're politicians, they don't explain it properly. Nigel Farage went on about immigration but it was a politician's answer.

'I asked Ed Miliband a question the other day, but if anyone watches it they will not have a clue what he is talking about because he didn't even answer my question.

'So even if I did go, 'what's the NHS about?' he'd go, 'blah blah blah blah'. They talk so fast and say such long words that no one understands.'

Brexit would cost each worker £3,200 a year by 2030 and send economic shockwaves across the world, warns OECD as international institutions ramp up scaremongering over EU voteBrexit would cost each worker in the UK £3,200 a year by 2030 and send economic shockwaves across the world, an alarming report by a leading international institution warned today.

In a further example of international institutions ramping up their warnings of Britain leaving the EU, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicts that the British economy outside the EU would be 5 per cent smaller in 2030 than if it stays in the union.

Under a more pessimistic scenario, the cost of leaving would be even higher - rising to the equivalent of £5,000 per household, according to the organisation.

Even by 2020 the economic impact of leaving the EU will cost each British worker the equivalent of a month's salary, the OECD forecasts.

It warned that Brexit could give the UK economy a 'major negative shock', forecasting national income would be more than 3 per cent lower than it would have been if Britain remained in the EU by the end of the decade - the equivalent of £2,200 per household.

Britain leaving the EU would send economic shockwaves across the global economy, an alarming report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned today

The OECD slashed its growth forecast for the UK economy for this year, predicting it will grow by 1.7 per cent - down from 2.2 per cent forecast in February.

The British economy would suffer 'a large negative shock' if voters back Brexit in June's referendum, the OECD said in a grim verdict on Britain's economic future outside the EU published in its latest

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:07

Vote Leave supporters holding banners cross the road outside the Chelsea flower show in London. Photograph: Neil Hall/Reuters

Public opinion has shifted towards the UK leaving the EU, two Guardian/ICM polls suggest as the referendum campaign picks up pace '' with voters split 52% -48% in favour of Brexit, whether surveyed online or by phone.

Previous polls have tended to show voters surveyed online to be more in favour of Britain leaving the EU. But in the latest ICM research, carried out for the Guardian, both methodologies yielded the same result '' a majority in favour of leaving.

''Our poll rather unhinges a few accepted orthodoxies,'' said ICM's director, Martin Boon. ''It is only one poll but, in a rather unexpected reverse of polling assumptions so far, both our phone poll and our online poll are consistent on both vote intentions and on the EU referendum.''

Brexit graphicBrexit graphic 2In the phone poll of more than 1,000 adults, 45% said they favoured leaving the EU, and 42% remaining, with 13% saying they did not know. Once the ''don't knows'' were excluded, that left 52% in favour of Brexit, against 48% for remain.

Using online polling, 47% said they would like to leave and 44% remain, with 9% saying they were undecided. Excluding the latter, the result was the same as the phone method '' 52-48 in favour of leaving.

The result using the online method is almost unchanged, but the phone polling appears to be picking up a shift towards leaving the EU, despite a slew of warnings from the most senior members of the government about the economic risks of doing so.

When ICM carried out a poll for the Guardian in mid-May, remain had a 10 percentage point lead among those polled by phone, on 55% to 45%. The online method produced the same result as the latest one: 52% for leave compared with 48% for remain.

EU referendum: Brexit for non-BritsThis latest result is likely to alarm the Stronger In Europe campaign, which had previously taken comfort from the tendency for phone polls to deliver a pro-remain verdict.

Boon said the polling suggested there would be a healthy turnout in the referendum. Asked how likely they were to vote on 23 June, more than 60% of respondents on both methods gave a score of 10 out of 10, which he said pointed to a turnout of 60-62%.

As well as checking voters' intentions for the referendum, ICM asked which party they would vote for. The findings were almost unchanged compared with mid-May, with the phone poll showing the Conservatives on 36%, and Labour down 2 percentage points at 32%.

Brexit graphicBrexit partiesSupport for Ukip appeared to have picked up, perhaps aided by the prominence of the party's leader, Nigel Farage, during the referendum campaign and the focus on immigration in the debate. The party scored 15% in the phone poll, up 2 percentage points from last time.

Gisela Stuart, the chair of Vote Leave and a Labour MP, told the Guardian recently that the party's backing for remaining in the EU was ''a recruiting agent for Ukip''.

Support for Brexit is split along class and geographical lines, according to ICM. Among skilled manual workers, known by pollsters as C2s, support for Brexit is running as high as 62%. Scotland is for remain, while voters in England and Wales would back Brexit.

ICM Unlimited interviewed 1,004 people by phone, and 2,052 people online on 27-29 May 2016. Interviews were conducted across the country and in both cases the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:47

As part of the State Department's continuous efforts to provide Americans travelling abroad with information about relevant events, we are alerting U.S. citizens to the risk of potential terrorist attacks throughout Europe, targeting major events, tourist sites, restaurants, commercial centers and transportation. The large number of tourists visiting Europe in the summer months will present greater targets for terrorists planning attacks in public locations, especially at large events. This Travel Alert expires August 31, 2016.

France will host the European Soccer Championship from June 10 '' July 10. Euro Cup stadiums, fan zones, and unaffiliated entertainment venues broadcasting the tournaments in France and across Europe represent potential targets for terrorists, as do other large-scale sporting events and public gathering places throughout Europe. France has extended its state of emergency through July 26 to cover the period of the soccer championship, as well as the Tour de France cycling race which will be held from July 2- 24.

The Catholic Church's World Youth Day event is expected to draw up to 2.5 million visitors to Krakow, Poland, between July 26 and July 31. U.S. citizens should be aware that local infrastructure may be strained due to the large number of visitors. Poland will impose border controls at all of its national borders from July 4 to August 2, and visitors to Poland during this period should be prepared to show their passport and undergo stricter security screening throughout Poland. More information to help prepare for travel to World Youth Day can be found at U.S. Embassy Poland/World Youth Day and travel.state.gov/WorldYouthDay.

U.S. citizens should also:

Exercise vigilance when in public places or using mass transportation.Be aware of immediate surroundings and avoid crowded places.Follow the instructions of local authorities, especially in an emergency.Monitor media and local event information sources and factor updated information into your travel plans and activities.Be prepared for additional security screening and unexpected disruptions. Stay in touch with your family, have a plan if you are separated and ensure they know how to reach you in the event of an emergency.European authorities continue to take steps to assure public safety and disrupt terrorist plots. We work closely with our allies and will continue to share information with our European partners that will help identify and counter terrorist threats.

For further information:

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 16:01

While some lawmakers in legal marijuana states are pushing to outlaw cannabis edibles that resemble sugary treats in an effort to protect the well being of the children, the federal government has just approved a candy-flavored amphetamine-based medication that will be marketed to kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) later this year.

A recent report from the folks at STAT News indicates that a new version of speed hit the pharmaceutical market last week called Adzenys, a chewable, fruit-flavored drug designed with the same active ingredient as other popular ADHD medications, such as Adderall. The drug, which is essentially extended release gummy meth, was approved earlier this year by the Food and Drug Administration for patients as young as six years old.

Not surprisingly, the medication is already stirring up a significant level of controversy in the healthcare community due to fears that chewable speed that tastes good will lead to an increase in abuse and overdoses.

But that is not stopping Neos Therapeutics, the Dallas-based pharmaceutical company responsible for designing the drug, from launching a sinister marketing campaign in hopes of getting ''ahead of back-to-school season,'' according to the company's CEO Vipin Garg. ''We're launching now at full speed.''

The company boasts that its 125 sales representatives have not had any issues setting up appointments with physicians all over the country who are fully prepared to start recommending Adzenys.

''We are encouraged by the initial feedback from physicians during the pre-launch phase and we are even more confident that there is a strong desire on the part of physicians and caregivers for once daily orally disintegrating treatment alternative to health managed ADHD,'' Garg said.

Unfortunately, while the federal government remains cavalier to the prescription drug epidemic currently sweeping the nation, some of the latest data shows that, over the past decade, the recreational use of medications like Adderall have increased in adults by 67 percent. What's worse is the average consumer seems to be completely oblivious that these nicely packaged prescription medications are manufactured similarly to popular illegal substances, like methamphetamine, which law enforcement and government agencies have been telling them to avoid all of their lives.

''The public remains almost entirely ignorant of the fact that methamphetamine produces nearly identical effects to those produced by the popular ADHD medication d-amphetamine (dextroamphetamine). You probably know it as Adderall: a combination of amphetamine and d-amphetamine mixed salts,'' wrote Dr. Carl Hart, professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University, in a piece for the Influence.

Some recent reports suggest that edible marijuana, specifically products that resemble candy, are sending children to the emergency room in states that have legalized the herb for medicinal and recreational purposes. In fact, an article published this week in Today indicates there were 4,000 calls to poison control in 2015 for kids and teens exposed to pot. Although none of these incident created any life-threatening situations, physicians say the kids who accidentally ingest these products '-- mostly due to the negligence of the parents '-- are experiencing ''nausea, vomiting, disorientation, anxiety-like reactions and even psychotic reactions that can make them do things they wouldn't normally do."

These types of reports are cramping the style of the cannabis industry in some states. Lawmakers in Colorado recently introduced legislation aimed at banning edible marijuana gummies that resemble fruits, animals, people, and anything else children might find attractive. Yet there are no protections in place at the federal level to prevent pharmaceutical companies, like Neos Therapeutics, from manufacturing candy-flavored versions of a drug that is known to cause serious harm, including sudden death, in children and adults.

But even though the Food and Drug Administration has evidence proving that amphetamine-based medications can kill, there have been so few fatalities that the federal agency continues to declare these substances safe and effective in the treatment of ADHD and narcolepsy. However, these drugs often cause common medical conditions, including fatty liver, heart attack, seizures, stroke, and psychotic episodes '' all increasingly more possible for a child to experience after eating too much of his or her medication because it looks and tastes like candy.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 16:02

There's a new, candy-flavored amphetamine on the market.

Adzenys, as the chewable, fruity medication is called, packs the punch of Adderall and is geared toward children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The drug hit the market last week and is already stirring controversy: Some psychiatrists worry that Adzenys will accelerate a trend toward overmedicating kids '-- and could be yet another gateway into ADHD drug abuse.

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Presenting amphetamines in a tasty, convenient package is ''a recipe for people to request it and then sell it,'' said Dr. Mukund Gnanadesikan, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Napa, Calif.

''I'm not a big fan of controlled substances that come in forms that can be easily abused '-- and certainly a chewable drug falls into that category,'' Gnanadesikan said.

Read MoreDo antidepressants during pregnancy increase baby's autism risk?

Adzenys, an extended-release amphetamine, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in January for patients 6 years and older. It comes in six dose strengths. The Dallas company behind the drug, Neos Therapeutics, began ramping up commercial efforts this week in order to get ''ahead of back-to-school season,'' CEO Vipin Garg said. ''We're launching now at full speed.''

The company has 125 sales reps across the United States, and they're having ''no problem'' getting appointments with doctors interested in prescribing this new formulation, Garg said. The product is winning support from doctors who see it as a convenient way to give children the drugs they need. And analysts are generally bullish about Neos's prospects.

A booming market for ADHD drugsThere's a very real population of children and adults whose lives are vastly improved by medications like Adderall and Ritalin, which stimulate the central nervous system and affect chemicals in the brain associated with impulse control. But the line between need and want is increasingly blurry.

