Month: April 2016

Utah ceremonially declares porn a ‘public health crisis’

utah-banning-porn2__optUtah Gov. Gary Herbert wants the world to know the state’s position on pornography: It’s a public health crisis.

“We realize this is a bold assertion and there are some out there who will disagree with us,” Herbert said at a Tuesday news conference. “We’re here to say it is, in fact, the full-fledged truth.”

Herbert ceremonially signed the resolution, sponsored by Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, Tuesday at the Utah State Capitol.

But that resolution has no real or practical effect.

It “is non-binding: we’re not spending money and we’re not banning anything,” Weiler said.

Weiler said kids as young as 12 are being exposed to porn in places such as the library and McDonald’s, using their unprotected, free Wi-Fi.

He previously has said he would like the government to work with Internet providers to allow pornography only on an opt-in basis.

For now, though, Weiler’s not advocating action by the government.

“I’m asking businesses and governmental agencies that cater to children to do the right thing,” he said.  Source

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Unusual quake cluster worries Japan

20180418_quake1_article_main_imageTOKYO — Seismic activity in southern Japan is mystifying geologists and keeping the nation on edge.

The island of Kyushu has been struck by a series of significant earthquakes, with the epicenters moving progressively further inland. The cluster started with the deadly quakes that hit Kumamoto Prefecture last Thursday and Saturday. Temblors subsequently rocked the Mount Aso region and neighboring Oita Prefecture.

There is a known concentration of faults in the area. Still, experts say it is highly unusual to have a string of quakes measuring around magnitude 6 and stretching over such a vast area. The epicenter of the Oita jolt was about 100km away from the first Kumamoto quake.

“I don’t quite understand what is happening with the recent earthquakes, because it’s an unfamiliar phenomenon,” said Yoshihisa Iio, a professor at Kyoto University’s Research Center for Earthquake Prediction.  Source

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Pentagon misled lawmakers on military sexual assault cases

James A. Winnefeld, Jr.WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon misled Congress by using inaccurate or vague information about sexual assault cases in an effort to blunt support for a Senate bill that would make a major change in how the military handles allegations of sexual misconduct, an Associated Press investigation found.

Internal government records that summarized the outcomes of dozens of cases portrayed civilian district attorneys and local police forces as less willing than senior military officers to punish sex offenders. The documents buttressed the Pentagon’s position that stripping commanders of their authority to decide which crimes go to trial – as the Senate legislation proposes – will mean fewer victims will get justice because there will be fewer prosecutions. Source

 

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Pope hailed as savior for opening Vatican to refugees

web-pope-mytilene-getPope Francis, during a trip to the Greek island of Lesbos, chose 12 Syrian refugees to come live at the Vatican – all clean-cut, two-parent families with children, one of which is headed by a microbiologist and another, by a tailor and teacher.

NBC News reported one of the families, Hasan and Nour Essa, are simply like any other in the world, hoping to find a decent preschool for their son, 2, Riyad, and are thankful for the pope’s intervention.

“What’s happening with us, it’s like a dream,” said Nour Essa, who’s a microbiologist, to NBC News. “It’s like a beautiful dream.” She later called Francis a “real human being” who’s “more important than any Muslim religious mans,” the news outlet reported.

The pope, in what he described as a “last minute decision,” let the Essas and two other Syrian families join him on his flight back to Rome over the weekend. Vatican officials say the three families were chosen simply because their papers were in order.  Source

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Electronic ‘Tattoo’ Transforms Skin Into a Screen

wearable-technology-electronic-skin-tattoo-e-skinResearchers have taken the concept of wearable technology to a whole new level by developing an electronic patch that transforms skin into an LED screen.

The flexible display, created by scientists at the University of Tokyo, is as thin as cling film and is described as electronic skin, or “e-skin.”

“The advent of mobile phones has changed the way we communicate,” said Takao Someya from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering. “While these communication tools are getting smaller and smaller, they are still discrete devices that we have to carry with us.  Source 

Also read here.

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How US covered up Saudi role in 9/11

crash_trade_centerIn its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.

That’s quite an understatement.

Actually, the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement. Investigations were throttled. Co-conspirators were let off the hook.

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Powerful Ecuador earthquake kills 238

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QUITO, Ecuador –  The strongest earthquake to hit Ecuador in decades killed at least 238 people and injured more than 1,500 others Sunday as damage stretched for hundreds of miles to the capital and other major cities.

The magnitude-7.8 quake was centered on Ecuador’s sparsely populated fishing ports and tourist beaches, 105 miles northwest of Quito, the capital.  Source

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Catholic fans chant ‘You killed Jesus’ during basketball game

church-sign-saying-jews-killed-jesus-2873765_289753_ver1-0_640_480Catholic high school students chanted, “You killed Jesus” at a basketball game against a predominantly Jewish high school in a Boston suburb on Friday night.

During the playoff contest between Catholic Memorial School and the public Newton North High School, fans of the latter began shouting, “Sausage fest!” at the opposing team, an off-color reference to the fact that CMS is an all-boys institution.

In response, the Catholic fans repeated, “You killed Jesus, you killed Jesus,” spectators at the event said.

The Catholic fans’ cheer was a reference to Jewish deicide, the charge that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. Source

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Judge: Can’t force Catholic hospitals to abort babies

st-patricks-cathedral-catholic-churchA federal judge has rejected an ACLU demand that he order Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of church teaching.

The victory for religious rights was announced by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which intervened on behalf of the Catholic Medical Association, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“No American should be forced to commit an abortion – least of all faith-based medical workers who went into the profession to follow their faith and save lives, not take them,” said ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot.

“No law requires religious hospitals and medical personnel to commit abortions against their faith and conscience, and, in fact, federal law directly prohibits the government from engaging in any such coercion. As we argued in our brief to the court, the ACLU had no standing to bring this suit and demand this kind of government coercion.”  Source

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Revealed! Feds’ demands to manipulate global-warming data

climate_change4It’s something climate skeptics have long suspected: Government involvement in science has skewed data to reflect the government’s agenda.

“Many have suspected that U.S. political intervention in climate science has corrupted the outcome,” notes Ron Arnold in an essay posted on CFact.org. “The new emergence of an old 1995 document from the U.S. State Department to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms those suspicions, or at least gives the allegation credence enough to ask questions.”…

“Among the more revealing tidbits is a remark scolding a scientist for being honest about the weakness of aerosol forcing data: ‘We clearly cannot use aerosol forcing as the trigger of our smoking gun, and then make a generalized appeal to uncertainty to exclude these effects from the forward-looking modeling analysis.’ One instruction was to change a correct statement about warming rates into a flat lie: ‘Change “continue to rise” to “rise by even greater amounts” to provide a sense of magnitude of the extended change.  Source

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