End of Show Mixes: - UKPMX - Gx2 -Oh My Bosh - Danny Loos-Secret Agent Paul-Stepford Wives-PlaceBoing- Dave Courbanou - Able Kirby - Jungle Jones - Chris Wilson - Tom Starkweather - Conan Salada - Future Trash - Phantomville Billy Bon3s
Who: Angry, rage-filled women who would enjoy a chance to let it all out and that are committed to changing the status quo and electing women into office that will rage against the patriarchy.
Max Capacity: 35 women
Tickets: $25. All ticket proceeds will be donated to Emily's List . We will take pictures of the rage and send that along too.
When: Sunday, Oct. 14 from 2-5. We are doing this in time to contribute for the Midterm Elections.
Where: Wendy's House in Evanston. You don't need to know her to come let out the rage. She is rad and has rage. All registrants will get an email with the address.
How: Show up. Please bring a bottle(s) of something to share. Alcoholic or not. Mingle and hang with radical ladies. We will have some light snacks. It is an awesome chance to meet amazing women and more importantly, beat something.
Take a turn at:
Smashing the shit out of a pinata
Punching the hanging punching bag (face of some horrendous old white man politician will be attached). BRING GLOVES IF YOU HAVE THEM! We will have one pair!
Flip a small kid's plastic table (I can't find a space big enough to handle real tables, that will be next year)
Scream into a pillow (many pillows will be provided)
Burn the names or pictures of anything that represents the rage you have had burning listening to old white politicians respond to Dr. Ford, listening to Trump, just general moving through the world as a woman.
Dr For Meme
Do Moms even teach the knee to the crotch anymore? Mom's little cash box charm
In Rare Move, ACLU to Oppose Kavanaugh for Supreme Court | American Civil Liberties Union
NEW YORK '-- In the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's sworn testimony of sexual abuse at the hands of Brett Kavanaugh, the American Civil Liberties Union has announced its opposition to his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As a matter of organizational policy, the ACLU does not support or oppose candidates for political or judicial office. In this instance, the national board held an extraordinary meeting, and has chosen to make an exception to that policy.
''The ACLU's board of directors, deeply concerned by the allegations raised in recent weeks, has made a rare exception to its longstanding policy and voted to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,'' said Susan Herman, president of the ACLU.
The ACLU's national board of directors passed a resolution stating:
''The ACLU opposes the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. There are credible allegations that Judge Kavanaugh has engaged in serious misconduct that have not been adequately investigated by the Senate. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's credible testimony, subsequent allegations of sexual misconduct, the inadequate investigation, and Judge Kavanaugh's testimony at the hearing lead us to doubt Judge Kavanaugh's fitness to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. ''This is not a decision taken lightly. We cannot remain silent under these extraordinary circumstances about a lifetime appointment to the highest court of the land. The standard for such an appointment should be high, and the burden is on the nominee. That burden is not met as long as there are unresolved questions regarding the credible allegations of sexual assault.''
''As a nonpartisan organization, the ACLU does not oppose Judge Kavanaugh based on predictions about how he would vote as a Justice. We oppose him in light of the credible allegations of sexual assault against him,'' concluded Herman.
Under its current policy, the ACLU does not take formal positions on judicial nominations. This is the fourth instance in the organization's 98-year history that the ACLU's national board of directors has voted to oppose a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Most recently, the organization did not endorse or oppose the nomination of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch.
For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
The category of lawyers and law firms encompasses both trade organizations that promote legislation and members of prestigious firms -- including former lawmakers and high-ranking government staffers -- who are highly involved in various political processes. Members of this group of politically embedded law firms frequently show up in the Center for Responsive Politics' Revolving Door database.
Each cycle, contributions from this group favor Democrats by a significant margin. In the 2014 election cycle, the industry contributed over $120 million to federal political candidates and interests, 70 percent of which went to Democrats. [Read more Background]
Industries in this Sector: Pick another Sector:Search for an industry: Find Your Representatives
Data for the current election cycle were released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, September 24, 2018
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.
GoFundMe campaigns to support Christine Blasey Ford raise more than $700K | 6abc.com
More than $700,000 has been donated to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford through a number of GoFundMe campaigns set up on her behalf.
At least two GoFundMe sites associated with Ford's name were set up earlier this month to help support Ford as she traveled to Washington, D.C. to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her accusations of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has denied all of the allegations.
The two campaigns -- "Help Christine Blasey Ford" and "Cover Dr. Blasey's security costs" -- had reached more than $700,000 at the time of publication. A number of other campaigns related to her also appear on GoFundMe based on a search of Ford's name.
"We are working directly with all campaign organizers and guarantee the funds raised will be transferred directly to the Ford family," Katherine Cichy, a spokeswoman for GoFundMe, told ABC News.
"To be very clear, we have designated the Ford Family as the beneficiary of these funds. We cannot take the money out or otherwise direct the funds," Cichy added.
During Thursday's hearing, Rachel Mitchell, a veteran sex-crimes prosecutor who questioned Ford on behalf of Republican members of the committee, asked Ford who had paid for her expenses, including the polygraph examination she underwent about her memories of the alleged assault.
"I'm aware that there's been several GoFundMe sites," Ford responded.
The page for the "Help Christine Blasey Ford" campaign said it was set up on Sept. 18 to support the "Palo Alto mom, a beloved professor and mentor and friend. This fundraiser is sponsored by her neighbors and colleagues." At the time of publication, the campaign had raised more than $490,000 from more than 10,700 people and was still accepting donations.
The "Cover Dr. Blasey's security costs" campaign, which was created on Sept. 18, raised $209,987 by 6,658 people over nine days, according to the site. It has closed and is no longer accepting donations.
"My reason for starting this fundraiser is to make concrete the power of collective action in providing security, and therefore support, for Dr. Blasey's willingness to contribute to a thorough, fair vetting of a nominee for Supreme Court Justice," that campaign's organizer, Heidi Feldman, wrote on its page.
(Copyright (C)2018 ABC News Internet Ventures.)
Records Show Dr. Ford Is Not A Licensed Psychologist, May Have Committed Perjury
Testifying under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Blasey Ford identified herself as a 'psychologist,' but records indict this is a false statement under California law. Someone at Stanford University also appears to have caught the blunder and edited Ford's faculty page.
J ust one sentence into her sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford may have told a lie.
After thanking members of the committee on Thursday, and while under oath, Ford opened her testimony saying, ''My name is Christine Blasey Ford, I am a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine.''
The issue lies with the word ''psychologist,'' and Ford potentially misrepresenting herself and her credentials, an infraction that is taken very seriously in the psychology field as well as under California law.
Under California law, in order for a person to identify publicly as a psychologist they must be licensed by the California Board of Psychology, a process that includes 3,000 hours of post-doctoral professional experience and passing two rigorous exams. To call oneself a psychologist without being licensed by a state board is the equivalent of a law school graduate calling herself a lawyer without ever taking the bar exam.
According to records, Ford is not licensed in the state of California. A recent search through the Department of Consumer Affairs License Bureau, which provides a state-run database of all licensed psychologists in California, produced no results for any variation of spelling on Ford's name. If Ford at one time had a license but it is now inactive, she would legally still be allowed to call herself a ''psychologist'' but forbidden from practicing psychology on patients until it was renewed. However, the database would have shown any past licenses granted to Ford, even if they were inactive.
Ford also does not appear to have been licensed in any other states outside California. Since graduating with a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Southern California in 1996 it does not appear Ford has spent any significant amount of time outside the state. She married her husband in California in 2002, and completed a master's degree in California in 2009. She reportedly completed an internship in Hawaii, but a search of Hawaii's Board of Psychology licensing databased also did not turn up any results for Ford.
What makes Ford's claim even more suspicious is someone affiliated with Stanford University appears to have also been aware of the potentially damning use of the word ''psychologist'' and rushed to cover for Ford. DANGEROUS exclusively uncovered an archived version of Christine's Blasey's page on the school's faculty directory. On September 10, 2015, the only archived date available, Ford's faculty page was saved to the Wayback Machine and showed Ford listed as a ''research psychologist'' along with her email address and office phone number.
The most recent version of that page shows Ford listed only as an ''Affiliate'' in the department, with the words ''research psychologist'' removed along with Ford's email address and phone number. This suggests the page was altered by someone very recently to scrub Ford's contact information and title after she entered the national spotlight.
It is common for academics and researchers in psychology to not hold a license. California law does not prohibit anyone from engaging in research, teaching, or other activities associated with psychology if they are not licensed, so long as those individuals do not use the word ''psychologist'' when referring to themselves publicly.
Several searches on California's licensing database revealed many of Ford's colleagues in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Studies at Stanford are not licensed psychologists in California, including the department chairman Laura Roberts, who identifies herself only as a professor. Of the unlicensed members of the faculty '-- which includes researchers, clinicians, professors, and fellows '-- none refer to themselves as a ''psychologist'' or ''psychiatrist,'' unless they also had a license issued in California.
Aside from potentially misleading the committee, Ford also appears to have violated California law. California's Business and Professional Code Sections 2900-2919govern the state's laws for practicing psychology. Section 2903 reads, ''No person may engage in the practice of psychology, or represent himself or herself to be a psychologist, without a license granted under this chapter, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.'' Section 2902(c) states: (c) ''A person represents himself or herself to be a psychologist when the person holds himself or herself out to the public by any title or description of services incorporating the words ''psychology,'' ''psychological,'' ''psychologist,'' ''psychology consultation,'' ''psychology consultant,'' ''psychometry,'' ''psychometrics'' or ''psychometrist,'' ''psychotherapy,'' ''psychotherapist,'' ''psychoanalysis,'' or ''psychoanalyst,'' or when the person holds himself or herself out to be trained, experienced, or an expert in the field of psychology.''
This appears to include titles like ''research psychologist.'' There is one specific exemption to the law regarding the title ''school psychologist,'' which refers to school counselors who do not need to be licensed. School psychologists are legally forbidden from referring to themselves as simply ''psychologists.''
Whereas the term ''research psychologist'' may be common in academic parlance, the issue seems to be publicly presenting oneself under any title containing the word ''psychologist'' if a person is not licensed. Ford is a professor and a researcher, but not a psychologist. Section 2910 of the law states, '' This chapter shall not be construed to restrict the practice of psychology on the part of persons who are salaried employees of accredited or approved academic institutions, public schools , or governmental agencies, if those employees are complying with the following (1) Performing those psychological activities as part of the duties for which they were hired. (2) Performing those activities solely within the jurisdiction or confines of those organizations. (3) Do not hold themselves out to the public by any title or description of activities incorporating the words ''psychology,'' ''psychological,'' or ''psychologist.''
It is unknown why Ford, 51, a seasoned academic in the field of psychology would have made such an obvious mistake unless she was unaware of the law or trying to intentionally mislead the public and members of the committee about her credentials in the field of psychology. Her bizarre testimony often veered off into psychological jargon about brain chemistry, memory storage, and how trauma effects the brain, analysis one would expect from a clinical psychologist, rather than an academic involved in research. When asked by committee members of her most vivid memory from the attack that allegedly occurred nearly 40 years ago, Ford responded, ''Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two [men], and their having fun at my expense,'' referring to the part of the brain mainly associated with memory. When discussing her trauma, Ford replied, ''The etiology of anxiety and PTSD is multifactorial. [The incident] was certainly a critical risk factor. That would be a predictor of the [conditions] that I now have '... I can't rule out that I would have some biological predisposition to be an anxious-type person.''
Yet, Ford's academic focus for years has been statistics, not memory or trauma. To look at her as some sort of expert in this area would be like asking a podiatrist about heart disease simply because he's in the medical field. Still, the media ate it up. Hours after her testimony ended, various mainstream media outlets falsely identified Ford as a ''psychologist'' and praised her approach to science during the hearing, calling the statistician an ''expert'' on issues more closely related to clinical psychology.