About 75 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD are on medication '-- a statistic that concerns many psychiatrists. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises parents to try behavior therapy before pharmaceutical intervention.)

In teens and adults, there's also rampant misuse: These stimulants are commonly used as party drugs and as performance enhancement aids; some students say the meds help them focus and improve their grades.

All that adds up to a booming market. Sales for ADHD medications were at $4.7 billion in 2006, had nearly tripled to $12.7 billion by last year, and are projected to grow to $17.5 billion by 2020, according to a 2015 report from market research firm IBISWorld.

Read MoreFDA moves to ban use of electric shock devices to treat children

Adzenys is the first extended-release drug for ADHD that dissolves in the mouth (though a rival drug, Shire's Vyvanse, comes in capsules that can be opened so the medication can be sprinkled over food). It's also the first to come in a blister pack, not a pill bottle '-- making it exceptionally portable and convenient.

Garg says the new, quick-dissolving formulation will help harried mothers get their kids medicated faster before school. It could also be useful for the adult ADHD population, he said: If they forget to take their pill with breakfast, they could just pop a tablet on the way to work. He sees the dissolving tabs as part of a broader trend to making medications and supplements of all types more pleasant to take.

''You go to a pharmacy, and everything is in gummy bear format,'' Garg said. ''Why would that be the case if there wasn't a need for this?''

A convenience for harried moms '-- or for dealers?NEOS

Adzenys XR-ODT extended-release tablets

Some psychiatrists see no reason to worry about Adzenys. Those who abuse the drug won't care if it comes in the form of a nice-tasting chewable or a traditional pill: They're only focused on the effects of the drug, said Dr. Ben Biermann, an assistant professor of psychiatry at University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.

''There's nothing revolutionary about this drug,'' Biermann said. ''It's simply another delivery mechanism for a medication that already exists and has widespread use.''

And for kids who balk at swallowing pills, Adzenys could be a boon, said Dr. Greg Mattingly, a child psychiatrist who teaches pharmacology at the Washington University School of Medicine.

(Mattingly, who is a board member of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders, said he has no financial stake in Neos, but did present research on the drug at this week's American Psychiatric Association meeting in Atlanta.)

Just this week, Mattingly prescribed Adzenys for the first time '-- to a 9-year-old boy who had been taking ADHD meds for some time. The child hated the liquid formulation and had trouble swallowing pills, so the family felt the chewable tabs offered new hope, he said.

Still, for those who believe ADHD is wildly overdiagnosed and overmedicated, the idea of making a drug more tasty and convenient is jarring.

It's a move that sanctions ''an orally disintegrating amphetamine for kids by the morally disintegrating FDA,'' said Dr. Alexander Papp, an adult psychiatrist affiliated with University of California, San Diego.

''What's next?'' Papp scoffed. ''Gummy bears?''

Meghana Keshavan can be reached at Meghana.Keshavan@statnews.comFollow Meghana on Twitter @megkesh

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Tue, 31 May 2016 12:45

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½½`½a½Ä§>CLIA½½\#½½½!8½½=½ ½½½Q½½y½E½Æ†½*½½½½½½'½h½U½ ½2½%jO½!½½V½D½:^`½½j0½!½aF½SC½½½Z½69½½½j½½½½k/½½½½D½5½î§"KC½W½½½½×¤L½½@Ζ$½½½es3½N½ÙQ½A½½.z½^½Ì‹½U½1½i½½ ½½½È¼½½½½Uj½_½`½½½½½½1H.½tz½Qx½½½½j½U!½½½Í²½½½[MÒ¶p5½½½>ez=v="½½½½*½½½½½½Uͤ½+½?[½½

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:13

All along Hillary Clinton has pled that when it comes to her violation of Federal regulations, she was at worst naive, hardly malicious and - as of recently - merely doing what each of her state department predecessors has done; and she has been very careful to make it clear that she never purposefully and intentionally "stripped" confidential data in order to send it through her unsecured server as such an act would imply not only a breach of email retention policy, but a willful abuse of confidential documents.

Well, moments ago Wikileaks unveiled what it believes may be the FBI's "smoking gun" in its case against Hillary. In a tweet, Wikileaks highlights one specific email and asks "Is this email the FBI's star exhibit against Hillary Clinton ("H")? "

The email in question (link)

The full email chain is below (link):

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:16

Wed Jun 1, 2016 | 6:38 AM EDT

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has backed presumptive U.S. Republican nominee Donald Trump, with a propaganda website praising him as "a prescient presidential candidate" who can liberate Americans living under daily fear of nuclear attack by the North.

A column carried on Tuesday by DPRK Today, one of the reclusive and dynastic state's mouthpieces, described Trump as a "wise politician" and the right choice for U.S. voters in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.

It described his most likely Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, as "thick-headed Hillary" over her proposal to apply the Iran model of wide sanctions to resolve the nuclear weapons issue on the Korean peninsula.

Trump instead has told Reuters he was prepared to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program, and that China should also help solve the problem.

North Korea, known officially as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is under U.N. sanctions over its past nuclear tests. South Korea and the United States say its calls for dialogue are meaningless until it takes steps to end its nuclear ambitions.

DPRK Today also said Trump's suggestion that the United States should pull its troops from South Korea until Seoul pays more was the way to achieve Korean unification.

"It turns out that Trump is not the rough-talking, screwy, ignorant candidate they say he is, but is actually a wise politician and a prescient presidential candidate," said the column, written by a China-based Korean scholar identified as Han Yong Muk.

DPRK Today is among a handful of news sites run by the isolated North, although its content is not always handled by the main state-run media.

It said promising to resolve issues on the Korean peninsula through "negotiations and not war" was the best option for America, which it said is "living every minute and second on pins and needles in fear of a nuclear strike" by North Korea.

The North has for years called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South as the first step toward peace on the Korean peninsula and demanded Washington sign a peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Its frequently strident rhetoric also often threatens nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States.

(Editing by Tony Munroe and Paul Tait)

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:55

VIA| For the last several months, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck has been dealing with some negative press. As a fervent Ted Cruz supporter, Beck seemed to publicly melt down as Cruz's presidential prospects dimmed. Beck smeared his face with Cheetos. Then there was the announcement that his company was laying off 40 workers and losing money hand over fist as his media empire appeared to be crumbling.

Now he may just have hammered in the last nail over comments he made about Donald Trump on air.

SiriusXM has announced a temporary one-week suspension of Beck's radio program. As Breitbart reported; Sirius issued a statement that ''comments recently made by a guest on the independently produced Glenn Beck Program, in our judgement, may be reasonably construed by some to have been advocating harm against an individual currently running for office, which we cannot and will not condone. For that reason, we have suspended The Glenn Beck Program from our Patriot channel for the coming week and are evaluating its place in our lineup going forward.''

The suspension is in response to the interview Beck did with fiction author Brad Thor last Wednesday, in which Thor likened the GOP's presumptive nominee Donald Trump to a South American-style dictator who would cause an ''extinction-level event'' for the country if elected. Thor then declared that in such a case, Congress would not be able to remove Trump from office by ''legal means'' through impeachment, so Thor asked ''what patriot will step up and do that'' if Trump oversteps his Constitutional restraints. Beck agreed with Thor's assessment.

It was widely interpreted that Beck was condoning the assassination of Trump. Considering that Beck can't seem to go a day without comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler, it wouldn't be a stretch to interpret his comments this way.

Will this be the end of Glenn Beck's career? We shall see.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:14

Perry O'Brien, medic turned left-wing anti-Trump activist

Editor's Note: GotNews.com worked with real veterans on this post to expose Perry O'Brian's dishonesty. Thank you for your service in and out of uniform.

Organizer Perry O'Brien is a far left radical activist who has a history of fraudulently claiming to represent grassroots organizations.

The conscientious objector (we'll get to that in a moment) with an honorable discharge been all over the media attacking Donald Trump as part of a Soros-funded campaign.

O'Brien lied in an interview with Don Lemon that he was part of a grassroots organization that was ''spontaneously'' anti-Trump.

In fact O'Brian is involved with the Veterans Progressive Leadership Institute, which is itself affiliated with Beyond the Choir, a Soros-funded astro-turfing organization described on its website thusly.

''Beyond the Choir partners with social justice organizations to craft resonant messaging, plan strategic campaigns, and mobilize larger bases of support. Our name captures the core of our mission: in order to build movements capable of winning real change, we need to do more than just ''preach to the choir.''_

The director of Beyond the Choir is Jonathan Matthew Smucker. Mr. Smucker has a book coming out in January entitled Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals.

Smucker is also involved with Story-based Strategy (@Smartmeme) and Wildfire Project (@TheWildFireTeam). The Center for Story-based Strategy is a ''national movement-building organization dedicated to harnessing the power of narrative for social change.''

The Wildfire Project is, in turn, sponsored by Res Publica, a Soros-funded civic advocacy group.

O'Brien also worked with Chas Davis, a so-called peace activist, who encouraged military officers to desert.

O'Brien's status as a conscientious objector was extremely rare when he sought the status in 2004 after a tour as a medic, a tour he described as ''like the Peace Corps with guns.''

Here's how O'Brien's hometown press described it.

According to Maj. Elizabeth Robbins with the U.S. Army office of public affairs, the number of requests for conscientious-objector status has declined since Sept. 11.

There are two types of conscientious-objector designations: one where you are removed from combat and put in another specialty field; or, as in O'Brien's case, discharged from the service entirely.

In 2001 there were nine approved. Last year there were 31 approved and 29 denied.

The process takes time and leads all the way to the Pentagon, where the final decision is made. Officers carefully check a person's history as far back as high school. Typically he or she will have shown signs either of support or questioning the Army, Robbins said.

Though the Army knows a change of mind is possible while in combat, it's also not common among the ranks. Now new recruits sign a statement saying they are not conscientious objectors. ''It's extremely rare,'' said Robbins. ''We're a large army with roughly upwards of a half million (soldiers) on active duty.'' (Justin Ellis, ''Objection Sustained,'' January 3, 2005).

In other words and contrary to what O'Brien has claimed his military experience wasn't all that typical.

The Portland Press Herald ended it's article thusly:

Now he wants to work with groups like Veterans for Peace and the Maine People's Alliance to help those in or outside the Army who may be in a situation like his. ''I don't just want to sit around and have conversations about these things,'' he said.

He plans to head back to college in the fall, studying political science and philosophy at Cornell University in New York.

In the meantime, adjusting to life back home hasn't been too hard. For all his adventures and experience, one thing still makes him like many other 22-year-olds in Maine.

''I'm looking for a job,'' he said.

And now O'Brien has one shilling against Donald Trump.

Professional activism is one of the best jobs out there, especially when George Soros picks up the tab.

Editor's note: It is mark of great embarrassment that GotNews.com editor-in-chief Charles C. Jonson never wore the uniform but we're fighting the enemies domestic in the electronic cold civil war. If you served your country and want to join that effort email me at [email protected]

Gotnews.com founder and editor-in-chief Charles C. Johnson is an investigative journalist, author, and sought after researcher. He was a contributor to the Daily Caller and the Blaze, and his work is frequently featured on Drudge Report. He is author of Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America's Most Underrated President and The Truth About the IRS Scandal. Charles is an award-winning journalist who has also written for Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, American Spectator, Daily Beast, National Review Online, PJ Media, and Weekly Standard. Charles has appeared on Fox News with Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, and Lou Dobbs and numerous radio programs, including Rusty Humphries, Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, and Mark Levin. He is at work on a new book about the researcher community and Barack Obama.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:45

The Huffington Post has removed an article on its website Sunday, claiming that the FBI plans to indict Hillary Clinton on federal racketeering charges.

As Breitbart first reported, HuffPo freelance contributor Frank Huguenard, a scientist and public speaker, posted an article on the site's blog entitled "Hillary Clinton to be Indicted on Federal Racketeering Charges." Huguenard wrote:

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a United States Federal Law passed in 1970 that was designed to provide a tool for law enforcement agencies to fight organized crime. RICO allows prosecution and punishment for alleged racketeering activity that has been executed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.

Activity considered to be racketeering may include bribery, counterfeiting, money laundering, embezzlement, illegal gambling, kidnapping, murder, drug trafficking, slavery, and a host of other nefarious business practices.

James Comey and The FBI will present a recommendation to Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the Department of Justice, that includes a cogent argument that the Clinton Foundation is an ongoing criminal enterprise engaged in money laundering and soliciting bribes in exchange for political, policy and legislative favors to individuals, corporations and even governments both foreign and domestic.

If accurate, this could be a terminal hit to Hillary's presidential chances, and it is obvious why a left-leaning medium, and audience, would be disturbed by its content.

The piece was publicized on Twitter by conservatives including Clinton critic Jared Wyand:

It is unclear at this time whether the article was taken down due to editorial intervention happened to the article, or a technical glitch, although the article link now directs to a page that says ''404'' with a frownie face and the message ''This is so embarrassing'' after Huffington Post took the piece down Sunday.

A note at the bottom of the original article explains that ''This postis hosted on the Huffington Post's Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email."

It appears that many HuffPo readers found the article precisely that.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:28

Towns and cities across Germany are struggling to find accommodation for the tens of thousands of refugees streaming into the country.

Ms Keller's case follows that of Bettina Halbey, a nurse who is being evicted from her home of 16 years in the town of Nieheim, hundreds of miles to the north.

' Christian and Muslim refugees should be housed separately, says German police chief

Mario Schlafke, the mayor of Eschbach, says the town had no choice but to ask Ms Keller to leave.

''The council hasn't taken a frivolous decision,'' he told Welt newspaper. ''The alternative would have been to set up beds in the gym.''

The town of just 2,400 people is under pressure to find space for refugees, and Ms Keller's flat is one of only two owned by the local municipality. It is not social housing and Ms Keller is a rent-paying tenant.

A shipping container has already been set up as temporary accommodation on a local football field, while a family of eight are being accommodated in a youth centre.

''Our backs are to the wall,'' Claudia Geiselbrecht, a local councillor, told Badische Zeitung, a local newspaper.

The municipality says it has offered to help Ms Keller find new accommodation, a claim she denies. She has hired a lawyer and vowed to fight the eviction.

The news came as a new poll showed the stark divide in pulic opinion over Angela Merkel's refugee policy between the former East Germany and the rest of the country.

Only 24 per cent of those polled in the former East named Mrs Merkel as the politician they trust most, down from 32 per cent just a month ago, the survey for the Insa Institute found.

But in the former West, 33 per cent named Mrs Merkel '' up from 31 per cent in August.

The West's larger population means that nationally support for the Chancellor remains strong.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 21:36

From:

To:

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Tue, 31 May 2016 16:03

Facebook is listening in on people's conversations all of the time, an expert has claimed.

The app is using people's phones to gather data on what they are talking about, it has been claimed.

Facebook says that its app does listen to what's happening around it, but only as a way of seeing what people are listening to or watching and suggesting that they post about it.

The feature has been available for a couple of years, but recent warnings from Kelli Burns, mass communication professor at the University of South Florida, have drawn attention to it.

Professor Burns has said that the tool appears to be using the audio it gathers not simply to help out users, but to listen in to discussions and serve them with relevant advertising. She says that to test the feature, she discussed certain topics around the phone and then found that the site appeared to show relevant ads.

The claim chimes with anecdotal reports online that the site appears to show ads for things that people have mentioned in passing.

Facebook has not yet responded to a request for comment.

At the moment, the feature is only available in the US.

When it was first introduced, in 2014, Facebook responded to controversy by arguing that the phone isn't ''always listening'' and that it never stores the ''raw audio'' when it is listening.

The next stage for Facebook?

Facebook says explicitly on its help pages that it doesn't record conversations, but that it does use the audio to identify what is happening around the phone. The site promotes the feature as an easy way of identifying what you are listening to or watching, to make it easier and quicker to post about whatever's going on.

If people want to use the feature that way, then they can start writing a post in the normal way. If it's turned on, then it will start identifying what is being listened to or watching '' at which point a little face with some soundwaves next to it will appear.

If it identifies the sound successfully, then it will show a little ''1'' next to the face instead '' users can then click that, select the thing they are watching or listening to, and then write the rest of the update.

''If your phone's microphone has trouble matching what you're listening to or watching, the room you're in may be loud or a commercial may be on,'' according to Facebook's help page. ''If this happens, tap, drag and release your screen to try a new match.''

Turning off the microphone in a phone's settings is relatively easy, and since it can be done at the level of the operating system, doing so will mean that Facebook can't turn it on even if it wanted to. It's done on an iPhone by heading to the app's settings, clicking through to privacy and switching the slider for microphone; on Android phones, head to settings and then privacy, and change the permissions that the Facebook app is given.

The claims come after Belgian police warned citizens not to use Facebook's Reactions tool if they valued their privacy.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:39

News / 5 hours ago / by Stef Lach

Roger Daltrey says The Who are unlikely to ever release another album because the internet has "stolen" the music industry.

The frontman admits he and guitarist Pete Townshend have discussed the possibility of making a follow-up to 2006's Endless Wire, but as it stands he can't see it happening.

The Who unveiled standalone single Be Lucky in 2014 and at the time, Daltrey hinted that a full album would follow.

But he tells Rolling Stone: "We've talked about it, but it's not going to be easy. There's no record industry anymore. Why would I make a record?

"I would have to pay to make a record. There's no royalties so I can't see that ever happening. There's no record business. How do you get the money to make the records? I don't know.

"I'm certainly not going to pay money to give my music away free. I can't afford to do that. I've got other things I could waste the money on."

Asked why the record industry is in the state that it's in, Daltrey adds: "Well, it's been stolen. The way the internet has come about has been the biggest robbery in history, like musicians should work for nothing.

"You get paid for streaming, my ass. There's no control. Musicians are getting robbed every day. And now it's creeping into film and television, everything now.

"You notice, the internet is a slowly but surely destructive thing in all ways. I don't think it's improved people's lives. It's just made them do more work and feel like they're wanted a bit more, but it's all bollocks.

"They feel like they're wanted because they got 50,000 Facebook likes or whatever, and it's all bollocks. Look up for a while. Live in the real world."

In the same interview, Daltrey discusses The Who's early tours with the Beatles, his admiration for Eddie Vedder and the aims of his Teenage Cancer charity.

The Who will play at October's California mega-festival Desert Trip, along with Paul McCartney, Roger Waters, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Rolling Stones.

They are also on the bill for the Mad Cool Festival in Spain on June 16 and the Azkena Rock Festival, also in Spain, on June 18. On Saturday, June 11, The Who headline the Isle Of Wight Festival.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 02:18

By BEN SISARIO NYTimes.com 5/31/16

A few years ago, the biggest enemy of the music industry was Pandora Media. Then Spotify became the target.

Now it is YouTube's turn.

In recent months, the music world has been united to a rare degree in a public fight against YouTube, accusing the service of paying too little in royalties and asking for changes to the law that allows the company to operate the way it does. The battle highlights the need to capture every dollar as listeners' habits turn to streaming, as well as the industry's complicated relationship with YouTube.

The dispute has played out in a drumbeat of industry reports, blog posts and opinion columns. Stars like Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams and Billy Joel have signed letters asking for changes to copyright laws. Irving Azoff, the manager of artists like the Eagles and Christina Aguilera, criticized YouTube in an interview and in a fiery speech around the Grammy Awards.

Also, annual sales statistics were released showing that YouTube, despite its gigantic audience, produces less direct income for musicians than the niche market of vinyl record sales.

''This is the result of an explosion of views of music videos on YouTube against a backdrop of decline in the recorded music business in general,'' Larry Miller, an associate professor of music business at New York University's Steinhardt School, said of the fight.

With more than a billion users, including the youngest and most engaged music fans, YouTube has long been seen by the music business as a vital way to promote songs and hunt for the next star. At the same time, music executives grumble that it has never been a substantial source of revenue and is a vexing outlet for leaks and unauthorized material.

It may not be a coincidence that the major record labels are also in the midst of renegotiating their licensing contracts with YouTube this year.

In its newest effort, the music industry has asked the federal government to change the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying that the law, which was passed in 1998 and protects sites like YouTube that host copyrighted material posted by users, is outdated and makes removing unauthorized content too difficult.

Cary Sherman, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, says that even when songs are taken down, they can easily be uploaded again.

''This is a new form of piracy,'' he said. ''You don't have to go into dark corners and sell stuff out of your car. You can do it in plain sight and rely on the D.M.C.A. to justify that what you're doing is perfectly legal.''

Europe's copyright protections are also under review, and last month, Andrus Ansip, the European Commission's digital chief, called on YouTube to pay more for its content. But so far, YouTube does not seem shaken.

In an interview, Robert Kyncl, YouTube's chief business officer, said that since its inception in 2005, YouTube has paid $3 billion to the music industry around the world. (In earlier statements, YouTube has said that Google, its parent company, paid that amount across all of its sites, but Mr. Kyncl now says that YouTube alone has contributed that sum and that other Google services have added even more.)

''Music matters tremendously to us,'' Mr. Kyncl said. ''Artists matter to us. We are connecting artists and fans on our platforms.''

He also pointed to the site's new subscription plan, YouTube Red, and said YouTube's copyright protections were functioning as they should. Content ID, the site's proprietary system, lets copyright owners keep track of their material, and when the system detects a new video including a tracked song '-- whether in a full music video or just the background of a user-uploaded clip '-- the owner can choose to keep the video online or take it down.

According to YouTube, 98 percent of copyright claims on its system are made through Content ID, and 99.5 percent of the claims related to music are handled automatically. YouTube says about half the money it pays in music royalties is related to user-generated videos that incorporate music processed through Content ID.

''We are working to create what has become the most significant revenue generator in the entertainment industry,'' Mr. Kyncl said, ''which is a dual revenue stream where you monetize all people: heavy users through subscription, and light users through advertising.''

But the music world argues that YouTube's financial contributions have not kept pace with the popularity of its streams. In March, the recording industry association's annual report of sales statistics, usually a dry financial summary, criticized YouTube harshly. It said that free ad-supported sites like it, which let users pick specific songs on demand, paid $385 million to record labels in the United States '-- less than the $416 million collected from the sale of just 17 million vinyl records.

Spotify paid about $1.8 billion last year for music licensing and related costs, according to the company's annual returns, although the average royalty rates for its free tier are not much different from YouTube's, by some estimates.

The fight over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has touched a nerve. The music industry is bracing for what may be a high-wattage lobbying battle reminiscent of the one over the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that was abandoned in 2012 after opposition from technology activists and Internet giants like Google and Wikipedia.