The Washington Post ran a headline that simply read, ''Christine Blasey Ford, psychologist,'' The Atlantic's headline read, ''Christine Blasey Ford, A Psychologist, Testifies to Congress,'' Slate's headline read, ''Christine Blasey Ford's testimony combined her own expert analysis of the situation,'' The New Yorker's headline read ''Christine Blasey Ford is Serving As Both A Witness And An Expert,'' and the Wall Street Journal ran with ''Ford's Testimony Reminds Us That She's A Psychologist.'' As of Friday morning, Ford's Wikipedia entry also identified her occupation as ''Psychologist.'' According to California law, all of these are false. Ford is not a psychologist.
The Senate judiciary committee is set to decide Friday on a date for Kavanaugh's confirmation vote. If Ford committed perjury, she could face up to five years in federal prison.
Dangerous
Michael Avenatti's Client Does NOT Make It Into The FBI Investigation - Big League Politics
Julie Swetnick, Brett Kavanaugh's third accuser and client of lawyer Michael Avenatti, will not have her claims investigated as part of the week-long FBI investigation into Kavanaugh.
The first two accusers presented by The New Yorker will have their claims investigated: Christine Blasey Ford and Debbie Ramirez.
The Wall Street Journal reports: ''The parameters of the FBI probe don't include interviewing Julie Swetnick, who said this week the Supreme Court nominee attended a party decades ago where she was gang-raped, according to one of the people. The focus on the first two accusations suggests that the White House doesn't consider Ms. Swetnick's accusations credible, people familiar with the instructions said, a decision that drew criticism from Ms. Swetnick's attorney, Michael Avenatti. The Wall Street Journal has attempted to corroborate Ms. Swetnick's account, contacting dozens of former classmates and colleagues, but couldn't reach anyone with knowledge of her allegations. No friends have come forward to publicly support her claims.
take our poll - story continues below
Completing this poll grants you access to Big League Politics updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to this site's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Trending: Woman Who Confronted Flake In Elevator Runs Soros-Funded Organization
Wall Street Journal passage ends
Democrats began distancing themselves from Avenatti before he even came forward with his accuser, and the New York Times re-wrote one of their articles in part to downgrade the relevance of Avenatti's claims.
Newsweek reported:
''On March 1, 2001, Swetnick had a restraining order filed against her by an ex-boyfriend, Richard Vinneccy, as first reported by Big League Politics. The case was dismissed less than two weeks later. Vinneccy said he and Swetnick dated for four years before they broke up, at which point Vinneccy said Swetnick began to threaten him. The threats reportedly continued, even after Vinneccy got married and had a child.
''Right after I broke up with her, she was threatening my family, threatening my wife and threatening to do harm to my baby at that time,'' Vinneccy told Politico. ''I know a lot about her. She's not credible at all. Not at all.'''
Was I the only one who shuddered at Brett Kavanaugh's belligerent comments about beer? - Los Angeles Times
Specifically, Brett Kavanaugh's professed affection for it?
Like a lot of people who have lived with or been friends with people who love beer a little too much, I experienced some familiar, unpleasant emotions as I watched the Supreme Court nominee's behavior disintegrate Thursday in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Kavanaugh came into the hearing room already upset, and who could blame him? Accusations of sexual assault have put his Supreme Court nomination at risk. He was under tremendous pressure.
I didn't think it possible, but Kavanaugh's performance rivaled '-- with an assist from the calculated histrionics of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham '-- Clarence Thomas' incendiary 1991 rebuttal to allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill. Thomas was, he said, the victim of a ''high-tech lynching,'' a brilliant and despicable accusation that managed to trivialize the scourge of real lynching, put Democratic senators on the defensive and save his nomination.
If Kavanaugh had been able to play a race card, I'm sure he would have.
A man like Kavanaugh, who has attended the ''best'' schools, excelled at academics and athletics and risen to the top of his profession, does not take kindly to being under suspicion.
Once senators started to question him, his high dudgeon, which was defensible, turned into something darker and far more revealing about who he is: a political operative who had the great good fortune to be named as judge to a court that is a proving ground for future Supreme Court justices. Someone, it became clear, who likes beer, but does not want to be asked about drinking. In fact, he mentioned some version of liking beer at least 12 times, according to the hearing transcript.
I thought it was kind of cute when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell asleep briefly during a State of the Union speech and later confessed she had imbibed some wine at dinner. For a woman in her 80s, such a faux pas seemed forgivable.
But there was something really odd about the way the 53-year-old Kavanaugh talked about beer.
Questions about his high-school drinking, entirely relevant to Christine Blasey Ford's accusation that he sexually assaulted her '-- when she was 15 and he was an inebriated 17-year-old '-- seemed to spark in him a combination of belligerence, sarcasm and defensiveness. The spectacle was uncomfortably familiar to those of us who have dealt with people who drink to excess.
When Kavanaugh was asked by Rachel Mitchell '-- the prosecutor hired by committee Republicans to keep the proceedings civil '-- whether he consumed alcohol during high school, he could have simply said ''Yes.''
Instead, he began one of several alcohol-related rants. ''Yes, we drank beer,'' he said. ''My friends and I, the boys and girls. Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. Still like beer. We drank beer. The drinking age, as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal, senior year in high school, people were legal to drink, and we '-- yeah, we drank beer, and I said sometimes '-- sometimes probably had too many beers, and sometimes other people had too many beers'.... We drank beer. We liked beer.''
When Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse asked him whether the phrase ''Ralph Club'' in his high school yearbook referred to vomiting related to drinking, Kavanaugh could not even bear to entertain the question. He could have simply said ''Yes.'' Most people know that ''ralphing'' is a side effect of over-consumption.
Instead, he obfuscated. ''Senator, I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School. Worked my tail off.''
''And did the word 'ralph' '... refer to alcohol?'' Whitehouse asked.
''I like beer,'' replied Kavanaugh. ''I like beer. I don't know if you do'.... Do you like beer, Senator, or not? What do you like to drink? Senator, what do you like to drink?''
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy asked about a drinking memoir by Kavanaugh's friend Mark Judge, who is alleged to have been present in the bedroom where Ford said she was assaulted. Leahy wondered if a drunk character in the book, Bart O'Kavanaugh, who vomited in a car, was based on Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh explained that Judge had developed an addiction to alcohol that almost killed him. The book, said Kavanaugh, was Judge's way of ''coming to grips with sobriety.''
''So you don't know whether that's you or not?'' Leahy asked.
He responded with a puzzling non sequitur: ''We can sit here, and you, like, make fun of some guy who has an addiction.''
When it came time for Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar to ask questions, Kavanaugh, who at first expressed his greatest respect, gave her the same treatment.
''Drinking is one thing,'' Klobuchar said, ''but the concern is about truthfulness, and in your written testimony, you said sometimes you had too many drinks. Was there ever a time when you drank so much that you couldn't remember what happened, or part of what happened the night before?''
Kavanaugh: ''No. I remember what happened, and I think you've probably had beers, Senator, and so '...''
Klobuchar: ''So you're saying there's never been a case where you drank so much that you didn't remember what happened the night before, or part of what happened?''
Kavanaugh: ''You're asking about, you know, blackout. I don't know. Have you?''
Klobuchar: ''Could you answer the question, Judge? That's not happened. Is that your answer?''
Kavanaugh: ''Yeah, and I'm curious if you have.''
You can try to turn the tables, Judge Kavanaugh, but it's not the senators' drinking that's at issue. It's yours.
Kavanaugh repeatedly lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
METHENY - Covenanter missionary in MersinePosted: 952430400000
Classification: Query
Surnames: METHENY
This post was deleted by the author on 11 Feb 2011 11:22PM GMT
Posted: 976017600000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
Dr. David Metheny was my great grandfather his son was Samuel Alexander Sterrett Metheny who was also a medical missionary in Mersine. I have some written information about david metheny that was written after his death. Let me know if you might be interested in what I might be able to dig out. Frank Metheny
Posted: 1000064981000
Classification: Query
Edited: 1141787320000
Surnames:
I'd like to update my records on that line of the family. Any information that you'd like to share would be appreciated. Jay
Theodora Vale DOWNIE sp: Arthur Joseph KOBLE (b.Apr 01 1921-Eastvale,BC,Pennsylvania;m.Jun 02 1951;d.Oct 01 1974-Kaycee,Wyoming)
a. Victoria Anne KOBLE
b. Nancy Janette KOBLE
sp#1: Howard MCCONAUGHY (b.Jun 19 1958;m.Jun 28 1980;d.Feb 22 1992)
i. Kathryn Ann MCCONAUGHY
sp#2: Thomas MEDILL
i. Thomas MEDILL
Posted: 1275573490000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
Dear Mr Metheny
I am doing research about the Nusayri (Alawi)sect in the late Ottoman Empire and came across several documents in the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul about your great grandfather Dr. David Metheny who was active in Mersin. Some documents say that David Metheny kidnapped some Nusayri girls and send them to America. I am also looking about this in missionary reports in journals of the Reformed Presbyterians but was not successful so far.
Do you have any knowledge about this episode?
Regards,
Necati Alkan
University of Erfurt
Germany
Posted: 1280541687000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
I live in Mersin, Turkey.I wrote a short article about Dr. Metheny in Icel Sanat Kulubu Dergisi (Icel Art Club's monthly bulletin) a few years ago.His tomb is one of the oldest in the Mersin cemetery. THe cemetery is unique in the sense that Christians, Moslems, Jews are all buried in the same area.
Posted: 1281479797000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
What type of documents? Where & when were these girls kidnapped?I've never heard or read anything about it.
Posted: 1281479911000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
We would enjoy reading that article - is it available online? THANK YOU
Posted: 1282334079000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
Hello,
I wrote it in Turkish. The title was "An American in Mersin".
Pics of Dr. Metheny as a young man and his tombstone are attached.
Regards
Posted: 1287026708000
Classification: Query
Surnames:
I lived and worked in Ankara and know a friend in Beaver. We visited him recently and he mentioned he at one time was in possession of jounals and records the doctor has kept during that time loaned to him by someone in your family, Frank. I would be really interested in seeing those for some research on that period of history. Please contact me if you know of such journals.
Former Employer Sued Third Kavanaugh Accuser For Sexual Harassment Allegations | Zero Hedge
The woman who charges she was gang-raped at a party where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was present, Julie Swetnick, had a lawsuit filed against her by a former employer that alleged she engaged in ''unwelcome, sexually offensive conduct'' towards two male co-workers, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
WebTrends, a web analytics company headquartered in Portland, filed the defamation and fraud lawsuit against Swetnick in Oregon in November 2000 and also alleged that she lied about graduating from Johns Hopkins University.
Swetnick alleged Wednesday that she was gang raped at a party where Kavanaugh was present in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation.
Swetnick is represented by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an affair with President Donald Trump.
WebTrends voluntarily dismissed its suit after one month. Avenatti told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the case was ended because it was ''completely bogus.''
Swetnick's alleged conduct took place in June 2000, just three weeks after she started working at WebTrends, the complaint shows. WebTrends conducted an investigation that found both male employees gave similar accounts of Swetnick engaging in ''unwelcome sexual innuendo and inappropriate conduct'' toward them during a business lunch in front of customers, the complaint said.
Swetnick denied the allegations and, WebTrends alleged, ''in a transparent effort to divert attention from her own inappropriate behavior '... [made] false and retaliatory allegations'' of sexual harassment against two other male co-workers.
''Based on its investigations, WebTrends determined that Swetnick had engaged in inappropriate conduct, but that no corroborating evidence existed to support Swetnick's allegations against her coworkers,'' the complaint said.
After a WebTrends human resources director informed Swetnick that the company was unable to corroborate the sexual harassment allegations she had made, she ''remarkably'' walked back the allegations, according to the complaint.
In July, one month after the alleged incident, Swetnick took a leave of absence from the company for sinus issues, according to the complaint. WebTrends said it made short-term disability payments to her until mid-August that year. One week after the payments stopped, WebTrends received a note from Swetnick's doctor claiming she needed a leave of absence for a ''nervous breakdown.''
The company said it continued to provide health insurance coverage for Swetnick, despite her refusal provide any additional information about her alleged medical condition.
In November, the company's human resources director received a notice from the Washington, D.C. Department of Unemployment that Swetnick had applied for unemployment benefits after claiming she left WebTrends voluntarily in late September.
''In short, Swetnick continued to claim the benefits of a full-time employee of WebTrends, sought disability payments from WebTrends' insurance carrier and falsely claimed unemployment insurance payments from the District of Columbia,'' the complaint states.
Swetnick allegedly hung up the phone on WebTrends managers calling to discuss why she applied for unemployment benefits, according to the complaint. She then sent letters to WebTrends' upper management, detailing new allegations that two male co-workers sexually harassed her and said that the company's human resources director had ''illegally tired [sic] for months to get privileged medical information'' from her, her doctor and her insurance company.
WebTrends also alleged that Swetnick began her fraud against the company before she was hired by stating on her job application that she graduated from John Hopkins University. But according to the complaint, the school had no record of her attendance.
An online resume posted by Swetnick makes no reference to John Hopkins University. It does show that she worked for WebTrends from December 1999 to August 2000.
It's unclear what transpired after the complaint was filed against Swetnick. One month after WebTrends filed the action, the company voluntarily dismissed the action with prejudice.
The complaint against his client was ''[c]ompletely bogus which is why it was dismissed almost immediately,'' Avenatti told TheDCNF in an email. ''The lawsuit was filed in retaliation against my client after she pursued claims against the company.''
WebTrends did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In March 2001, three months after WebTrends dismissed its action, Swetnick's ex-boyfriend, Richard Vinneccy, filed a restraining order against Swetnick, claiming that she threatened him after he ended their four-year relationship.
How the F.B.I. Will Investigate the Kavanaugh Accusations - The New York Times
Image F.B.I. agents were ordered to examine allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee. Credit Credit Lexey Swall for The New York Times WASHINGTON '-- The renewed F.B.I. background check of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh over allegations of sexual assault will be relatively limited, relying on voluntary interviews and document production.
Former prosecutors said that because it is not a criminal investigation, F.B.I. agents will not be able to get search warrants or grand jury subpoenas compelling witnesses to testify or hand over documents. Witnesses and others can refuse to cooperate, though talking to an F.B.I. agent is often a powerful motivator to tell the truth.
At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Judge Kavanaugh forcefully denied accusations of sexual misconduct. One of his accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, told senators that he drunkenly pinned her on a bed during a party on a summer night in 1982, tried to take off her bathing suit and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming.
Republicans have said for days that an additional F.B.I. background check was unnecessary but reversed course on Friday after Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said he would not vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh without one. With a closely divided Senate, Republicans had little choice, and President Trump ordered the background check.
This is familiar territory for the F.B.I. As part of a routine background check, agents examined domestic abuse allegations against Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary, and provided the information to the White House. Mr. Porter, who has denied the accusations, was forced to resign this year.
Here is what you need to know:
What has the F.B.I. already examined about Judge Kavanaugh?In Thursday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Kavanaugh pointed to ''six separate F.B.I. background investigations over 26 years.'' For background checks of federal judicial nominees, agents typically focus on their professional lives. According to former F.B.I. officials, agents must interview a minimum of 30 people with whom nominees worked, including judges, lawyers and law enforcement officials. Agents would also talk to anyone else whom those people suggested they interview.
What could agents examine about Dr. Blasey's allegation?The F.B.I. can follow several leads. They can interview Mark Judge, Leland Keyser and P.J. Smyth, high school friends of either Dr. Blasey or Judge Kavanaugh. Dr. Blasey has said they were at the party. Mr. Judge said on Friday that he would be willing to talk to law enforcement officials.
Agents could also investigate several details that could corroborate Dr. Blasey's story. Weeks after she was assaulted, Dr. Blasey said, she saw Mr. Judge at a local Safeway grocery store. In his book, ''Wasted,'' Mr. Judge wrote that he worked as a bag boy in a local supermarket. The F.B.I. could ask either Safeway or Mr. Judge for employment records to determine whether he worked there during that period.
If they find any records, they could bolster Dr. Blasey's credibility and potentially narrow the window of time in which the assault could have happened.
Agents could also study Judge Kavanaugh's calendars from the summer of 1982 for possible dates and locations for a party like the one Dr. Blasey described and ask Columbia Country Club '-- where Dr. Blasey said she swam earlier that day '-- for visitor logs or other records dating to that summer.
And they could check municipal housing records from 1982 for homes of high school friends of Dr. Blasey or Judge Kavanaugh with floor plans that might match descriptions Dr. Blasey has given: a narrow staircase, a bedroom at the top of the stairs with a bathroom directly across from it, and a front door that would have required her to exit by passing through the living room.
What about investigating the allegations of other women?In addition to investigating Dr. Blasey's claims, the bureau is looking into accusations against Judge Kavanaugh by at least one other woman, according to a person familiar with the background check.
That woman, Deborah Ramirez, has said that Judge Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a night of drinking when they were both freshmen at Yale. Agents could interview Judge Kavanaugh's college friends, roommates and fraternity brothers about his drinking habits at Yale, asking questions about parties in Lawrance Hall, where he lived that year and where Ms. Ramirez said the episode occurred.
Agents could also request student records from Yale that might contain disciplinary violations and any medical records from hospitals in and around New Haven that might reveal nights of heavy drinking. Though no one has publicly accused Judge Kavanaugh of any acts that prompted disciplinary measures at Yale or spoken of hospitalizations, universities and hospitals are typical sources of information in background checks.
A third woman, Julie Swetnick, has said that Judge Kavanaugh attended multiple parties in high school where he plied women with alcohol to try to take advantage of them. F.B.I. agents could interview a broader circle of alumni from Judge Kavanaugh's and Ms. Swetnick's high schools in suburban Washington to determine whether such parties took place.
It is not clear how far the F.B.I. will go in pursuing questions related to the accusations like the extent of Judge Kavanaugh's drinking in high school and college.
Will the F.B.I. figure out the truth?That will be difficult. The allegations are decades old, and the key witness to Dr. Blasey's account, Mr. Judge, has also denied it. Memories have faded, and documents or other information might not exist anymore. And not everyone tells the F.B.I. the truth.
But Robert Cromwell, a former agent who oversaw these types of investigations, which are known at the bureau as special presidential inquiries, said he would expect the F.B.I. to follow every lead. ''They will report what the results are '-- whether they are exculpatory or not,'' he said. ''The results will stand on their own.''
The F.B.I. interview summaries, called 302s after the number of the form that agents fill out, are likely to be dry and factual. Some agents could note any changes in witness behavior if they find them meaningful. Any material contradictions would be noted in the summary of an interview. That information would ultimately be provided to the White House.
Can the F.B.I. finish investigating in a week?It's not impossible. The F.B.I. has plenty of experience mounting large investigations and getting results quickly. In the days and weeks after terrorism attacks or mass shootings, the F.B.I. has completed hundreds of interviews and processed mountains of evidence, like video footage or the contents of computers and phones.
In this case, the F.B.I. is likely to make the investigation a top priority, instructing agents across the country to conduct interviews. ''The F.B.I. investigation can easily be done in a week,'' said Lauren C. Anderson, a former top F.B.I. official.
Will anyone believe the F.B.I.?Once again, the F.B.I. has been thrust into a politically fraught moment.
The bureau has been the target of Mr. Trump's fury since before he became president, claiming without evidence that a cabal of F.B.I. officials was against him. He has called the investigation into whether any of his associates conspired with Russian's election interference a witch hunt and a hoax, prompting concern among agents that he has damaged the F.B.I.'s credibility.
Now, some Republicans have dismissed the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh as nothing more than a political smear to derail his nomination. And Democrats are demanding a credible investigation before his nomination comes to a vote.
Republicans and Democrats alike are all but certain to seize on the F.B.I.'s findings to bolster their cases, and some current and former agents fear that politics will drown out any truth uncovered by the investigation. Nonetheless, James A. Gagliano, a former agent, said on Twitter, the background check is the ''right path forward.''
Follow Adam Goldman on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT.
A version of this article appears in print on
, on Page
A
14
of the New York edition
with the headline:
No Grand Jury or Subpoenas, but Plenty of Leads for Agents to Follow
. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe
Kavanaugh's High School, Georgetown Prep, Warned Parents in 1990 of ''Sexual or Violent Behavior'' at Parties
According to a 1990 article in the Washington Post, the headmasters from seven prestigious Washington, D.C.-area private schools sent a joint letter that year to parents, warning them that their children had developed a party culture that included heavy drinking leading to ''sexual or violent behavior.''
One of the schools was Georgetown Prep, from which Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh graduated in 1983. Christine Blasey Ford, who during congressional testimony on Thursday described being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh in 1982, attended another of the schools, Holton-Arms.
The Post article also reported that before the letter was sent, Georgetown Prep had individually ''held a conference with parents to discuss the problem of unsupervised parties.''
Malcolm Coates, then the headmaster of the Landon School in Bethesda, Maryland, is quoted as saying that the schools decided to write the letter jointly ''to give it more impact. '... The fact that seven schools decided it was enough of a problem to address it is significant.''
The Post also quoted Charles P. Lord, headmaster at Holton-Arms, saying that ''a number of parents and kids have expressed dismay over some of the situations at weekend parties. '... We're concerned about the potential for tragedy.''
The Intercept has not independently obtained the 1990 letter. The seven schools which sent it either could not find it in their records, or did not respond to inquiries. Georgetown Prep directed The Intercept to a recent general statement: ''The problems and abuses of alcohol and drugs, sexual assault and misconduct, emotional and physical violence toward others are real. '... But it is demonstrably false that such behavior or culture is tolerated, still less encouraged, at Georgetown Prep.''
Of the seven school headmasters in 1990, several, including Coates and Lord, have since died. The others declined to comment or could not be located.
Andrew C. Lottmann, then a news aide at the Post who contributed to the report, graduated in 1988 from St. Albans, another of the schools sending the letter. ''[Excessive drinking] happened at all the schools,'' Lottmann remembers. ''Yes, absolutely.''
''I think that at these schools there are children of wealthy and politically important people and there are some who certainly acted as though there [were] little consequences for their actions,'' recalls Lottmann. While ''there were people who ran with the party crowd who were good people. '... The core of it is there were certainly some people who acted as though there were no ramifications for their actions.'' However, he says, he has ''no direct knowledge'' of sex or sexual violence at parties during his high school years.
Binge drinking was also a notable issue at Washington, D.C.-area public schools during this period. In 1989 the Post published an article on the subject headlined, ''Kids and Booze: It's 10 O'Clock '-- Do You Know How Drunk Your Children Are?'' The piece quotes one student saying that she had felt ''trapped'' by her drinking, and had experienced frequent blackouts. Another described school parties as ''really sordid. Parents have little idea of what is going on.''
A recent study found that drinking decreased among American teenagers from 1991 to 2015, particularly among boys and children from better-off families. A publication from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institutes of Health states that ''We all feel the effects of the aggressive behavior, property damage, injuries, violence, and deaths that can result from underage drinking,'' and warns that ''Underage youth who drink are more likely to carry out or be the victim of a physical or sexual assault after drinking than others their age who do not drink.ÂÂ''
Top photo: The entrance to the Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Md., on Sept. 19, 2018.
EXCLUSIVE: Eminent California Professor And Human Memory Expert Weighs In On Christine Ford's Allegations Against Kavanaugh
Elizabeth F. Loftus is a professor at the University of California, Irvine, a cognitive psychologist, and a preeminent expert on human memory whose work on the subject in criminal cases has been a crucial key to establishing a stricter standard for ''recovered memories'' and a greater requirement for corroborating evidence in criminal trials. She is also a self-described ''pro-choice Democrat'' who is ''scared'' at the prospect of a Supreme Court with Kavanaugh on it, yet honest and fair-minded enough to want the process to be ''fair'' to all involved.
Which includes Kavanaugh himself, who of late has been accused - by a woman who was 15-years-old at the time and who reportedly never mentioned the attack until a 2012 marital counseling session - of an act of sexual assault allegedly committed when he was a 17-year-old high school student.
Given so much at stake based on one individual's 36-years-removed memory, and especially her reported dependence on the controversial practice of psychotherapy, Loftus seemed the perfect individual to speak to on the subject. Thankfully, granting the fact that there are so many factors we still don't know for certain, Loftus happily agreed to speak with me on Saturday about the Kavanaugh case and issues that can arise from relying on memory alone absent corroborating evidence.