The copyright law gives ''safe harbor'' to Internet service providers that host third-party material. While music groups criticize the law, some legal scholars and policy specialists say any change to it would need to be considered carefully, particularly to preserve protections like fair use.

''Anything that rewrites the D.M.C.A. isn't just going to affect YouTube,'' said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at the University of Maryland. ''It is going to affect blogs. It is going to affect fan sites. It is going to affect places for game creators and documentarians and all kinds of others.''

In December, the United States Copyright Office asked for comments about D.M.C.A. as part of a review of the law, and filings by record companies show how laborious copyright policing can be. Universal Music said that after Taylor Swift's album ''1989'' was released in late 2014, the company devoted a team of employees full time to search for unauthorized copies; to date, the company said, it has sent 66,000 takedown notices to various sites about ''1989,'' in addition to 114,000 blocks on YouTube made automatically through Content ID.

Maria Schneider, a Grammy-winning jazz composer, said in an interview that the problem was particularly acute for independent acts like her, who do not have Content ID accounts, and that the D.M.C.A.'s takedown process discouraged lawful requests.

YouTube says that about 8,000 companies and organizations have access to Content IDand that independents may get access through affiliated companies and industry groups. Mr. Kyncl said the steps in the takedown process were meant to ensure the accuracy of requests and deter false claims.

Mr. Azoff said that after the Copyright Office made its request, he and other managers asked artists they represented whether they wanted to sign a letter calling for changes to the law.

''Not one artist declined,'' he said.

''But if there are creators who like their music on YouTube and SoundCloud, that's fine,'' Mr. Azoff said. ''The whole point is choice: Artists should be able to choose

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Sun, 29 May 2016 20:34

Info StormerMay 29, 2016

Armies of Turkish masturbation addicts could soon be on their way to provide cultural enrichment for Europe.

In Turkey there has been public anger after a bus employee masturbated and ejaculated on a sleeping female passenger.

I fail to understand why so many people are angry about this. Moslem men ejaculating on sleeping females is a unique part of Turkish culture that we must embrace.

The people who are upset about this are ignorant and do not understand the vibrancy of Turkish culture.

Turkish authorities were correct in not detaining the man. They realize that this type of behavior is a cornerstone of Turkish culture.

Let's hope the European Union allows unlimited numbers of Turks into Europe. This will ensure that Europe can be fully enriched with an army of Turkish masturbation addicts.

RT:

There has been public outrage in Turkey after an employee at one of the country's largest bus companies was caught masturbating on a sleeping passenger. The victim says it reflects ''the oppressive environment against women'' in the country.

During a journey from Muğla to İstanbul on Tuesday, a Metro Turizm bus assistant identified only by the initials C.G. is reported to have started masturbating beside a woman, known only as C.D., while she was asleep on the vehicle.

The woman is understood to have been woken up by the sound of the man, who is reported to have ejaculated on the woman's face and clothing.

''I was tempted and I did it,'' the bus assistant reportedly told his bosses at Metro Turizm, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

With the help of another passenger, who happened to be a lawyer, the woman called the Gendarmerie, who met the bus at the following stop, with the Turkish Sun reporting that the woman waited for almost an hour with semen on her face until the authorities arrived, so it could be used as evidence.

It's understood that the man was questioned by authorities but was then released, which has left many people angry.

The future belongs to the bold!

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Mon, 30 May 2016 16:45

DOWNTOWN '-- Many people will tell you that every step Mayor Rahm Emanuel takes, every hand he shakes, heck, every breath he takes, is choreographed like one of his childhood ballet recitals.

That's particularly true when it comes to the mayor's well-known obsessive compulsion with ''controlling the message.''

For the most part, Emanuel is pretty up front about that. When he's in a particularly good mood, the mayor has started news conferences with a one-liner: ''As Henry Kissinger used to say to the press, 'Do you have any questions for my answers?' "

I never knew exactly how much truth was packed in that mayoral punchline until this week.

A public records request returned a document with telling details about how much effort Emanuel's administration puts into controlling the message at mayoral press conferences.

The ''Daily Press Guidance'' prepared for Emanuel's Dec. 30 news conference on a new police ''use of force'' policy was complete with ''Today's sound bites,'' ''In The News Today'' topics and scripted responses to expected questions that read like a stage play.

For instance, if a reporter were to ask if the new policy is meant to tell police officers to ''stand down? Not to do their jobs? Run from trouble?'' the script calls for the mayor to say, ''Absolutely not.''

Then the mayor's ''press guidance'' includes this stage direction: ''TURN TO JOHN,'' a reference to then-acting police Supt. John Escalante, whose lines are also included in the script.

Half of the projected questions included in the script called for Emanuel to say a line or two and then ''TURN TO JOHN.''

When I read the script and stage directions to Ald. Scott Waguespack, the 32nd Ward boss laughed so hard he started to choke.

''That's just funny,'' he said, coughing hard after a deep belly laugh. ''Really funny, actually.''

Waguespack, an outspoken mayoral critic, said the detailed script was especially funny because it seemed over the top even for Emanuel who ''choreographs everything.''

Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins, though, didn't see the humor.

He sent over a serious response.

''Our press staff regularly provides the Mayor with material to ensure he is up to speed on the variety of topics you and your colleagues are interested in that day, and prepared to answer any questions,'' said Collins, who was recently promoted to boss of the Mayor's Press Office.

And, Collins pointed out, the mayor's Spin Machine '-- a City Hall operation that pays out $2.5 million in spokesman salaries '-- doesn't tell the mayor what to say.

''I'd note that these are suggestions,'' Collins said.

Mayor Emanuel, you could say, improvises answers to reporter questions.

''As you might imagine ultimately he'll decide what he is going to say (or not say),'' Collins said in an email.

For the most part, reporters' questions at the Dec. 30 news conference didn't track with the succinct, on-topic queries the mayor's press team expected.

Instead, Emanuel was hit with a series of long-winded, sometimes confusing two- and three-part questions that in hindsight weren't very effective at getting more information out of the mayor than the Spin Machine wanted him to give.

That's not a dig at fellow reporters.

I only point it out so regular folks know that you won't catch us reading from a City Hall script.

RELATED: City Hall Held Secret Meeting To Get Their Stories Straight About Laquan McDonald

For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:

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Mon, 30 May 2016 22:11

This is the second part of the interview granted by Friba, RAWA's representative. Interview by Edu Montesanti, Pravda.Ru Portuguese version

Years ago, former parliamentary, writer and activist for human rights Malala¯ Joya pointed out that the CIA continues trafficking drugs from Afghanistan. In an interview by e-mail (censored) to the Brazilian newspaper O Tempo, later sent to me in full also by e-mail, she stated that, "the Afghan narcotics economy is a designed project of the CIA, supported by US foreign policy. There are reports in Afghanistan that even US army is engaged in the drugs trafficking: drug mafia is in the hold of power and supported by the West." What can you say about it?

We strongly support this statement of Malalai Joya which is based on facts.

The CIA has a long history of being involved in global drug trade in all parts of the world under the control of the US or where it has considerable influence. While a few cases have been investigated and exposed by journalists, the issue continues to remain in the shadows.

The CIA's history began in the 1980s. Drugs were seen as the quickest and easiest way to earn money to fund CIA proxies and paramilitary forces that served them, in different countries. Gary Webb, the brave journalist who exposed the Nicaraguan Contra drug trafficking scandal and was eventually driven to suicide by an extensive smear campaign by the mainstream media, described the process like this:

"We (CIA) need money for a covert operation, the quickest way to raise it is sell cocaine, you guys go sell it somewhere, we don't want to know anything about it."

This tactic worked very successfully in Afghanistan during the Cold War when the Mujahideen forces serving the US were funded through drugs.

Before the US invasion in 2001, the poppy fields were eradicated by the Taliban. Right after the US invasion, drug production began increasing drastically, and today Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium, and on the verge of becoming a narco-state. There are reports of US forces admitting that drugs are flown out of Afghanistan in US planes.

Ahmad Wali Karzai (brother of US puppet Hamid Karzai), the now dead governor of Kandahar province, was at one time the biggest drug dealer of not just Afghanistan, but the region. The whole time, he was on the payroll of the CIA.

There have even been claims from US officers directly involved in drug operations in Afghanistan about the CIA's involvement. A DEA agent, Edwrad Follis, stated that the CIA "turned a blind eye" to the drug trade in Afghanistan. Most recently, John Abbotsford an ex-CIA analyst and war veteran who fought in Afghanistan confessed that CIA had a role in drug smuggling operations.

Even if we exclude these claims and reports, it is hard to believe that a superpower that boasts the most modern technology in surveillance and intelligence-gathering cannot find opium fields and track supply routes within a country it occupies. The fact that 8 billion dollars have been spent in drug eradication efforts for the past decade but opium production has only soared, is itself an indication that the drug business serves some US interest in Afghanistan, or it would have been finished a long time ago.

Other players in this so-called 'counter-narcotics' efforts are private US contractors who earn millions of dollars through counter-narcotic contracts. One of the biggest beneficiaries is the notorious military company, Blackwater (now known as Academi) which according to RT earned 569 million dollars from these contracts. Private contractor companies have a huge share of the profits of the war in Afghanistan, and this failed drug war results in huge profits for them.

In fact, one of the reason for invasion of Afghanistan by the US was to hold its grip on the narcotics business which is the 3rd important trade commodity in terms of income after weapon and oil business.

How sincere is the US in liberating Afghanistan? Do you think the US wish an instable Afghanistan?

US/NATO claims for "liberating" Afghanistan are only cheap slogans and in fact they are invaders and destroyers of "liberation". The US has no interest in Afghanistan's prosperity. In fact, instability, insecurity, poverty, illiteracy and other deeply-entrenched social and economic problems help the US and its puppet government to remain in power without any opposition from the people.

In fact, the US government has a bloody hand in the events of the past 4 decades of Afghanistan. They supported and armed blood-thirsty elements in our country and turned Afghanistan to its current disastrous condition. If the US had wanted stability and prosperity, it would have given the billions of dollars of aid to be invested in basic infrastructure, not to fill the pockets of warlords and corrupt NGOs that thrived under US occupation. This gold rush has led Afghanistan to become the most corrupt country in the world, which means not even cents of this aid reaches our people.

The US/NATO try to turn not only Afghanistan but the whole Asia to an instable region in the world. While world economy turns toward Asia with big powers like Russia, China, India etc., the US rely on terrorism as a weapon to block the progress of especially Russia and China and make problems for these countries. Afghanistan has become a center of this power game between the big powers once again. (...)

If I have well understood, you mean that Afghanistan is worse now than before the US-led invasion.

Yes, absolutely. Apart from what I mentioned above, if we only consider the deterioration of the security situation, which is vital for people, more than food and water, all over Afghanistan, we can understand how the situation is worse than before.

Opium is another deadly virus which infects our new generation and is dangerous than Taliban and al-Qaeda. The number of civilians killed in suicide attacks by Taliban, the night raids and airstrikes of US forces, and the crimes of the militias of local warlords in different parts of Afghanistan, increases with every passing year.

The economy of the country is in ruins, controlled by mafia who draw support from powerful Afghan government officials. The US and NATO invaded Afghanistan with tall claims of "reconstruction of Afghanistan", but we do not see any growth in any fundamental sector of Afghanistan.

Only the mafia and NGOs have grown in numbers and size. Afghans are the second largest group of migrants in the world, as the youth take up dangerous journeys to escape the misery at home. Many youngsters are drug addicts today.