''I don't see evidence that this is a typical repressed memory case,'' Loftus said as we began our talk. ''That doesn't seem to be the pattern here. What does seem to have happened, it appears as if in 2012, 30 years after she was in high school, or age 15, she is in marital counseling for some reason - we don't know what - and the topic comes up that she was assaulted by some boys in high school.''''Why did that come up in marital therapy?'' she continued while acknowledging that there seems to be evidence that Ford was assaulted by someone in some manner. ''That would be something an investigation might reveal. We have no idea.''
A key, to Dr. Loftus, is when Ford eventually attached Kavanaugh's name to what happened to her in 1982.
''I don't see any evidence that she said the name at that time [in 2012], so when did she attach the name of Brett Kavanaugh to the episode?'' she wondered. ''An investigation might reveal that she continued on in the therapy and that they developed in more detail, and it might reveal that - who knows - she looked at yearbooks and tried to identify anybody she might remember from the boys at Georgetown Prep. We just don't know.''Of the possibility that the name could have been added later as a part of ''memory recovery'' psychological techniques, Loftus responded: ''Possibly. It's just one possibility since we have incomplete information about this.''
I asked Loftus about the likelihood of not remembering details about something, then suddenly remembering it decades later.
''There is a motive to remember sexual assault because there is a motive to explain your problems and give you a justification and a reason for why you have problems, and that's one of the reasons that I see happen in a typical recovered memory case,'' said Dr. Loftus before reiterating the fact that we don't entirely know, besides ''some kind of marital difficulty,'' what brought her into therapy with her husband.The professor told me about two assaults from her own childhood experience, one of which she held onto for years while instantly telling authorities about the other.
''I had a sexual assault when I was 15 by some boys from a neighboring high school,'' she said. ''I remember it pretty well but I could not tell you for life of me who they were. I don't know if any of them went on to be famous.''
(''So, how does she,'' she wondered aloud at that point. ''He was a nobody back then. How did she know it was him?'')
''I told, right away,'' said Loftus. ''Why? I'm not sure exactly.'' While she contends the assault when she was 15 was ''worse'' than what Ford has described so far, Loftus ''told right away in my case and actually there was a subsequent - where boys from high school got together and they apologized and it was over.''
Loftus mentioned that it is ''certainly'' quite common not to tell authorities right away in ''child sex abuse cases,'' but the ''sort of teenage assault kind of thing'' Kavauaugh is alleged to have done is ''a little less embarrassing than child sex assault.''
''If she ran away and escaped, I don't know why you don't tell, in some sense,'' said Loftus. ''It seems easier to tell than the altar boy molested by the priest.''
Loftus didn't tell anyone about other abuse until ''a few years'' after she was married to her then-husband.
While acknowledging that ''people react differently to experiences,'' Dr. Loftus also expressed skepticism about the root causes of the ''symptoms'' - such as PTSD and anxiety issues - Ford claims to have as a result of the assault.Our talk inevitably circled back to the fact that we just ''don't know'' so many things about this case. If we knew, for example, how many of the supporters who knew Judge Kavanaugh from his high school days were from the girl's school Ford attended, we might discover how well Ford likely knew him as well.
Because of my own skepticism on the subject, I inevitably wanted to ask whether Dr. Loftus drew any red flags at encountering the word ''psychotherapy'' when reading the original Washington Post report. ''Yeah,'' she responded, laughing. ''Because I still feel that there's a chance that continued psychotherapy beyond the initial disclosure session could have resulted in what it sometimes does - developing the story, making it more coherent, adding details. But did those details get developed in psychotherapy? And again, we don't know, and I know she's a psychology professor and seems to have done a lot of good work in statistics and biostatistics. You can have intelligent, educated people who develop distorted memories. It could happen to any of us.''
Finally, whether through psychotherapy or her own memory over the years, could Ford have somehow ''amplified'' what happened to her to construct a very real ''memory'' of something that at the time may have been in actuality more benign - such as a misplaced grope or an awkward kiss?
''It is certainly possible that it wasn't quite as frightening or as violent as she's now describing it and as people are now refer to it, as a violent attempted rape,'' said Dr. Loftus. ''It's possible that it got more extreme in the course of her thinking about it.''
''In the midst of the MeToo movement I think some people are really reluctant to do anything other than embrace her story,'' noted Dr. Loftus. ''I'm a Democrat and I'm a pro-choice person, and I'm scared of having him on the Supreme Court, but if he doesn't get on I want it to be fair.''
Science Says Toxic Masculinity '-- More Than Alcohol '-- Leads To Sexual Assault | FiveThirtyEight
Booze-filled, chaperone-free parties. Teasing that crossed the line under the influence of alcohol. Relatively shy young men who became ''aggressive and even belligerent'' when drinking. Whatever the behavior of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, it's become clear that the circles he traveled in as a young man '-- both at prep school and later Yale University '-- were characterized by young men drinking, a lot. And by young women whose social interactions were fraught with danger.
And this is no surprise to experts who study campus sexual assault. Years of research both in and out of the lab suggests that there is a connection between young men drinking alcohol and making choices that destroy young women's lives. But it's not accurate to say alcohol causes sexual assault. Preventing rape will take more than simply convincing young men not to drink (let alone telling their victims to abstain). That's because booze is only part of the problem. Every drink is downed amid cultural expectations and societally mediated attitudes about women and power. Those things '-- and how young men absorb them '-- have a stronger causal influence than the alcohol alone. When a man feels entitled to assault someone, he may get drunk before he does it, but the decision to act was ultimately his alone.
Half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol consumption '-- usually by both the victim and perpetrator, said Kelly Cue Davis, a professor at Arizona State University. And a 2002 review of literature found that, across a number of studies, perpetrators were more likely to report using alcohol at the time of an assault than victims '-- 60 to 65 percent of perpetrators compared with 30 to 55 percent of victims. Although men can be both perpetrators of sexual violence and victims, almost all the research is focused on the heterosexual paradigm of male perpetrators and female victims, Davis said.
The best evidence for a causal connection between alcohol and the decision to commit sexual violence comes from experimental laboratory studies, said Dominic Parrott, professor of psychology at Georgia State University. In this kind of research, scientists take otherwise similar men and randomly split them into one group that is given alcohol and one that is not. Then they present both groups with proxies for a potential scenario in the real world '-- an audio scenario depicting an ethically questionable sexual encounter, for instance.
The men are then asked to tell the researchers when they would back off and leave the woman in the scenario alone. ''Men who are drinking tend to let those interactions go a lot further,'' Parrott said, ''past the point where most people would say it's consensual.'' In one study, those who drank alcohol listened an average of 30 seconds longer to the tape than those who didn't drink anything (even if they thought they did). Those 30 seconds included an escalation by the actors on the tape from verbal pressure to threats.
There are also a few studies that show a connection between committing acts of sexual violence or aggression and an increased likelihood of having drunk alcohol in the previous few hours. This research asks men to keep daily records of their drinking and sexual activities. It's expensive and difficult to do, said Maria Testa, professor of social psychology at the University at Buffalo, but it's one of the few ways we can show a causal link outside the lab.
Testing what causes real-world sexual assaults is particularly complicated by the fact that the men who commit them have things in common with each other that go far beyond booze. If you compare men who have perpetrated sexual assault to those who have not, the perpetrator group always drinks more, Testa said. For example, one study found that 53 percent of men who reported committing sexual violence met a diagnosis for alcoholism, compared with 25 percent of sexually active men who did not report committing sexual violence. But the impact of these other variables '-- anti-social behavior, for instance, and negative views about women '-- are much stronger predictors of sexual violence than alcohol use. ''And then alcohol is just sort of on top of it,'' she said.
Take a 2015 study that followed more than 700 men through four years of college. This research categorized the men into four groups based on the frequency of sexual assaults they reported committing and how that frequency did or didn't change over time '-- low frequency, high frequency, trending toward lower, and trending toward higher. Alcohol use was always higher among the men who committed more assaults than among those who committed fewer, but trends in assault weren't tied to trends in alcohol use. For instance, among men who reported committing fewer assaults over time and men who reported committing more assaults over time, each group drank less as seniors than they did as freshmen. But the men who committed fewer assaults over time also reported falling rates of impulsivity, hostility toward women, and beliefs that supported rape. The men whose rates of assault were going up, in contrast, reported a growing sense of peer support for forced sex, peer pressure, pornography use, and hostility toward women.
That makes sense if you think about it, Parrott said. After all, we know that not all men who drink, even excessively, commit sexual violence. Even men who do commit sexual violence don't do it every time they drink '-- and will also do it sober. Effectively, alcohol isn't an excuse. ''We don't want to say, 'Well, he was drinking so that's why he assaulted her. It's not his fault,''' he said.
Instead, current research suggests that prevention should focus on those perceptions and behaviors that did strongly predict assault. Although they're often referred to in the literature as ''personality variables,'' they aren't immutable characteristics any more than personality itself is immutable. ''There's a small number of sociopaths, but there's a lot of it that's cultural,'' Testa said. In other words: Are these men supported by peers who also voice negative attitudes about women? Is it considered socially acceptable to look for the drunkest girl at a party and try to take her home? Are there social consequences for young men who ignore consent?
The bad news about this conclusion is that these cultural attitudes are at least as widespread and as hard to change as teenage binge drinking. But change isn't impossible. That strong social-cultural element is why the big focus in sexual violence prevention right now is bystander intervention '-- finding ways to encourage people who are neither victim nor victimizer to change cultural norms and stop situations that are turning dangerous. There's a lot of evidence that this can be effective, Parrott said. In one study, researchers randomly assigned college men to participate in a program that combined bystander intervention training with other kinds of education about consent and sexual violence. Six months later, after administering follow-up surveys, researchers found the odds of committing sexual assault were 73 percent lower for men who had completed the training.
But here, also, there's an issue with alcohol. Sexual violence tends to happen in settings where everyone is drinking '-- remember Kavanaugh's prep-school's party circuit. And there's not a lot of research on how to prepare bystanders to step in and stop sexual violence when they, themselves, are also drunk, Parrott told me. In fact, self-report surveys suggest that alcohol can incapacitate the intercession. ''People who drink heavily are less likely to intervene,'' he said. Alcohol, it seems, might not be causing sexual assault '-- but it does contribute to our inability to stop it.
Dutch investigators say they have found a "large quantity" of bomb-making materials likely to be used in a car bomb. The discovery was made after the arrest of seven terror suspects.
Dutch investigators revealed on Friday they found a substantial quantity of raw materials for explosives at the homes of seven suspects arrested a day earlier on terror-related charges.
Officers also found "100 kilograms [220 pounds] of fertilizer, possibly for use in a car bomb," prosecutors said.
The men were reportedly planning to carry out a large-scale attack on an event with the aim of causing multiple casualties. The arrests followed a months-long investigation into a terror network.
The suspects, who were not named, made a brief appearance in Rotterdam District Court on Friday. The case was adjourned until next week. The seven men, who range from 21 to 34 years of age, have been remanded under maximum security conditions in the meantime.
Attacked thwarted
Dutch police said on Thursday they had foiled a major terrorist attack with the arrest of the seven suspected extremists in multiple raids across the country.
"Police arrested seven men on Thursday ... suspected of being at a very advanced stage of preparation for a major terrorist attack in the Netherlands," the public prosecutor's office said in a statement, adding one of the suspects had wanted to kill "many victims."
The suspects were planning to attack a large event with hand grenades, automatic weapons and explosives belts, according to prosecutors.
Police have not yet identified the target of the planned attack, which the prosecutor's office said would have included a separate car bombing.
The arrests capped a months-long investigation that was launched following intelligence that a man of Iraqi descent, the lead suspect, was targeting "a large event in the Netherlands where there would be a lot of victims."
The suspects came from Arnhem, the port city of Rotterdam and villages close to those two cities.
"One of the men from Arnhem wanted to commit an attack with a group at a major event in the Netherlands and kill many victims, according to the Dutch Intelligence Service," the prosecutor's office said.