In the more isolated areas, poverty and unemployment has driven young people to join the Taliban and ISIS as they provide basic necessities and sometimes even gives them salaries. Afghan women are as suppressed and under attack as they were under the medieval rule of the Taliban.

Neighboring governments like Iran and Pakistan never has such big and bloody hands in Afghanistan affairs like today.

This is only a brief summary of the disastrous situation of the country but is enough to show the devastation the US has brought upon our country and people.

As you've said, both history and current events show that occupation is never successful. What alternatives does RAWA defend to definitely change Afghanistan? Do you see foreign help as productive to really liberate the Afghan people from such too violent characters and groups? If so, who and how could provide a positive help to Afghanistan?

We have always said that the independence of a country is the first condition for democracy, freedom, and justice in a country. There are few, to no examples in history where foreign intervention has liberated or helped a nation, and the past 14 years of the US occupation of Afghanistan is proof of that.

The US not only did not liberate Afghanistan, but imposed on our people their biggest enemies, the fundamentalist criminals. The US is the creator and nurturer of these violent groups. It is a conscious policy of the US government to partner with Islamic fundamentalists wherever it steps in. We saw this in Libya and Syria as well. The US claims to be fighting terror, but the biggest terrorists, the Northern Alliance criminals, were brought to power by the US itself.

This did not come as a surprise though. Right at the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan, RAWA declared that the purpose of this aggression is to serve the imperialist aims of the US, and in this ordeal they will partner with the worst enemies of our country. What is of least importance to the US is the wellbeing of Afghanistan and its people. The current situation of our country is proof of that.

The key to freedom and democracy is in a united, organized struggle of our people. An arduous struggle it may be, but there is no other way out of this quagmire either. Only the people of a country can decide their fate and build a system that serves them.

The solidarity of the freedom and peace loving people of the world is very important in strengthening our people's struggle as well. This will be a long and hard process, but Afghans have no other alternative but to unite and fight for freedom, democracy, justice and liberation.

Does RAWA defend a laic or an Islamic Afghanistan, based on the sharia law?

Secularism has been RAWA's slogan since it was found. We believe that democracy is meaningless without secularism. Religion has historically been misused as means to maintain the power of those that ruled, and in a society where the people are deeply religious, the combination of state and religion is a particularly dangerous one.

Today in Afghanistan, the biggest tool the current fundamentalists in power use to defend their acts and protect themselves, is Islam. All the fundamentalist criminals in power whitewash their crimes using Islam. It has been used to quench the people's anger and their desire to rise up and struggle for their rights.

The Taliban have been able to transform innocent young men to deadly suicide bombers by brainwashing them with religious ideas. Unfortunately this misuse of religion has served them quite well.

This is why secularism is vital for our country today, to uproot fundamentalism and build a society free of this deadly virus. Only then can Afghanistan step towards progress and prosperity.

Is misogyny a general sense in Afghanistan, or reduced to the warlords and Taliban?

There is no doubt that Afghanistan is plagued by backwardness, culturally and economically. For centuries, reactionary monarchs injected and used reactionary ideas to maintain their power. However, the past three decades when Islamic fundamentalists dominated Afghanistan, this backwardness has become more common and extreme than ever before.

One of the aspects of Islam widely propagated by Islamic hardliners is the degradation and oppression of women who are seen more like animals than humans. Women are only to be seen as servants who work at home, give birth to children, and satisfy the sexual needs of men.

Family violence is one of the most wearing and most painful problems for women in Afghanistan and most other Muslim countries and it is mostly supported by the hard-liners. This problem partly fed on the Islamic teachings that are given to the men (and women) from their childhood. There are Quranic verses in this respect that:

"Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will" (2:223)

"Men are in charge of women... As for those form whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart." (4:34)

There are a lot of such verses in the Quran.

Men justify their mastery and inhuman treatment of women based on these verses. And of course a number of sayings by Prophet Muhammad or other religious sources and large amount of poems and stories incidentally by popular poets reinforce these verses and all together they affect men so badly that if they treat a women with slight humanity and kindness, they feel as if they are committing the biggest sin of their lives! In the mentioned books and sources there are some words of compassion and kindness toward women but they have failed to shield women from the flood of those against them.

In those Muslim countries where secularist principles have found some space within the society the depth of these violence is not as bad as those infested with fundamentalism.

How do you evaluate the mainstream media coverage of Afghanistan? How does RAWA evaluate the international human rights organizations' and the so-called international community position and acts concerning to the Afghan Cause?

It is no more a secret that mainstream media is used as a weapon in the modern wars. The mainstream media in the world, and especially the US, has served the imperialist purposes inside their countries better than any other tool.

The people of these countries do not have the true picture from the US wars to make proper, informed decisions on them. Afghanistan barely gets any coverage and if it does, it is systematically in line with a general policy of the US.

The crimes of the US forces such as killings and torture and night raids will never be shown, as will the insecurity and instability of our country and the devastating situation of women and people not get any attention. What will be shown is the horrors of the Taliban's crimes to justify the US's war, or isolated "success stories" to paint a rosy picture of the situation of Afghanistan.

How often are people encouraged to discuss the US's involvement in wars abroad by giving them true facts? The same goes for other countries where the crimes of dictators such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Bashar Assad are continuously streamed, but the absolute devastation of Iraq and Libya by the US forces and their puppet governments, and the unconditional support of the US for ISIS elements (rebranded under names such as Al Nusra and Al Qaeda) in Syria is never shown. In fact, they find ways to whitewash and cover such actions of the US.

While some international human rights organizations have played an important part in Afghanistan's four decades of war by documenting crimes, publishing reports and calling the world's attention to these matters, the same cannot be said for the entire international community.

The international community and their partners in Afghanistan have been only involved in superficial issues that have no relevance for the Afghan people such as short-term projects and establishing useless NGOs. They have not thrown light on any fundamental issues of Afghanistan such as the US occupation, presence of fundamentalists in power, and their crimes. They in fact give a helping hand to the mainstream media of the world to portray the situation in Afghanistan as "better" than it was 15 years ago.

But of course alternative media like Democracy Now! etc. reflect realities, but their reporting is buried under the tones of propaganda pieces aired by big media outlets like CNN, BBC, AP,Fox News etc. who have large coverage and resources to make fool of people.

Who are the greatest Afghans' enemies?

Afghans are crushed between four enemies today: the US and NATO forces, the Northern Alliance criminals and warlords in the government, the Taliban, and an emerging ISIS.

The US has mothered all of these criminal fundamentalist elements and still has them on a leash for its purposes in the region. This means it is The Northern Alliance criminals enjoy the bulk of Western support, both financial and political which makes them more dangerous than other bands. The viciousness of the Taliban and ISIS is well-known to the world and they get military and financial support through the US, Pakistan and even Iran.

All these enemies are mighty powerful and control different parts of the country. In the battles between these forces, in the gruesome airstrikes, suicide and rocket attacks carried out by them, it is only our people who suffer.

What are RAWA prospects to Afghanistan, before the current reality? What would you like to say to the world and to the West, especially to Americans and their government?

If the political situation of Afghanistan is unchanged, the current situation is only going to become bleaker. The people of Afghanistan will continue to suffer from insecurity, poverty, corruption, unemployment, and other devastating issues. Our people will continue to be victim of the crimes of the US forces, Taliban, and Jehadi warlords. There is only one way the current situation can change and that is for the people themselves to struggle for their rights and a better country, against their prime enemies (US, Taliban, Jehadi warlords).

We have nothing to say to the Western governments who have the blood of our innocent people on their hands. Our message for the peace-loving people of these countries is that they have to see the reality of Afghanistan and all the other countries the US has invaded. What they see as rare news of the catastrophic situation in these countries, is the everyday reality for the people.

They need to pressurize their governments to change this invasions and occupation policy, and stand in solidarity with the people who are the victims of these wars. This international solidarity will strengthen the fight for freedom and democracy in these countries.

They should know that the tax they pay is used by their governments to make Afghanistan and other war-torn countries as hell which will directly impact their lives and make Western countries unsafe, like what we witness today in European cities.

NATO brings death to Afghanistan

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Tue, 31 May 2016 12:16

To the editor: The Portland, Ore., school district is right to rid its textbooks of the manufactured doubt regarding the science of climate change. ("Portland schools tried to change how they teach climate change '-- and ignited a firestorm," May 24)

Groups like the Heartland Institute have been spinning misinformation and outright lies about the reality of climate change for too long. They are funded by the carbon-based energy industry, the very people who profit from selling dirty energy that is causing our planet to get warmer.

Heartland spokesman Jim Lakely states that the kids are being ''indoctrinated instead of taught how the scientific method works.'' This is classic ''merchant of doubt'' doublespeak. What the Heartland Institute has been doing all along is indoctrinating the nation with lies about this very subject.

The Times should refrain from using Heartland as a source in the future.

Paul Scott, Santa Monica

..

To the editor: Even more important than accurate textbooks are well-informed teachers.

A Penn State University study found almost a third of science teachers tell students that recent global warming is likely due to natural causes when, in fact, greater than 95% of climate scientists are convinced that humans are causing global warming by burning fossil fuels. Half of the surveyed teachers allowed the students to discuss the supposed ''controversy'' over climate change without guiding students through the physics of how greenhouse gases in the atmosphere warm the planet.

When I present a slide show on climate reality in my work as a Climate Reality Leadership Corps member, high school students are riveted; they intuit the subject's over-riding significance to their futures. They understand they will soon need to make informed choices regarding conservation, energy sources and carbon pricing.

Updating textbooks will achieve little unless we provide teachers seminars in the science of global warming. Only then will they convey how the scientific method provides comprehension of our impact on the environment and the tools to save our future.

Sharon Markenson, Woodland Hills

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:26

Londoners' cocaine use is the highest in Europe for the second year in a row, an analysis of the city's sewage by the EU's drug monitoring agency has revealed.

The research, which examined wastewater samples in more than 60 European cities, showed that average daily concentration of cocaine in London's wastewater was 909mg per 1,000 people last year - up from 737mg in 2014.

Amsterdam came in at second for cocaine usage, at 642mg per 1,000 people. When only weekend samples were analyzed, London's levels rose even further'--to 1.044kg.

More than three-quarters of cities showed higher levels of benzoylecgonine (BE) and MDMA in wastewater during the weekend. In contrast, use of amphetamine and methamphetamine was found to be more evenly-distributed over the whole week.

Though the study revealed that cocaine use is generally declining across the continent, London is among the handful of cities where use of the class-A drug is on the rise.

''Most cities show either a decreasing or a stable trend between 2011 and 2015, but in a few cases, in particular Brussels and London, an increase in BE loads was observed in this period,'' the annual European Monitoring Centre For Drugs And Drug Addiction report read.

READ MORE: '‹Flushed away: London's sewers have highest cocaine level in Europe

To assess cocaine levels, researchers tested the sewages samples for traces of BE '' a chemical produced when the body breaks down the drug.

Experts also noted a ''resurgence'' in the use of MDMA throughout Europe after a decline from high levels seen in the early- to mid-2000s.

In a separate report released on Tuesday, the agency suggested that current trends indicate that MDMA is ''no longer a niche or subcultural drug.''

''It is not limited to dance clubs and parties, but is used by a wider range of young people in mainstream nightlife settings such as bars and house parties,'' the report said.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:19

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:46

GCHQ and the US National Security Agency (NSA) have access to intercepted emails sent and received by all members of the UK Parliament and peers, including with their constituents, a Computer Weekly investigation has established.

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The intelligence agency in Cheltenham has been able to harvest traffic details of all parliamentary emails, including details of the sender, recipient and subject matter, for at least three years. As a result, details of private email correspondence between MPs and constituents are being collected by GCHQ as a matter of routine.

GCHQ documents classified above top secret, released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also reveal that the spy agency has the capability to scan the content of parliamentary emails for ''keywords'' through an established cyber defence network that is connected to commercial software used to filter spam emails from MPs' inboxes.

Disclosures raise new questions over IP BillThe disclosures, which come as the House of Commons prepares for the Third Reading of the government's controversial Investigatory Powers Bill on Monday 6 June, raise new questions over the sweeping powers to be granted in the bill to police and the security services.

The controversial decision by Parliament to replace its internal email and desktop office software with Microsoft's Office 365 service in 2014, means that parliamentary data and documents constantly pass in and out of the UK to Microsoft's datacentres in Dublin and the Netherlands, across the backbone of the internet.

Because files and emails leave the UK's borders in this way, they are automatically accessible to GCHQ's bulk interception system, Tempora. According to previously published Snowden documents, Tempora uses ''probes'' on commercial optical fibre cables crossing the Irish Sea and English Channel to harvest data.

Under existing law, GCHQ is permitted automatically to store datasets containing details of the senders, recipients and headings of all emails in and out of the UK, including internal UK-to-UK messages.

Forensic analysis shows 65% of Parliamentary emails routed overseasComputer Weekly has carried out a forensic analysis of hundreds of emails sent to the magazine or the writers from parliamentary email addresses, using ''header'' information within the emails to trace the route of the emails.

The study showed that most of the mail messages (65%) were routed internationally, through Dublin and the Netherlands. About one-third were relayed by Microsoft's new London datacentre. Cloud providers, such as Microsoft, use load-sharing procedures to distribute emails and data to more than one datacentre.

Every message also contained references to having been passed through clusters of scanning computers connected to GCHQ and located in the UK, France and Germany.

The NSA's Prism system offers access to all parliamentary documents and email through Microsoft Office 365 software, as a result of secret directives given to Microsoft under controversial US 2008 surveillance laws. The directives were implemented at the same time as Microsoft was selling its cloud system, Office 365, to the Houses of Parliament.

Since concerns were raised about the NSA's ability to access data stored by US technology companies, Microsoft has been rushing to build two new UK datacentres.

Wilson Doctrine does not protect MPsMPs' communications have been partially protected from interception for over 40 years under the ''Wilson Doctrine'', introduced by the former prime minister Harold Wilson in 1968. But this offers no protection to communications that leave the UK's borders, which are subject to automatic bulk collection by GCHQ.

''The House of Commons administration has serious questions to answer,'' according to former Home Office minister and Conservative MP David Davis. ''On whose authority was 'consent' granted to view members' emails? How did they manage to obtain that consent from every one of the 650 members whose constituents' confidentiality is affected?

''The government too has questions to answer as to why it did not explain this when asked on many occasions about the effect of the Wilson doctrine,'' he added.

''The government should also make it clear to parliament the extent to which scanning of all mail by a US-controlled company has made Parliamentary communications vulnerable to agencies of a foreign power, namely the American NSA.

Labour deputy leader Tom Watson MP told Computer Weekly: ''This will shock many of my parliamentary colleagues and provides a further illustration of why it is right for the government to give additional protections in law to MPs, lawyers and journalists. Theresa May has the opportunity to do this during the passage of the IP Bill in Parliament.''

''There is no doubt that MPs, by virtue of their work, are more likely to be targeted by the UK's enemies. It is understandable that our security services want to takes steps to protect them, but any and all measures they introduce must be based on consent,'' he added.

SNP spokesperson Gavin Newlands MP said: ''The SNP share the concerns that have been expressed over the partial removal of protection offered to privileged correspondence. It is of the upmost importance to any modern democracy that parliamentarians are able to communicate with constituents and advisers in complete confidence.''

Secret cyber defence system has links to MessageLabsComputer Weekly's investigation also confirmed that MPs' incoming and outgoing emails are automatically scanned through a network run by MessageLabs, a subsidiary of another US corporation, Symantec, which has been contracted by Parliament to provide services including spam filtering and malware detection.

MessageLabs provides GCHQ with direct access to parliamentary emails, through a secret cyber security network called Haruspex, according to GCHQ's ''Cyber Defence Operations'' legal policy instructions disclosed by Edward Snowden. The scanning system has been in operation for at least a decade. The documents reveal that Haruspex has been extended beyond ''the detection, analysis and prevention of network-based attacks'' against government computer systems, to allow it to be used to report other activities, provided they are in the interests of ''national security'' '' a concept the government has refused to define.

Members of the Scottish National Party and Labour Party, who have scrutinised the Investigatory Powers Bill, have criticised the government for misusing ''national security'' to justify surveillance operations against trade unionists and critics of the police.

The MessageLabs scanning system, used on all emails to and from Parliament, can be programmed to detect keywords as well as to look for malicious attachments or spam. MPs and peers have not been told about the MessageLabs system, nor specifically asked for permission for their emails to be scanned in this way.

Computer Weekly put a series of questions to Symantec, the US corporation that supplies the MessageLabs service, about the role of MessageLabs in Parliament and its links to Haruspex. A spokesperson said: ''Symantec has legal non-disclosure agreements with all of our customers and, as a result, cannot discuss specific cases.''

Parliament's move to Office 365Parliament began the path to an updated IT system that ultimately left MPs' emails and documents exposed to greater risks of surveillance from the UK and US intelligence services in May 2013.

Joan Miller, then the director of Parliamentary ICT (PICT), told the House of Lords management board: ''Office 365 had a slightly higher risk relating to data sovereignty, but Microsoft's and the House's lawyers'...felt that the chance of the risk materialising was low.''

Less than a month later the Guardianrevealed the Snowden document leak and the existence of the NSA's Prism programme, which requires US companies, including Microsoft, to build systems to allow the NSA and the FBI to access, on-demand, their customers' messages and files, including documents held in cloud datacentres.

Within a week, Miller told Parliament's management board that ''PICT had reviewed its advice on data sovereignty and cloud computing following news stories about PRISM and was content that the risk was unchanged.''

Low risk not no risk''We didn't think there was no risk, we thought it was a low risk [in 2013],'' she told Computer Weekly. Asked if ''UK parliamentary data may end up being requisitioned by the NSA'', she said: ''We did consider that, yes.''

Miller, who retired as director of parliamentary IT in 2014, told Computer Weekly that Microsoft claimed to have doubts over the legality of the secret orders issued by the US government to obtain data under Prism and would be prepared to challenge it in court.

Microsoft questions legality of US disclosure ordersMicrosoft is currently fighting a US federal court order to hand over customer email data stored in its Dublin datacentre in connection with an investigation into drugs trafficking. ''It is taking legal action against the US government, after being served 2,576 secret legal demands in a year, effectively silencing Microsoft from speaking to customers about warrants or other legal processes affecting their data.''

Microsoft's president and chief legal officer, Brad Smith, visited Parliament in person to offer reassurances over the sovereignty of parliamentary data, as negotiations over Office 365 were underway, Miller revealed.

In 2014, then leader of the House of Commons William Hague was forced to reassure MPs about the security of their emails after an MP raised concerns that US authorities could gain access to Microsoft's European datacentres.

Miller said she also received reassurances that GCHQ would not abuse its access to monitor MPs' communications, which might include emails to MPs from constituents passing on sensitive information or blowing the whistle on wrong-doing or corruption.

''GCHQ is quite clear, every time I have spoken to them, that they follow the law. It would not be lawful for them to look at those emails. That sounds a bit naive, I don't think it is,'' she said. MPs are concerned that current laws place no restriction on the use of interception, when this is allegedly carried out with ''consent''.

At the same time as Microsoft was negotiating the sale of Office 365 to Parliament, the supplier was arranging for its cloud storage system, then called SkyDrive, to be connected to Prism, to allow the US to obtain foreign intelligence, documents from Edward Snowden revealed.

An NSA information bulletin, dated 7 March 2013 and marked ''Top Secret '' No Foreign Dissemination'', boasted that Microsoft's SkyDrive system had been open to full NSA inspection, including Word, PowerPoint and Excel files.

''Fundamentally, the decision to move to [Office] 365 sits on the sensitivity of the data that we were looking at and the risk that we felt, and combining those together, but the business decision was that it was an acceptable risk,'' said Miller.

Miller told Computer Weekly that she believed MPs would have been made aware of security risks, and asked to agree to the interception. She said, having retired, she could not refer to any current documents.

Computer Weekly has obtained copied of the 2015 ''acceptable use'' agreement for parliamentary digital services and signed by MPs and peers, and also the 2015 Members' Handbook. Neither document warns MPs that their incoming and outgoing mails are scanned for keywords by the US-owned MessageLabs network that has links to the intelligence services.

All MPs are given a ''parliament.uk'' email address, although many also use private email addresses for non-parliamentary work. MPs and peers contacted by Computer Weekly said they had not been told about the potential security risks of using parliamentary email and the Office 365 system.

A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment to Computer Weekly, saying only: ''Due to client confidentiality, Microsoft does not disclose the terms of any of our customer agreements.''

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:10

"What we have is a system that needs to be completely rebuilt," said Boyd, who runs his own consulting firm, Boyd Group International. He added that the near total security test failure points to the need for more extreme changes at the TSA.

"We had a 95 percent failure rate, that alone doesn't mean you change things, you throw the people out at the top. If anybody thinks this is better than what we had before 9/11, you're dreaming,"said Boyd. "This is all for show and not a lot of go."

Both men pointed to the fact that, in the TSA's 15 year history, there have been six administrators.

"Turnover at the top that does create a situation where the next run down becomes kind of the permanent leadership of the agency," Blank said.

When asked if he thought the issues at TSA will be fixed anytime soon, Boyd replied, "No way."

"Let's stop acting as if the TSA is the victim of something that came along. We are the victims of really, really bad sloppy management and that's why we're paying the price."

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:00

Kelli Ward, a former state senator challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. John McCain in the state's 2016 Republican Senate primary, speaks at a Second Amendment rally at the State Capitol on Feb. 20, 2016. (Photo: Thomas Hawthonre/The Republic)

After months of largely ignoring his chief Republican primary rival, U.S. Sen. John McCain's re-election team has launched an online advertising campaign linking former state Sen. Kelli Ward to the "chemtrails" conspiracy theory.

McCain, R-Ariz., is attempting to brand Ward as "Chemtrail Kelli" because in 2014 she organized a town-hall meeting '-- which included the participation of taxpayer-paid state environmental staffers '-- to discuss community concerns about "chemtrails." The anti-government conspiracy theory speculates airplanes are spraying, through visible contrails that streak the skies, dangerous chemicals to change the weather or for darker motives.

''Kelli Ward's decision to host a forum regarding a debunked conspiracy theory using Arizona tax dollars shows her bad judgment," McCain campaign spokeswoman Lorna Romero said. "The fact is that Kelli Ward has often sided with conspiracy theorists, proving that she is too dangerous for Arizona families.''

So far, the McCain campaign has circulated two videos with the "Chemtrail Kelli" theme on social media and other online platforms. A third is expected to launch after Memorial Day. The more recent video release ties Ward to right-wing conspiracy-pusher Alex Jones, who runs the Infowars website and has hosted Ward on his radio program.