Prior 'Islamic State' convictions
The 34-year-old man and two of the other suspects were previously convicted of traveling abroad to fight for "Islamic State" militants.
Prosecutors said that the investigation gathered pace this month because of the suspects' "advanced preparations," adding that they were in "search of AK47s, handguns, hand grenades, explosive vests and raw materials for several (car) bombs."
"In a sense it is serious, but luckily it's also good news - a terrorist cell that was plotting an attack has been taken down," Minister for Justice and Security Ferd Grapperhaus told Dutch national broadcaster NOS. "They weren't so far that it was a danger to society, in the sense that it was nearly too late. But they were quite far in their preparations."
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told journalists on Friday "a drama has been prevented in our country," adding that the chances of a terror attack in the Netherlands "remained a reality."
Every evening at 1830 UTC, DW editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.
kw, ap/kms (AP, Reuters, AFP)
Police In Netherlands Arrest 7 Suspected In Terrorist Plot To Attack 'Large Event' : NPR
A frame grab from a police video shows Netherlands officers arresting suspects in a car park in Weert in the southern Netherlands, Thursday. Netherlands Police via AP hide caption
toggle caption Netherlands Police via AP A frame grab from a police video shows Netherlands officers arresting suspects in a car park in Weert in the southern Netherlands, Thursday.
Netherlands Police via AP Dutch authorities have arrested seven men they believe were plotting to carry out a major terrorist attack against "a large event in the Netherlands."
Heavily armed police arrested the suspects in Arnhem, about 60 miles south of the capital, Amsterdam, and Weert, near the Dutch border with Germany and Belgium, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service said in a statement.
The arrests were the culmination of an investigation that began in April and yielded a "detailed view of the preparations by the suspects," according to a translation of the prosecution service's website.
It said the plan was thought to involve bombs, including a car bomb, grenades and Kalashnikov assault rifles at two separate locations at an unspecified "large event" with the goal of producing "many victims."
"The suspects were looking for AK47s, small arms, hand grenades, bombs and raw materials for one or more (car) bombs," the statement said.
"They also sought opportunities for training with firearms," and bombs, it said.
Minister for Justice and Security Fred Grapperhaus told national broadcaster NOS that police moved against the suspects in time to foil the attack.
"In a sense it is serious, but luckily it's also good news - a terrorist cell that was plotting an attack has been taken down," he said.
"They weren't so far that it was a danger to society," he said. "But they were quite far in their preparations."
Last month, two U.S. citizens traveling in the Netherlands sustained serious but not life threatening wounds in a stabbing at Amsterdam's Central Railway station. Dutch authorities said the incident had "a terrorist motive." The suspect, a 19-year-old Afghan man, was shot and detained by authorities.
Last year, authorities in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam were forced to cancel a concert by the American garage band Allah-Las after a warning from Spanish authorities led to the arrest of two men suspected of planning a terrorist attack.
I received a disturbing warning today from a source I trust.
The short version is: if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a ''women in tech'' advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp.
IRC conversation, portions redacted to protect my informant, follows.
15:17:58 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I'm super careful about honey traps. For a | while, that's how the Ada Initiative was | trying to pre-generate outrage and collect | scalps. 15:18:12 esr | REALLY? 15:18:22 esr | That's perverse. 15:18:42 XXXXXXXXXXXX | Yeah, because the upshot is, I no longer | can afford to mentor women who are already | in tech. 15:18:54 esr | Right. 15:19:01 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I can and do mentor ones who are not in | it, but are interested and able 15:19:21 XXXXXXXXXXXX | but once one is already in... nope 15:20:08 XXXXXXXXXXXX | The MO was to get alone with the target, | and then immediately after cry "attempted | sexual assault". 15:23:27 esr | When the backlash comes it's going to be | vicious. And women who were not part of | this bullshit will suffer for it. 15:23:41 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I can only hope. 15:25:21 esr | Ah. On the "Pour encourager les autres" | principle? I hadn't thought of that. | Still damned unfortunate, though. 15:26:40 XXXXXXXXXXXX | Linus is never alone at any conference. | This is not because he lets fame go to his | head and likes having a posse around. 15:26:54 XXXXXXXXXXXX | They have made multiple runs at him. 15:27:29 esr | Implied warning noted. 15:27:34 * | XXXXXXXXXXXX nodsAn A&D regular who is not myself was present for this conversation, but I'll let him choose whether to confirm his presence and the content.
''They have made multiple runs at him.'' Just let the implications of that sink in for a bit. If my source is to be believed (and I have found him both well-informed and completely trustworthy in the past) this was not a series of misunderstandings, it was a deliberately planned and persistent campaign to frame Linus and feed him to an outrage mob.
I have to see it as an an attempt to smear and de-legitimize the Linux community (and, by extension, the entire open-source community) in order to render it politically pliable.
Linus hasn't spoken out about this; I can think of several plausible and good reasons for that. And the Ada Initiative shut down earlier this year. Nevertheless, this report is consistent with reports of SJW dezinformatsiya tactics from elsewhere and I think it would be safest to assume that they are being replicated by other women-in-tech groups.
(Don't like that, ladies? Tough. You were just fine with collective guilt when the shoe was on the other foot. Enjoy your turn!)
I'm going to take my source's implied advice. And view ''sexual assault'' claims fitting this MO with extreme skepticism in the future.
Nederland vol met 'terreurkantoren' | Binnenland | Telegraaf.nl
Ingeklemd tussen twee hippe broodjeszaken staat in hartje Utrecht een geblindeerd huis zonder bord of opschrift, alleen een deurbel. Een vriendelijke Filipijnse meneer doet open. Dit is het Nederlandse kantoor van de Stichting National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Het ziet eruit zoals je je een Marxistisch-Leninistisch revolutiebolwerk voorstelt: volstrekt anoniem van buiten, maar binnen behangen met schilderijen vol communistische vlaggen en strijdlustig geheven kalasjnikovs.
Het is de uitvalsbasis van de 79-jarige revolutionair Jose Maria Sison. Jarenlang stond hij op de terroristenlijst van de EU. Tien jaar geleden werd Sison van zijn bed gelicht. Hij zou opdracht hebben gegeven voor drie politieke moorden in de Filipijnen. Daarvoor bleek te weinig bewijs. Sison noemt zich 'een denker, geen vechter.'
Lees hier het volledige artikel over buitenlandse verzetgroepen in Nederland, met onder meer de ASMLA, de PKK en DHKP/C:
Dagelijks tijdens de lunch het laatste nieuws in je inbox?Ongeldig e-mailadres. Vul nogmaals in aub.
Uitschrijven kan met 1 klik
Deze aanslag is verijdeld, maar 'we volgen niet iedereen' | Aanslag verijdeld | AD.nl
AD maakt gebruik van cookiesJa, ik accepteer cookies
AD en Krant.nl gebruiken cookies en vergelijkbare technologien ('cookies') onder andere om je een optimale gebruikerservaring te bieden. Ook kunnen we hierdoor het gedrag van bezoekers vastleggen en analyseren en deze informatie toevoegen aan bezoekersprofielen.
Cookies kunnen worden gebruikt om advertenties te tonen en artikelen aan te bevelen op AD die aansluiten op jouw interesses. Ook derden kunnen jouw internetgedrag volgen. Cookies kunnen gebruikt worden om op sites van derden relevante advertenties te tonen. Cookies van derde partijen maken daarnaast mogelijk dat je informatie kunt delen via social media zoals Twitter en Facebook.
AD deelt de informatie die zij verkrijgt middels het gebruik van cookies en vergelijkbare technieken, waaronder ook persoonsgegevens, in een samenwerkingsverband genaamd NLProfiel van Buymedia Nederland met Sanoma en Telegraaf Media Groep om gezamenlijke groepsprofielen op te stellen. Door op 'Ja, ik accepteer cookies' te klikken, gaat u akkoord met de verstrekking van uw (persoons)gegevens aan Sanoma en Telegraaf Media Groep voor de totstandkoming van de gezamenlijke groepsprofielen.
Meer informatie hierover vind je in ons cookie-statement.
Om artikelen op AD te kunnen lezen, dien je de cookies te accepteren door op 'Ja, ik accepteer cookies' te klikken.
De serviceafdeling is te bereiken op telefoonnummer 088 - 0505 050. De servicepagina kun je hier vinden. Klik hier om direct de Krant.ad.nl te lezen.
OTG
Alcatel Flip Phone Go
Fast
Light
Cheap
Google blacked login attempt, couldn't identify the device-Yay!
I've always believed the web is for everyone. That's why I and others fight fiercely to protect it. The changes we've managed to bring have created a better and more connected world. But for all the good we've achieved, the web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas.
Today, I believe we've reached a critical tipping point, and that powerful change for the better is possible - and necessary.
This is why I have, over recent years, been working with a few people at MIT and elsewhere to develop Solid , an open-source project to restore the power and agency of individuals on the web.
Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we've all discovered, this hasn't been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance - by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.
Solid is a platform, built using the existing web. It gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use. It allows you, your family and colleagues, to link and share data with anyone. It allows people to look at the same data with different apps at the same time.
Solid unleashes incredible opportunities for creativity, problem-solving and commerce. It will empower individuals, developers and businesses with entirely new ways to conceive, build and find innovative, trusted and beneficial applications and services. I see multiple market possibilities, including Solid apps and Solid data storage.
Data should empower you
Solid is guided by the principle of ''personal empowerment through data'' which we believe is fundamental to the success of the next era of the web. We believe data should empower each of us.
Imagine if all your current apps talked to each other, collaborating and conceiving ways to enrich and streamline your personal life and business objectives? That's the kind of innovation, intelligence and creativity Solid apps will generate.
With Solid, you will have far more personal agency over data - you decide which apps can access it.
Injecting momentum
In 2009, I said, ''The web as I envisaged it we have not seen yet.'' That was because people were using the web just for documents, not for the data of a big web-wide computer. Since then, we have seen a wave of open data, but not of read-write data. For example, much open government data is produced through a one-way pipeline, so we can only view it. With Solid, it becomes a read-write web where users can interact and innovate, collaborate and share.
Meanwhile though, there is a wave of concern, and related energy, desperate for change. People want to have a web they can trust. People want apps that help them do what they want and need to do - without spying on them. Apps that don't have an ulterior motive of distracting them with propositions to buy this or that. People will pay for this kind of quality and assurance. For example, today people pay for storage in places like Dropbox. There is a need for Solid, and the different, beneficial approach it will provide.
It is going to take a lot of effort to build the new Solid platform and drive broad adoption but I think we have enough energy to take the world to a new tipping point.
So I have taken a sabbatical from MIT, reduced my day-to-day involvement with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and founded a company called inrupt where I will be guiding the next stage of the web in a very direct way. Inrupt will be the infrastructure allowing Solid to flourish. Its mission is to provide commercial energy and an ecosystem to help protect the integrity and quality of the new web built on Solid.
There are many examples of open-source efforts that have benefited hugely from the contribution of a well-resourced company. While the open-source community provides initiative and a deep source of innovation, everyday web users as well as businesses often look for applications and services from a commercial entity that also provides technical support and vital, ancillary business services.
I believe this same model will be critical to the success of Solid. Inrupt's success is totally aligned to Solid's success. My partner and inrupt co-founder is John Bruce, an experienced business leader with the skills to execute on my vision for Solid. We share the same passion for creating a better and more balanced web.
Together, Solid and inrupt will provide new experiences benefitting every web user - and that are impossible on the web today. Where individuals, developers and businesses create and find innovative, life- and business-enriching, applications and services. Where we all find trusted services for storing, securing and managing personal data.
I'm incredibly optimistic for this next era of the web.
I'll still be acting as Founder and Director of W3C, the Web Foundation and the Open Data Institute as these are vital components for protecting what has been - and what will come. Inrupt, a W3C member, uses many existing standards and is part of the standards-building community. The Web Foundation advocates for data rights as part of its mission to advance a free and open web that benefits humanity. And the Open Data Institute's drive to make data as open as possible while respecting privacy is very relevant. I wear many hats and when I'm working in each capacity, I'll always try to act according to the interests of that organization.