"... Ward's bad judgment keeps dangerous company," the ad's narrator says before a montage of clips of a wild-eyed Jones talking about chemtrails and "aliens."

"Chemtrail Kelli Ward fuels the conspiracy, using your tax dollars," the narrator adds.

"Kelli Ward, you're amazing. I'm going to pray that you get into the Senate," Jones says at the end of the video.

AZCENTRAL

Is McCain in trouble? 5 keys to his re-election race

Ward, a Lake Havasu City Republican, has emphatically denied believing in the "chemtrails" theory herself, despite holding the Kingman event for her constituents.

"Senator McCain is running scared silly," Ward campaign spokesman Stephen Sebastian said in an emailed statement to The Arizona Republic. "Conspiracy theories are intellectually implausible because they require secrecy about complex coordination on a massive scale. When incorrect information about environmental quality issues is causing enough consternation to fill up a town hall meeting, it is a senator's job to connect concerned constituents with expert government officials to correct and clarify misconceptions."

Sebastian also protested what he called a double-standard, pointing to a story on the liberal Talking Points Memo website that reported McCain himself in April 2015 forwarded to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a letter expressing concerns about chemtrails. The TPM story says the McCain letter was provided to the website by Democratic U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick's U.S. Senate campaign.

AZCENTRAL

Kelli Ward burning through U.S. Senate campaign cash

Why is Ward, "a Duke-educated woman and family physician," demeaned as a "documented conspiracy theorist" when McCain essentially did the same thing, Sebastian asked.

"Senator McCain used to believe in 'straight talk' and a higher level of debate," Sebastian said. "Sadly he has sunk to cynical and sexist character attacks to distract Arizona voters from his broken promises to fix the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) and secure the border."

Romero, McCain's spokeswoman, dismissed the comparison between McCain forwarding a letter to the EPA and Ward hosting a town-hall as preposterous.

"It's standard policy to forward constituent correspondence outside the purview of the Senate office to a relevant federal agency," Romero said in a written statement to The Republic. "The Senate office receives more than 600,000 pieces of mail per year, on issues ranging from veterans' benefits to UFOs. If you're trying to compare that to holding an official taxpayer-funded town hall meeting to entertain chemtrail conspiracy theories, you may have been abducted by aliens yourself.''

AZCENTRAL

Roberts: Kelli Ward courts conspiracy nut Alex Jones

In a related development, the liberal Mother Jones website on Thursday highlighted audio of Ward talking with conspiracy-mongers Pete Santilli and Luca Zanna.

Santilli, an Internet radio host and 9/11 "truther," in September led "Operation Detain McCain," an effort to make a citizen's arrest of McCain at his Phoenix Senate office. Earlier this year, Santilli himself was arrested in connection with the weeks-long armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. Santilli has said he was at the scene as a journalist.

In the interview, Santilli and Ward talked about meeting each other in person at the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada.

Zanna, a radio host on Needles, Calif.-based KTOX-AM (1340), has a website called Love, Guns and Freedom. Visitors can download a free copy of his booklet, "How to Defeat the New World Order." The intro of his 2013 radio interview with Ward said the broadcast was originating from "deep within the borders of occupied federal territory known as California."

Among other topics, Zanna echoes a far-fetched claim made on Jones' Infowars and other conspiracy websites that there is a possibility of Russian and/or Chinese troops responding inside the United States in the event of a national emergency. He engaged Ward, then still a member of the Arizona Senate, in a conversation about military helicopters flying over central Phoenix. He also brought up United National helicopters in the skies over northwestern Arizona.

"I can tell you that I have an apartment down in Phoenix that I stay in during the session and I hear helicopters all the time, outside my window," Ward said when asked about military helicopters flying in Phoenix. "Now I don't know if they are medical helicopters. I don't know if they are searching for bad guys down on the ground because there is some kind of a shooting or some kind of an activity. ... And so I hear them. I hear them almost every night."

Sebastian, Ward's campaign spokesman, distanced Ward from Zanna.

"Dr. Ward did not know that Luca Zanna was such a lunatic before agreeing to the interview," Sebastian told The Republic. "However, Dr. Ward's polite silence and uncomfortable laughter did not indicate her assent to Zanna's crackpot insinuations. When he suggested that people were disappearing, Dr. Ward changed the subject to Senate rule changes."

As to Ward's comments about hearing helicopters, Sebastian said: "Medical and police helicopters are a common sound in any large city, and special operations forces do regularly conduct staged rescue exercises in urban areas as part of their training, as documented in the Washington Post today (Thursday). Nothing strange about it."

For his part, McCain has yet to target Ward in a television ad. His first spot of the campaign went after Kirkpatrick for voting for the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare." McCain's second TV commercial, which will run for three weeks starting Tuesday, focuses on his support for Luke Air Force Base in the West Valley.

The pro-McCain U.S. Chamber of Commerce also is running a television ad criticizing Kirkpatrick on the health-care issue.

AZCENTRAL

Sen. John McCain attacks Ann Kirkpatrick over 'Obamacare' vote

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dannowicki and on his official Facebook page.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:57

A baby girl delivered Tuesday in New Jersey is the first in the continental U.S. to be born with the Zika virus-related brain condition, giving rise to new fears about the spread of the disease.

Doctors, including Fox News Health Senior Managing Editor Dr. Manny Alvarez, confirmed the birth of a child with Zika virus linked to microcephaly'-- the first reported case of the birth defect, which is marked by a partially formed brain, in the continental United States.

The 31-year-old mother, whose name was not disclosed, apparently contracted the Zika virus while in Honduras and was admitted to the emergency room at Hackensack University Medical Center on Friday while vacationing in the U.S. Doctors at Hackensack performed an emergency caesarean section to deliver the baby girl, who was born also with intestinal and visual issues.

The mother arrived in the U.S. about 30 days ago. It was not clear if she had been diagnosed with Zika in her homeland, but doctors at the New Jersey hospital made the determination Friday. It was not immediately known how much the baby weighed, but babies born with the disease typically suffer from low birth weights.

The child's mother, who developed a rash for two days in Honduras but had no other symptoms until arriving in the U.S., was under the care of a surgical team led by Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan and Alvarez, the hospital's chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive science. A neonatologist and pediatric infectious disease specialist, as well as nursing personnel, were on hand for the birth.

Doctors in Honduras suspected intracranial complications with the child in utero, but it was not until she was admitted to the high-risk unit at Hackensack University Medical Center that doctors confirmed the microcephaly diagnosis. The patient's aunt told FoxNews.com the mother is not doing well emotionally after the birth of her child.

While this is the first birth of a child with Zika-linked complications at Hackensack, it is not the first such case in the U.S. In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a woman in Hawaii delivered a baby who suffered from severe microcephaly as a result of Zika infection.

Microcephaly is a birth defect wherein a baby's head is smaller than expected compared with other babies of the same sex and age. According to the CDC, babies with the condition typically have smaller brains that might not have developed properly. Microcephaly can also cause seizures, developmental delays, intellectual disability, hearing loss, vision problems, feeding issues, and problems with movement and balance. In April, researchers at the CDC concluded that after a careful review of evidence, the Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects.

The CDC has advised pregnant women to avoid traveling to areas where Zika is spreading, and to talk to a health care provider to prevent sexual transmission of the virus. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), women planning to become pregnant should wait at least eight weeks before trying to conceive if they or their partner live in or are returning from Zika virus hotspots.

While there is no vaccine to prevent Zika virus, health officials recommend wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants, as well as practicing mosquito control to prevent infection where Zika is being transmitted. According to the CDC, 591 cases of Zika have been diagnosed in the U.S., and all have been travel related. Infected patients typically do not present symptoms, but those who do may complain of fever, rash, joint pain or red eyes.

Doctors at a suburban New Jersey hospital confirmed Tuesday the birth of a child with Zika virus linked to microcephaly'-- the first reported case of the birth defect, which is marked by a partially formed brain, in the continental United States.The mother, who is 31 but whose name was not disclosed, contracted the Zika virus while in Honduras and was admitted to the emergency room at Hackensack University Medical Center on Friday while vacationing in the U.S. Doctors at Hackensack delivered her baby girl, who was born also with intestinal and visual issues.The child's mother, who developed a rash for two days in Honduras but had no other symptoms until arriving in the U.S., was under the care of a surgical team led by Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan and Dr. Manny Alvarez. A neonatologist and pediatric infectious disease specialist, as well as nursing personnel, were on hand for the birth.

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Thu, 02 Jun 2016 13:41

Latest update : 02/06/2016

(C) BERTRAND GUAY / AFP. A photo taken on June 1, 2016 shows the flooded Seine river and the Eiffel Tower in ParisArticle text by FRANCE 24

Thousands of people have been evacuated as homes and businesses across France are under threat from dramatic flooding brought on by heavy rains. Follow France 24's live blog for all the latest on the flood.

Heavy rains have caused severe flooding in parts of France, but also Belgium and Germany, with reports of at least four people dead.French Prime Minister Manuel Valls visited the town of Nemours, 80 kilometres south of Paris, where residents had to be evacuated after the Loing river burst its banks.For all the latest on floods in France see France 24's live blog below.

Click here to view the live blog on your smartphone or tablet.

FRANCEIn pictures: 'Exceptional' floods continue to wreak havoc in France

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FRANCEIn pictures: Evacuations as torrential rain sweeps France

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FRANCEParis region prepares in case of 'flood of the century'

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The Gates Foundation is trying to stop Zika by giving mosquitos a sexually transmitted disease - Recodeclockmenumore-arrowrecode_divider

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 16:56

Former first lady Barbara Bush said on Friday that she doesn't understand how women can vote for Donald Trump after his attacks on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

Mrs. Bush sat alongside her son, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, in an interview on ''CBS This Morning,'' where the two attacked Mr. Trump as misogynistic and vulgar after he recently used the word ''s'''' onstage during a campaign rally.

''I don't think a president would have ever shouted profanities in a speech in front of thousands of people with kids in the crowd. He does it all the time,'' said Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida.

''Yes, I mean unbelievable,'' Mrs. Bush responded.

His mother lambasted Mr. Trump for his ongoing attacks on Ms. Kelly, including comments widely interpreted as referring to her menstrual cycle, Reuters reported.

''I don't know how women can vote for someone who said what he said about Megyn Kelly,'' Mrs. Bush said. ''It's terrible. And we knew what he meant, too.''

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Read in full on The Washington Times: Barbara Bush: 'I don't know how women can vote for' Donald Trump

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 15:28

Is the zoo to blame for creating an inadequate enclosure, and then for needlessly killing Harambe when a tranquilizer might have been sufficient? Or is it the child's parents' fault for letting the boy out of their sight long enough to have made his way in?A change.org petition calls for the Cincinnati Zoo, Ohio's Hamilton County Child Protection Services and the Cincinnati Police Department to hold the parents responsible. Meanwhile, his mother defended herself in a Facebook post (since deleted) saying, basically, "accidents happen."The truth is that responsibility lies with a number of people. But the better question the incident raises may instead be: How can we prevent a similar tragedy from happening?

Some have suggested subjecting children to a sort of leash law.

"She should have [had] her child on a leash so she knew he was safe," wrote one commenter at the Heavy. "Time to fasten your child into a stroller or a child leash," wrote another at Hollywood Life.Putting a harness and a leash on your toddler has long been a controversial approach: helpful, or humiliating? They are, no doubt, physically effective: Parents who use child safety harnesses can't help but keep their child in line; they are literally tethered together. And in the case of Harambe, a leash would certainly have prevented the child from making even a fraction of the effort he needed to make to get into the enclosure (provided his parent was firmly holding onto the other end, of course, and who among us hasn't seen a puppy running around trailing behind a leash without an owner?)

But child leashes are also enabling, and debilitating; they absolve the child from having to listen to a parent, and the parent from having to teach their kids to listen, follow rules, be safe and use common sense.

Young children are, to varying degrees, unpredictable, impulsive, thoughtless. They don't learn to resist all of these behaviors in the name of safety for themselves and others without parents' careful, consistent and verbal input. It is work. It's not supposed to be easy.

A leash? That's easy. It's a Band-Aid, not a parenting tool. After all, what happens when dogs that can only stay put when on a leash are unleashed? They run away.

And, well, humans are not pets. Unlike dogs, children grow and evolve. They become too big for leashes, but when it's time to untether them, they may have little more self-control with which to face the world than when they were toddlers. Leashes are ridiculous.

Some children are easier to teach to listen than others. But those children who aren't need more work, not to be treated like pets. Parents, meanwhile, need to pay better attention. Enabled by and conditioned by technology, we live in a time when being present and alert isn't a priority.

We are on our phones constantly (the glut of videos of the incident is small proof; did one of the people not think to put down the phone and run for help, or toward the little boy?) Whether it's on the train, driving in our car, or watching TV, we are constantly multitasking in the name of connectivity. Which, of course, has led to the greatest disconnect we've ever experienced.

Leashing our responsibilities would simply give us even more freedom to be less present. Wrap a leash around your wrist, and guess what: You've still got two thumbs to text.

By all accounts, the Cincinnati Zoo enclosure was not unsafe. The 3-year-old who entered Harambe's enclosure did not do so accidentally. Some onlookers reported hearing him tell his mother that he was going to go into the water.Accessing the enclosure, meanwhile, required the child crawl through a series of barriers, through wires, and then across a moat. He was determined, and without adequate supervision '-- by his parents or any number of the adults in the area '-- he achieved his goal.

To the question of how can parents keep better track of their kids in these kinds of potentially dangerous places? The answer is, simply, parent. Do your job.

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:19

On Tuesday officials at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey revealed that a mother with the Zika virus gave birth to a baby with microcephaly at the hospital. USA TODAY

An Aedes aegypti mosquito is photographed inside a mosquito cage at the Fiocruz Institute in Brazil.(Photo: Felipe Dana, AP)

A baby with Zika-linked microcephaly remained hospitalized in a northern New Jersey on Wednesday with the first such birth defect case in the Northeast and the third in the nation, officials at Hackensack University Medical Center confirmed.

Doctors delivered the baby girl at 36 weeks on Tuesday after the mother, who recently arrived in the U.S. from Honduras, was admitted to the hospital's high-risk unit, Dr. Manny Alvarez told USA TODAY. The child also has intestinal and visual issues.

"The baby apparently had been not developing properly over the last month or so," said Alvarez, who is also senior managing health editor at FoxNews.com. "This patient came in on Friday for the first time ... and my team decided that it was appropriate now to deliver the baby."

Microcephaly is a birth defect where a baby's head is smaller than normal. Babies with microcephaly often have smaller brains and a range of problems including developmental delay, intellectual disability, problems with movement and balance, hearing loss and vision problems. The effects and severity of Zika-linked microcephaly become more apparent as children grow older.

The 31-year-old Honduran mother, who was not identified, showed no symptoms in Honduras other than a rash, FoxNews.com reported. Doctors in her home country suspected, however, that she had cranial complications. It wasn't until she was admitted to the high-risk unit under the care of Alvarez and Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan that the baby showed signs of severe microcephaly.

USA TODAY

150 health professionals call for Olympics in Rio to be postponed due to Zika

USA TODAY

CDC: 1% to 13% of Zika-infected babies could have microcephaly

In a statement, the hospital told USA TODAY that the mother is "receiving exceptional care during this difficult time and we appreciate everyone respecting the mother's privacy."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed in February hat a woman gave birth in Hawaii to a baby with severe microcephaly. Al-Khan told Fox News that another child has since been born with the disease somewhere in the South.

Zika virus is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito. In May 2015, the Pan American Health Organization issued an alert regarding the first confirmed Zika virus infection in Brazil. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization declared Zika virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Local transmission has been reported in many other countries and territories.

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention registry says there are more than 300 pregnant women in the U.S. with "laboratory evidence of possible Zika virus infection." Although it's not clear what percentage of infected pregnancies result in microcephaly, a recent CDC report estimated the risk at up to 13%.

"Zika virus will likely continue to spread to new areas," the CDC warns.

Contributing: John Bacon

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Wed, 01 Jun 2016 14:19

Newtown's ''Sloppy Sniper'' gets busted on Live TV:Moments later, Sloppy Sniper runs from cameras '' on LIVE TV! Why does Sloppy Sniper flee? Because Sloppy Sniper ''might be'' Hollywood actor, David Wheeler.Many believe that David Wheeler played two (2) roles at Sandy Hook. Role #1 was ''Sloppy Sniper'' (Fake FBI Sniper) with zero firearms training. Role #2 was ''grieving father'' of a slain child (the fictional Benjamin Wheeler, killed at Sandy Hook).Sloppy Sniper looks exactly like actor David Wheeler:Here, Sloppy Sniper panics '' heading too close to this TV camera. So he halts '' and scurries backward:Trapped, Sloppy Sniper rejoins the group '' but ducks past the camera:Bizarrely, this ''FBI Sniper'' has no clue how to handle a rifle. Sloppy Sniper carries his AR-15 upside down, by the magazine:Sloppy Sniper never handled a rifle before Newtown. He casually points his AR-15 behind him, at women and children:Sloppy Sniper wears army surplus clothing '' without agency markings:Field trips get better gear than Sloppy Sniper:Newtown's official story appears to be a facade. David and Francine Wheeler are professional actors, touring America to grab your guns:The Wheelers push ''gun control'' on talk shows, from Oprah to Rachel Maddow:A mountain of evidence suggests the Newtown massacre was fake. For example, Sandy Hook followed the same script as Dunblane, Scotland's ''school shooting'' (1996):After Dunblane's ''massacre,'' handguns were banned across the UK. Was Newtown's goal the same as Dunblane '' disarming a whole country? Growing evidence suggests that Newtown's "school shooting" was a gun-grab hoax. Here's more on the sketchy Columbine & Dunblane ''shootings.''But many wonder: How did the Newtown fraud endure so long? Sandy Hook couldn't have happened without corrupt politicians allowing, then promoting, the scheme. CT Governor Dannel Malloy got caught on video, lying about Newtown. CT Senator Richard Blumenthal also promoted the Newtown gun-grab scam:But the biggest scammer was Obama '' delivering the Wheelers on Air Force One to lobby Congress against guns:Meanwhile, the Gun Grab Roadshow holds false flags every week. Goals include (i) Gun grab laws; (ii) Diagnosing your children via 'Mental Health Laws' to disqualify them from owning guns; and (iii) Ending Home Schooling, so public schools become your only choice.Cancel cable TV -- stop paying $100/month to terrorize your family. You don't need fake ''TV shootings'' sending your kids to DHS psychiatrists to get ''diagnosed'' and banned from owning guns.Ask your favorite News Site or Gun Blog why they're not covering Sandy Hoax.But most importantly, show friends. You know someone at church; at the gun range. We're not doing friends any favors, letting them wander into danger. Show everyone now, before America gets disarmed by Traitors.See my prior coverage of David Wheeler (Sloppy Sniper) HERE and HERE.The Obamas: CIA Fake Family? asks why Michelle Obama can't recall what year she got married; and why Obama's family photos were created in Photoshop.Why They Grab Guns (CHINA/NEWTOWN) shows WHY the Regime tricks you with Fake Massacres. Sandy Hook and China had ''School Attacks'' the SAME DAY '' to terrorize and disarm you.DHS Admits: Staged Shootings In Malls explores fake events sold to the public as "real." With Sandy Hoax "parents" strong-arming kids on TV, the government is desperate to keep you fooled until they've grabbed your guns.Trauma Town USA explores odd shootings/stabbings in Monroeville PA. It sounded "tinfoil hat" until Jeh Johnson (DHS Secretary) admitted the US Government has been staging fake Shopping Mall shootings for 2 years.Shocking Facts - Sandy Hook COVERUP explores the (3) bizarre "public-record lock-down" bills crammed into law after Sandy Hook. We discuss WHO likely staged Sandy Hook, and WHY they took such a huge risk. We also explore the fantastic tale of Bloomberg's sidekick, Aurora victim "Stephen Barton."An Eerie Visit To Sandy Hook explores (citizen journalist) Barry's trip to the spooky Newtown Mental Hospital, where Harrison Bounel died. We show you Barry's stunning photos, and discuss what really happened at the historic "Sandy Hook Massacre."

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Mon, 30 May 2016 19:24

"We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate that we engaged in and by the changes that we made," Holder told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

"Now I would say that doing what he did -- and the way he did it -- was inappropriate and illegal," Holder added.

Holder said Snowden jeopardized America's security interests by leaking classified information while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency in 2013."He harmed American interests," said Holder, who was at the helm of the Justice Department when Snowden leaked U.S. surveillance secrets. "I know there are ways in which certain of our agents were put at risk, relationships with other countries were harmed, our ability to keep the American people safe was compromised. There were all kinds of re-dos that had to be put in place as a result of what he did, and while those things were being done we were blind in certain really critical areas. So what he did was not without consequence."

Snowden, who has spent the last few years in exile in Russia, should return to the U.S. to deal with the consequences, Holder noted.

"I think that he's got to make a decision. He's broken the law in my view. He needs to get lawyers, come on back, and decide, see what he wants to do: Go to trial, try to cut a deal. I think there has to be a consequence for what he has done."

Then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in May 2014

"But," Holder emphasized, "I think in deciding what an appropriate sentence should be, I think a judge could take into account the usefulness of having had that national debate."

At a University of Chicago Institute of Politics event earlier this month, Snowden -- appearing via videoconference from Russia -- said he would return to the U.S. if he could receive a fair trial.

"I've already said from the very first moment that if the government was willing to provide a fair trial, if I had access to public interest defenses and other things like that, I would want to come home and make my case to the jury," Snowden told University of Chicago Law Prof. Geoffrey Stone. "But, as I think you're quite familiar, the Espionage Act does not permit a public interest defense. You're not allowed to speak the word 'whistleblower' at trial."

During the hour-long conversation with Axelrod, Holder -- the country's first African-American attorney general -- also accused presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump of playing the race card in his campaign.

Edward Snowden during an interview in Hong Kong.

"I don't think there's any question about that," Holder told Axelrod. "The fact that he questioned the legitimacy of President Obama by questioning where he was born, what he's said about Mexicans...I think there's a race-based component to his campaign. I think he appeals too often to the worst side of us as Americans."

To hear the whole conversation with Holder, which also touched on his childhood in New York City, his tenure at the Justice Department, and more, click on http://podcast.cnn.com. To get "The Axe Files" podcast every week, subscribe at http://itunes.com/theaxefiles.