These are very exciting times. I will be committed to steering the direction of Solid, and developing its future governance. Inrupt will do many things: its first priority will be the Solid ecosystem. With the right values and a foundational corporate infrastructure, we will build beneficial systems that work for everyone.
The future is still so much bigger than the past.
Dog are people too
California divorce courts go to dogs as pets gain status
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California courts could be going to the dogs — and maybe cats, too — under a new law granting judges authority to settle disagreements over who keeps the family pet in divorce cases the same way they handle child-custody disputes.
Until now, Fido and Kitty have been considered family property, a status giving them little more standing in a divorce than a family's big-screen TV.
Under a bill signed Thursday by Gov. Jerry Brown, pets will still be considered community property but a judge deciding who gets to keep them will have the discretion of weighing such factors as who feeds them, who takes them to the vet and on walks, and who protects them.
"I think it's a good idea. I personally have a little rescue bichon poodle named Rodney King Stone. He's like a family member," said family law attorney Megan Green of Los Angeles, who has seen her share of divorce cases where couples battled relentlessly over the pet.
In one case, a woman said the dog was a gift from her husband, but the husband maintained he was the one who took care of it. They finally worked out an agreement just ahead of trial.
Without the law that goes into effect on Jan. 1, attorneys say judges have often had to get creative in reaching agreements when both sides say they can't bear to part with their pet.
Some judges have put the dog between the would-be owners and tried to determine who it liked the best. If a family had two pets, a judge would sometimes suggest splitting them up.
"Or if there's only one dog, a court may do like, 'OK, you get the dog a month at a time, a week at a time," said family law attorney Atousa Saei.
Assemblyman Bill Quirk, a Hayward Democrat who introduced the law, said it's time family pets got the status they deserve — family members.
Quirk himself has a Maltese-ShihTzu mix named Luna and calls himself "the proud parent of a rescued dog."
He found an ally in California's pet-loving governor, who has a photo of "first dog" Lucy Brown on his website.
"When she is not out exploring the family ranch in Colusa County with the governor and first lady, Lucy can be found guarding the office and herding staff at the state Capitol," according to her bio.
Dogs in Subaru commercial first day of obedience school
NA-Tech News
iPhone's are OUT in NL
5G from Eduardo
Hi
Adam
Not
sure if you read but please forward this message to John.
I
know a person that works at Nokia in Finland and he is participating a lot in
seminars and workshops around the world to define the 5g standards.
He,
as technical person, complains that there are many big players defining the
standards and all of them are pushing to get theirs patents in the standards.
There are case of conflicting patents that are there, etc...
As
you mentioned in the last podcast you are going to investigate a little about
it, maybe this could be something to check.
Also,
NTT Docomo, the Japanese Telecom company is pushing a lot to get the system
If you read the barrage of scary literature about 5G mobile phone technology, specifically the use of millimeter wave frequencies to transmit data, you must conclude that it is a bad bet.
I'm not saying this because the technology does not work. It's a bad bet because so little is known about the effects of millimeter waves (30GHz-300GHz). While these frequencies only permeate a small fraction of the human epidermis (the skin), the effect on the cornea, in particular, needs serious research.
Because the industry is too cheap to study the health effects of the technology itself, it lets this sort of product out the door despite the fact that it has already been weaponized by the military. These frequencies are so poor at travelling long distances, they need a transmitter on nearly every telephone pole and light pole to make 5G work.
5G is already getting some bad publicity, which could result in everything from bans on the technology to equipment destruction by vigilantes.
Of course, when you read deeper into what the chip and telecom companies are trying to do, you quickly discover that many systems calling themselves 5G are currently 4G mods using 5G as a marketing tool. Let's ignore that scam and stay focused on millimeter waves.
As usual, the mostly arrogant (or na¯ve) technology industry is caught flat-footed at the negative reaction. It always figures that the stupid public will buy into anything new and jazzy if it makes their handheld phone seem a little faster, and even pay more for the privilege of the upgrade.
One of the ways the industry has made this all work in the past is by quick implementation followed by a "Hey look it works! Nobody was killed" approach. That cannot happen with true 5G, which needs all these mini-towers all over the place. That leaves plenty more time for the public to get a clue and be freaked out.
When you do a search for "5G is Safe" on Google and Bing, you get a number of negative stories and a laundry list of why some people believe it's unsafe. Companies may as well begin to market a 5G mobile phone with a skull and crossbones on it.
If this bad PR is somehow reversed and 5G takes over the market, I will be shocked. The way it is going does not bode well for any of it.
As many of you know, I was unceremoniously fired from PC Magazine on Sept. 20th, 2018 after over 30 years of service. I just figured it was the new people coming in and I was an unneeded throwback to the old regime.
This sort of thing happens a lot. Then one of the No Agenda producers noticed a recent column of mine was pulled from the magazine and redirected to someone else's column about the same subject. It also went missing from the index of Dvorak columns. If you did a google search for the column it showed up but clicking on the Google link resulted in a re-direction to the other column.
The difference was my column was interpreted as critical of 5G. The replacement (and an additional column that came later), was more of a cheer-leading column.
In fact, my column was more reporting than opinion as I was reflecting on all the bad press 5G was getting from every corner. My conclusion was that, unless this stopped, 5G would never get off the ground.
I never once considered that expunging my column then firing me would be part of this process. I've asked the editors about this and got no replies.
This is a cautionary tale. Anyone writing for any publisher in today's commercial market, where the managed advertorial and native ad seems to be the only way to make money, needs to be cautious.
More importantly today's readers need to be a little more than cautious when believing anything. Native advertising is a most insidious concept and should be rejected by every publisher. Instead it is welcomed by the broadcasting networks and most of the major newspapers including the New York Times. Are the writers saying nice things or are they paid to say nice things?
Whatever the case, the independent voice cannot exist in this corrupt milieu and be truly independent. This is why I was happy to help develop the value-for-value model employed at the No Agenda podcast where I've been working with Adam Curry for over a decade. There are no advertisers, period.
I do not want to brag about being a visionary and say that I saw this coming 10 years ago, but I did. Independent opinions and viewpoints as well as unhindered research can only be done with a direct payment method from the customer (the reader).
Advertising, advertisers, corporate sponsors cannot abide by ''opinions'' mucking up their strategies.
Keep that in mind when you choose your information sources.'Š'--'Šjcd
Addendum'Š'--'Šthe original 5G column is still up in India! Click here.
Brexit
EXPLOSIVE: May totally isolated '' Hunt & Johnson gearing up for leadership contest post Conference '' The Slog.
As Boris makes a remarkable gesture towards Brussels, Hunt is working overtime to establish himself as the 'Centrist' candidate acceptable to soft Brexiteers, the Globalist Giga-Rich and the Conservative middle ground. The Slog analyses their chances. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
The Westminster, MSM and Tory grassroots rumour mills have finally made their minds up about Theresa May: she is doomed. But so far, there is no plan to usurp her authority at Conference. All the various factions intent on getting her out seem to be taking the view that '' given enough rope next week '' she will hang herself: the faint praise of mild applause will, they think, seal her fate.
Although the Bookies continue to make Boris Johnson the front-runner to replace Theresa May, turf accountants are not renowned for their in-depth knowledge of how the Conservative Party works. Nor do they grasp the Who's Who of the Alt States. Given that context, as of today I believe there to be only two serious candidates: Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson.
At one level, their rivalry is already shaping up to be The Times versus The Telegraph. The latter's candidate is very clearly Boris. In a lengthy but pointed essay this morning, BoJo nailed his colours to the mast of what he called a 'Super-Canada' deal. But in what may at first seem like a risky move, Johnson made the remarkable suggestion that Britain should withdraw it's request to leave the EU, in order have more time to better prepare for the departure to come.
The suggestion will dismay what I'd call Sovereign Brexiteers, who overwhelmingly feel that enough time has been wasted already. But in truth, this is classic Boris stuff: for all his image as a swashbuckling and decisive politician and Man of the People, he is none of those things. He tries to please several Alt States '' the City, Newscorp, the Barclay Twins, the neocons '' but having hedged his bets, he dithers. He literally caught the last train at 11.55 pm to Brexit Central, and the day after the referendum '' surprised to find his team had won '' BoJo looked phased, ill at ease and keen to take things slowly. The next day, he went to play cricket with his chums, joined in a barbecue and got drunk. It took him an uncomfortably long time to resign after having gained sight of the Chequers Plan.
It is primarily ambition that drives his demand for Sovereign Brexit: there is little or no evidence that he really wants it. He gambles that it is the populist stance, that it is what Rupert Murdoch wants, that his rabidly anti-Putin stance over the Skripal affair did enough to establish his position with the oil-Pentagon-State Department movers, and that Tories already glum about the Party's Election chances will rally to his populist banner.
Indeed, the Barclay Boys obliged him by making that last point today, spinning like mad in their assertion that ''prominent Tories'' are now rallying behind Johnson's 'Plan B' for Brexit. But the only name they could come up with was Jacob Rees-Mogg'...not exactly a surprise. The reality is that Boris has never been able to ''shake the flake'': he gets into all kinds of hot water, does daft things, says awkward things and has umpteen skeletons rattling away in his cupboard.
So while Kate Hoey is correct in her assessment that the Conservative Party is shifting towards taking a tougher line in the Brexit negotiations (Only Brussels can do this, because it pisses off the allies other enemies cannot reach) in fact there is someone '' a man I am sure is, in the long game, The Chosen One '' working more effectively than Boris Johnson to ensure money and support from All the Right People.
That man is of course Jeremy Hunt, and he currently holds the powerful post once occupied by the Blond Turk. For he is the foreign secretary'...and in the best position to shine in relation to everything from UK trade deals beyond Brexit and the Brussels negotiating stance to the anti-Russian venom and privatisation fervour so beloved of the global American-led Military Industrial Complex.
Equally attractive is his solid track record as a man become very rich indeed by corrupt usage of his familial, media and Health connections among the British Mefirst (C)lites. When it comes to A Safe Pair of Hands, there's very little held in higher esteem by the world's Bourses and the Washington Incrowd than a well-deserved reputation as a total and utter bastard.
There are four immediate and crucial things to realise about Our Jeremy as the Tory dysfunction threatens to get past the point of no return:
The Murdoch press has dumped Boris, and is giving glowing coverage to Hunt. In the last eight days alone, The Times has led positively on him making a bid for Jpanese trade, defending Burmese Muslims, Google's compliance with Chinese censorship, tough talking one-to-one with the Russian foreign minister, hard line statements about Iranian cynicism and complete acceptance of the May/EU/NATO nonsense about chemical weapon usage in Syria.Hunt has given high-profile statements, leaks and briefings to the British press warning Brussels that it should ''not misinterpret British good manners as weakness''.His membership of the Tell Theresa the Truth Troika. In a piece yesterday about the withering mirage that was May's Cabinet support, Murdoch's Times presented Jeremy Hunt as the leader of that three-pronged fork aimed at the Prime Minister's buttocks, identifying (correctly I think) the other two as Dominic Raab and Michael Gove. But The Thunderer was dismissive of Johnson's position today, quoting Dominic Grieve's assertion that his Plan B was ''all rhetoric and devoid of substance''. As that is clearly untrue, we can see that Roop's well-honed nose for wind direction had decided to get firmly behind Hunt'....in exactly the same manner as he did with Trump in late 2017.Love or loathe the bloke (and regular readers will know where I stand on that one) Jeremy Hunt is perhaps the only runner in the Conservative leadership stakes who really can credibly claim that he has a history of toughness, sound management, influence, survival and healing qualities to get the Tories back into shape, and deliver a Brexit that will appeal to most Tory and enough Opposition MPs. It won't have any validity for me and other genuine Brexit advocates '' but that's another issue.I took David Lidington's barely lukewarm support for Theresa May's rigid Chequersism last night as the final, devastating sign that she is history. Cuddling up to the Prime Minister now is very close to indulging in necrophilia. She will probably limp through next week's Conference'...and then be savaged by a pride of lions soon thereafter.
By Russell Contreras - Associated PressThursday, September 20, 2018
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. '-- The mysterious closure of a solar observatory in southern New Mexico earlier this month happened after the FBI started opened a child pornography investigation involving a janitor's computer found at the observatory and agents tracked wireless signals used to access child porn, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit filed in federal court.
The mountaintop Sunspot Solar Observatory closed for from Sept. 6 to Sept. 17 but the research association that manages it has said only that an unspecified security issue was the reason for the closure. The facility employs a small group of scientists, researchers and students to capture some of the sharpest images of the sun available in the world.
The search warrant filed last week in federal court the city of Las Cruces said the facility's chief observer, who was not identified, told FBI agents in August he found a laptop computer with child pornography several months earlier but did not immediately report the discovery to authorities because he was ''distracted'' by an unspecified urgent issue at the observatory.
The search warrant provided to a judge the justifications of agents so they could search computers, cellphones or tablets owned by the janitor, Joshua Lee Cope, and the house trailer where he lives. An FBI agent seized the laptop at the observatory on August 21, 2018, and took it to the FBI office in Las Cruces, court documents said.
FBI spokesman Frank Fisher said Thursday that Cope, 30, has not been charged and the investigation is ongoing.
Cope lives on property owned by his parents in the community of La Luz, New Mexico, the search warrant said. A phone message left for Cope at a telephone number listed for his parents seeking comment was not immediately returned.
After Cope could not find his laptop, the court documents said, he began to act frantically and told the chief observer that there was a ''serial killer in the area, and that he was fearful that the killer might enter the facility and execute someone.''
The observatory closed, without consulting FBI agents, after Cope's comments about the serial killer and his erratic behavior, the warrant said.
The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, that group that manages the site under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, declined comment on the details about the observatory in the court documents.
''We cannot comment on an ongoing law enforcement investigation,'' said association spokeswoman Shari Lifson.
Lifson did not immediately reply to an email asking to Cope was still an employee.
The Sunspot Solar Observatory was established in 1947 atop Sacramento Peak in the Lincoln National Forest and overlooks the Tularosa Basin '' an expanse of desert that includes the city of Alamogordo, Holloman Air Force Base, White Sands Missile Range, White Sands National Monument and the site of the world's first atomic bomb test.
It was built by the U.S. Air Force. After several years of operation, it was transferred to the National Solar Observatory, which is part of the National Science Foundation.
Data from observations done at Sunspot is sent to New Mexico State University servers and can be used by researchers around the world.
Copyright (C) 2018 The Washington Times, LLC.
Migrants
$7k immigration bond
Refugees on Greek island throw away their meals as they are dissatisfied with the food
A video that outraged many Greek people was released from the Moria refugee camp, from the island of Lesbos, Greece.
It shows angry migrants (or refugees in leftist language) throwing away meals on the street.
According to Greek news portal News One, the throwing of food was a way for the camp's residents to protest against their living conditions.
For the Greek it's very controversial, as currently, many Greeks cannot afford to satisfy even their basic needs like food and a home.
Earlier today we interviewed the mayor of the island and he said the locals have lost their faith in authorities:
''The local community is tired from this prolonged unresolved issue and also have lost their faith in what the central administration and the European Union have promised but not delivered,'' Lesbos mayor Spyros Galinos said.
In May he said that on the island, ''women are afraid to go out of their homes, we keep our children in our houses'' as the island is exhausted from the ongoing dangerous situation with migrants.
Elite$
Oud-president Obama bezoekt Anne Frank Huis | NU - Het laatste nieuws het eerst op NU.nl
Beste bezoeker, Wij zien dat u een adblocker gebruikt waardoor u alleen advertenties ziet die door uw adblocker worden goedgekeurd. Dit vinden wij jammer, want NU.nl is mede dankzij onze advertenties gratis toegankelijk. Wilt u een uitzondering maken voor NU.nl, of meer lezen over hoe wij met advertenties omgaan? Klik dan hier.
NU Zondag 30 september 2018
|
Het laatste nieuws het eerst op NU.nl
Foto: AFP
De Amerikaanse oud-president Barack Obama heeft vrijdag een bezoek gebracht aan het Anne Frank Huis. Hij schreef in het gastenboek dat het verhaal van Anne Frank ons moet helpen onthouden te vechten tegen antisemitisme en discriminatie.
Het Anne Frank Huis schrijft in een reactie op Facebook "vereerd en ontroerd te zijn".
De oud-president schreef in het gastenboek dat "het verhaal en de stem van zo'n jong meisje ons herinnert aan de afschuwelijke wreedheid waartoe mensen in staat zijn". "Maar belangrijker nog: het herinnert ons ook aan de veerkracht en schoonheid van de menselijke geest."
Hij schrijft verder: "Het Anne Frank Huis dient als een plek waar we eraan herinnerd worden om te vechten tegen antisemitisme, racisme en discriminatie in al haar vormen."
Obama was in Nederland voor een leiderschapsevenement in Amsterdam. Hij sprak de zaal onder meer toe over globalisering.
Facebook & Twitter
Volg het nieuws van NU.nl/Entertainment ook op Facebook en Twitter
NUshop
Obama addresses business leaders in Helsinki on climate, technology | Yle Uutiset | yle.fi
Former US President Barack Obama at the Nordic Business Forum seminar in Helsinki on 27 September. Image: Jussi Nukari / Lehtikuva Former US president Barack Obama made a brief visit to Finland on Thursday. He was the keynote speaker at the Nordic Business Forum, held at the Helsinki Fair Centre. Some 7,500 people from 40 countries were in attendance.
Obama arrived in a private airplane after speaking the previous day in Oslo, Norway.
After a brief 15-minute drive from Helsinki Airport, the former head of state arrived at the venue in Pasila around 4pm amid high security.
He first met briefly and posed for pictures with 73 attendees who had paid for the highest-price tickets, sold at 3,700 euros each. The VIP tickets sold out before the name of the keynote speaker was announced.
Forum CEO Aslak De Silva says that bringing Obama to Finland was the result of a long process of negotiation. Organisers have not revealed how much Obama was paid for the appearance.
Obama was hosted onstage by Skype founder Niklas Zennstr¶m.
Finland "the world's happiest country"The ex-president took the stage around 4.30pm, leading off by saying that "Finland is the world's happiest country" adding that there is much to be learned from this country. He later joked that everyone in Finland knows each other from sitting in saunas.
The hour-long address covered such topics ranging from technology, social media, artificial intelligence to the state of democracy in Poland, and even basketball and praise for his wife Michelle Obama.
''Global problems call for global solutions,'' said Obama, citing climate change and the state of the world's oceans as examples. Therefore mechanisms such as the UN's Paris Agreement on Climate Change are essential, he said.
Obama ended his speech around 5.30pm with a quote from John F. Kennedy: ''Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.'' He then headed straight back to the airport.
The last time that a former US president visited Finland was in May 2006, when Bill Clinton spoke at a business seminar in Tampere. Clinton had previously Helsinki visited as president in 1997 '' the last visit by a sitting US president until Donald Trump arrived for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki this past July.
Antifa!
Commies Discuss 'Ambush and Assassination' Strategy Against the Right
Communist agitators took to Twitter this week to brainstorm strategies for a violent armed insurrection against their perceived enemies, Far Left Watch reported.
''Dr. Bones," the co-host of the far-left podcast The Guillotine, started the conversation going with his 5,000-plus Twitter followers. Bones (@Ole_Bonsey on Twitter) asked: ''Hey quick little question for military minded lefties: should leftists train/organize in a 'insurgent' focus where they blend into a civilian population for potential attacks or a more 'militia' structure focused on holding/maintaining turf?''
Bones went on to suggest that fellow travelers organize "hidden cells" and focus on ambushes and assassinations to bleed "right-leaning forces" dry. He said that during the day comrades should pretend to be into "helping everybody" and never talk about their "nighttime activities."
The Guillotine podcast, which covers ''global current events from a revolutionary communist and anarchist perspective,'' has nearly 15,000 Facebook followers and 250 active monthly donors on its Patreon account.
You might build a home that's a perfect sanctuary, but you have little control over what happens around it, especially when it comes to nuisance neighbors. Whether your dwelling is urban, suburban or on a private island, if you're human, you're bound to be irritated by things your neighbors do. In a recent poll, we set out to identify the cities in America where neighbors roil each other most, and a laundry list of the most common complaints.
We surveyed residents from 24 of the biggest cities in America, and, inevitably, there were winners and losers. Atop the list of most annoying cities are Dallas, Miami and Austin. Cities where neighbors are least annoying include Minneapolis, Portland and Atlanta. Interestingly, climate may play a role'--four of the five most annoying cities are in hot, southern climates and four of the five least annoying cities are in temperate climates further north. Maybe staying cool is part of the equation? Either way, we know Americans have a long list of specific complaints.
Without question, noise is the leading offense. Loud music is the top culprit in that category, and no city has the volume turned up higher than Houston. People also cite loud kids, pets and TVs as top ten issues, but drowning those out are the loud voices of our fellow adults. Loud talking and shouting is the second most annoying thing that neighbors do!
General grumpiness also made the top ten, along with parking issues and dog poop (we're looking at you, Nashville). Other modes of annoyance include smells (tobacco, pets, cooking) and filth (overflowing garbage, dirty yard, dirty home exterior). As for common annoyances that are not-so-annoying, Americans are forgiving when it comes to personal expression, specifically in the form of yard signs, holiday decorations, and'... nudity in and around the property.
Once we fielded all the gripes, we asked respondents, ''Did you confront anyone about it?'' Results were close to an even split'--56 percent of Americans have confronted a neighbor, 46 percent have not. For those who have, face-to-face is the preferred method, followed by a full-blown escalation in calling the police. As for the cities where people are most likely to confront an annoying neighbor, San Antonio, San Diego and Houston top the list.
Methodology: In August 2018, we surveyed 2,500 adult residents of 24 cities. Results are based on a sample of at least 100 residents from each city.
Oh Elon!
Elon Musk forced to step down as chairman of Tesla, remains CEO - The Verge
Elon Musk has reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the charges filed earlier this week over his abandoned attempt to take Tesla private. Musk will have to step down as the chairman of Tesla within 45 days, and will not be able to take that role with the company again for three years. He will be able to remain Tesla's CEO during that time.
Alongside the settlement, the SEC also charged Tesla with ''failing to have required disclosure controls and procedures relating to Musk's tweets,'' according to the agency. Tesla has already agreed to settle this charge. Both Musk and the company will pay separate $20 million fines that will ''be distributed to harmed investors under a court-approved process,'' according to the SEC, and Tesla is being made to appoint two new independent directors to its board. The company will also hire a lawyer to monitor Musk's communications, including his tweets, according to the agreement.
A lawyer will now oversee Musk's communications '-- including his tweets
''The total package of remedies and relief announced today are specifically designed to address the misconduct at issue by strengthening Tesla's corporate governance and oversight in order to protect investors,'' Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC's enforcement division, said in a statement.
The terms of the settlement closely mirror the deal that numerous outlets reported was on the table Thursday morning, which would have required a two-year chairman ban and a $10 million fine. The two sides were so close to agreeing to those terms, according to the New York Times, that press releases were even being drafted. Musk ultimately decided that he didn't want to go through with it, though, and later that day the SEC charged him with securities fraud.
In addition to the other terms, Musk had to agree to a condition where he is not allowed to either ''admit nor deny'' whether he was guilty of committing securities fraud, meaning that he cannot publicly state that he did nothing wrong '-- something that was reportedly a sticking point that caused Musk to walk away from the original deal.
The SEC opened an investigation into Musk and Tesla in early August, shortly after the CEO abruptly announced on Twitter that he was considering taking the company private at a share price of $420. Musk said that he had the ''funding secured'' to pull off the feat, and that support from investors was confirmed as well.
While Musk reportedly had held multiple meetings with Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund about backing the privatization effort, the SEC argued in its lawsuit that Musk did not have a solid deal in place, and therefore his tweets were therefore ''false and misleading'' to investors.
''Musk knew that he had never discussed a going-private transaction at $420 per share with any potential funding source, had done nothing to investigate whether it would be possible for all current investors to remain with Tesla as a private company via a 'special purpose fund,' and had not confirmed support of Tesla's investors for a potential going- private transaction,'' the agency wrote in its complaint.
The first hearing in the SEC's case against Musk was scheduled for February. The Department of Justice reportedly still has an open investigation into his failed privatization attempt, and a number of shareholders have sued Musk in court for losses resulting from the alleged market manipulation.
#MeToo
Linus Torvalds and Linux Code of Conduct: 7 myths debunked | ZDNet
Since Linus Torvalds announced he was taking time off to work on his behavior in the Linux developer community and a new Linux kernel developer Code of Conduct (CoC) was introduced, there has been endless malarkey written about both moves.
Here are some of the more hysterical myths regarding what's happening:
Myth 1. The Linux kernel has been taken over by Social Justice Warriors (SJW)!
Hardly! The new CoC is based on Coraline Ada Ehmke's Contributor Covenant, version 1.4. It's been been adopted by many open-source projects such as Eclipse, Ruby, and Kubernetes.
While the code isn't that controversial, Ehmke has spoken out against transphobia, which has been seen by some as pushing her own agenda on open-source projects. Her sarcastic tweet ("I can't wait for the mass exodus from Linux now that it's been infiltrated by SJWs. Hahahah.") helped bring on the flames. But Ehmke has no leadership role in the Linux community. And Ehmke later tweeted, "Maybe they think I have a commit bit on the Linux kernel? Maybe they can't read git and so they think that I merged the commit. "
Also: Tech industry is leaving behind women of color, report shows CNET
Torvalds, with other senior Linux kernel developers, added the CoC. No one else did. The Linux Foundation's Linux Technical Advisory Board (TAB) is in charge of enforcing it. Theodore "Ted" T'so, a senior Linux kernel developer and Google engineer, explained on the LKML, "The TAB can make a recommendation, but the decision to act on that recommendation resides with the Maintainers in general, and ultimately, Linus."
Sage Sharp, the former kernel developer who left the Linux community because of its toxicity, doesn't trust TAB to do its duty by the code. Sharp tweeted, "I have no faith that the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board will respond to a Code of Conduct violation promptly or with a well-thought out response. Please push the board to release an anonymized transparency report on all past Linux kernel Code of Conduct violation cases."
Does this sound like SJWs are taking over Linux? I don't think so.
Myth 2. Linus Torvalds left and then adopted the CoC to get ahead of The New Yorker article about his discouraging women from working on the kernel.
It played a factor. But, having known Torvalds for almost 30 years, I doubt it mattered much to him. There was no new news in the article. The Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) is open, and Torvald's sometimes angry management style has been on display for decades. As Torvalds wrote, he realized he "had been ignoring some fairly deep-seated feelings in the community."
Also: 'There's a culture that works against women'
Torvalds added, "I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody. Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good."
Myth 3. Nothing is going to change.
Personally, I think the Code of Conduct in and of itself won't make much of a difference. I believe you can't legislate morality. What Torvalds does when he gets back will make the difference. He has always set the Linux kernel community's tone, and he will again.
Myth 4. Linus won't/can't change.
I think he will change. In any case, he should be given a chance.
As VM (Vicky) Brasseur, open-source consultant and VP of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), tweeted, "Folks, I know there's a lot of work yet to be done and that this is only the first step, but if you criticise someone for taking that first step (even if you think they should've done it much earlier), there's less likely to be more steps after that."
Also: The state of women in computer science TechRepublic
Myth 5. Purges of Linux kernel developers have begun.
No. And, there's no sign of this happening.
Myth 6. Developers are leaving Linux and taking their code with them.
No, they're not leaving.
Yes, someone under the nom de plume "unconditionalwitness," who had never posted to the LKML before under that name, wrote that people ejected from the Linux Kernel Community due to the code could "rescind the license grant regarding their property via written notice to those whom they are rescinding the grant from (regarding their property (code)."
In other words, they can remove their code from Linux. But no one has been ejected from the Linux kernel community, and no one has removed their code. To the best of my knowledge, no one has filed a complaint against anyone to the TAB. Even if someone was kicked out, it's unclear what would happen to the code they had already donated.
Eric S. Raymond, one of the creators of the open-source concept, wrote, "This threat has teeth. I researched the relevant law when I was founding the Open Source Initiative. In the US there is case law confirming that reputational losses relating to conversion of the rights of a contributor to a GPLed project are judicable in law."
Also: Women are better in tech than men, says a report CNET
Richard M. Stallman, who wrote the GPLv2 and champions free software, is purported to have written, "The developers of Linux, or any free program, can remove any and all code, at any time, without giving a reason. However, this doesn't force others to delete that code from their own versions of the program."
Heather Meeker, a partner at the law firm O'Melveny & Myers, who specializes in open-source software licensing, wrote, "Copyright ownership in large projects such as the Linux kernel is complicated. It's like a patchwork quilt. When developers contribute to the kernel, they don't sign any contribution agreement or assignment of copyright. The GPL covers their contributions, and the recipient of a copy of the software gets a license, under GPL, directly from all the authors. (The kernel project uses a document called a Developer Certificate of Origin, which does not grant any copyright license.) The contributors' individual rights exist side-by-side with rights in the project as a whole."
Also: Diversity at Google hasn't changed much over the last year CNET
So, what's what? No lawyer has spoken directly to the point on this issue, and it's never come up in court. I am inclined to doubt that the code can be removed, or if it could, that it would have any practical effect on the kernel.
As Matthew Garrett, Linux developer and Google security engineer, remarked on Twitter, "For every person that leaves the kernel over the CoC, I pledge to help mentor a new contributor interested in taking over their work." He quickly followed up, "Well, so far I've got like an order of magnitude more people interested in contributing to the kernel than people who have credibly threatened to stop contributing, so that seems like a good sign."
Myth 7. Linus is never coming back!
Linus is coming back.
Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel maintainer and pro tempore head of Linux, signed the Linux 4.19-rc5 release message, "Greg 'keeping the seat warm for a few weeks' k-h."
He will return when he feels like it.
If I were a betting man, I'd say he'll be back in time to manage the next release cycle, 4.20/5.0, later this fall. Or, to be terribly precise, Oct. 22, 2018, when Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit will be held in Edinburgh Scotland. After all, one of the reasons Torvalds stepped back from the kernel was because this event had to be rescheduled to meet his schedule.
Also: Linus Torvalds talks frankly about Intel security bugs
When all is said and done -- for all the hubbub about the CoC and Torvalds stepping out for a while -- Linux is still being developed. And, none of the worst case scenarios has shown any signs of happening. For all the sturm und drang, Linux continues on.
Related stories:Age and race affect tech workers' salaries, Hired report finds CNETTech diversity reports often don't paint a complete picture CNETYet another report shows diversity is slow in coming to tech CNETEnterprise software development: Do we have an age problem?3 reasons why hiring older tech pros is a smart decision TechRepublic5 eye-opening statistics about minorities in tech TechRepublicLinus Torvalds is doing a good and brave thing Linux adds a code of conduct for programmersLinus Torvalds takes a break from Linux
Ebola
Nearly 40 years since we defeated smallpox, scientists fear a new deadly plague could strike | Daily Mail Online
One hundred years ago a third of the global population '-- some 500 million people '-- became infected with 'Spanish flu'. Up to 50 million of them died in the 1918 pandemic.
Ever since, scientists have been alert to the possibility of another super-virulent influenza virus.
Today, with more than seven billion people on the planet, numerous densely-populated mega-cities, and the ease of modern air travel, the death toll from such a virus could be unimaginably higher.
A 40-year-old woman was rushed to hospital on Tuesday by staff wearing biohazard gear. The disease started from animals in Africa
Monkeypox has spread from wild animals in Africa to humans - three in the United Kingdom
Now, the emergence of a disease called monkeypox in Britain, has raised another scenario in which the next killer pandemic isn't the flu virus at all. Instead, it is a highly infectious agent that has jumped the species barrier, spreading from wild animals in Africa to humans.
Initially, it would infect people locally, but while spreading and evolving, intermingling its genetic material with other human viruses and even human DNA, it would become ever more contagious until it could be transmitted merely by a cough or a sneeze.
Infectious disease experts have long warned of the possibility. Yesterday, the third confirmed case of monkeypox, in a female hospital healthcare assistant, heightened such fears.
The 40-year-old woman was rushed to hospital on Tuesday by staff wearing biohazard gear. She is being treated in isolation at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, 150 miles from her home in Fleetwood, Lancashire.
Family members and colleagues of the hospital worker are reportedly waiting to be vaccinated, while public health officials are tracing anyone she may have had contact with in the 24 hours before she fell ill.
So how worried should we be?
Monkeypox is caused by a close relative of the smallpox virus, but is less infectious and usually causes a mild illness, with a fever, headache and a rash that turns into chickenpox-like blisters. However, in some West African outbreaks ten per cent of cases '-- an alarmingly high number for an infectious disease '-- have proved fatal.
Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 following a global immunisation campaign led by the World Health Organisation (WHO), but some scientists are now suggesting that monkeypox virus may be mutating to fill the lethal vacancy.
Symptoms of one of the first known cases of the monkeypox virus are shown on a patient's hand in 2003
A US department of health three-way image of the Monkeypox virus on a child's body
The first two British cases, one in Cornwall and another in Blackpool, were diagnosed in people believed to have become infected in Nigeria where a large outbreak started last year '-- the first cases in the country for 40 years. It is the third case that has triggered questions about the virus's contagious power.
The healthcare worker at Blackpool Victoria Hospital is not believed to have had any direct contact with the infected traveller from Nigeria, but may have become infected while changing the patient's bedding. She has said she was wearing gloves that were too short to cover the skin on her arms.
According to the WHO, monkeypox is spread only by close contact with an infected person's spit, blood or pus. But has a mutation in the virus rendered that guidance perilously out of date? Could it have already evolved into a strain that can spread more easily between humans.
Scientists at Public Health England are urgently analysing samples of the virus to determine its genetic makeup. They will then compare it with samples collected in Central and West Africa, where cases of the disease have risen 20-fold since the 1980s. Monkeypox is believed to have originated in sooty mangabey monkeys and rope squirrels, and first infected humans who consumed them as 'bushmeat' more than 50 years ago.
Viruses that can 'jump' from animals to humans are called zoonoses. The Black Death, AIDS/HIV and Spanish flu '-- the world's three biggest known pandemics '-- are all zoonoses.
Ebola which first struck in Zaire in 1976 and killed as many as 90 per cent of those infected in the 2014 epidemic, is another zoonotic disease, carried by bats in central Africa. Could monkeypox be the next one?
Our first inkling of monkeypox's existence came in the 1950s, when doctors in Africa noticed the emergence of a viral infection in their patients that seemed similar to smallpox but was less contagious. Since then, the virus has become steadily more infectious.
Nigeria is currently experiencing the largest documented epidemic of human monkeypox '-- with 152 cases reported and seven deaths so far confirmed. Certainly, the WHO is taking it seriously. They are warning that 'the emergence of monkeypox cases is a concern for global health security'.
A leading British authority on epidemics, John Oxford, emeritus professor of virology at Queen Mary, University of London, believes that the world is currently due a very large animal-originated pandemic.
A hospital worker who became the third person in the UK to be struck down with deadly monkeypox has blamed 'pathetically small' NHS gloves (file picture)
However, he's playing down fears that monkeypox could be the one. He explains that this is because monkeypox is a DNA virus '-- its genetic material is made up of a chemical known as deoxyribonucleic acid. 'These viruses don't mutate rapidly, they are stable . . . ' he says.
By contrast RNA viruses, which have ribonucleic acid as their genetic material, are far less stable and can mutate into more dangerous forms very quickly.
Often they do this by 'co-opting genes' from other human viruses present in the infected individual. This gene-swapping effectively enables viruses to 'learn new ways to be contagious. RNA viruses include Ebola, SARS, rabies, the common cold and influenza.
That's not to say monkeypox may not prove to be an alarming exception to this rule. One leading scientist who has studied monkeypox in Africa for 15 years disagrees with Professor Oxford.
Professor Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, warns that despite being 'stable' DNA virus, monkeypox is mutating into more contagious versions.
Chillingly, an investigation she co-authored in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases warns that monkeypox 'is adapting for efficient replication in a novel ecological niche '-- humans'. 'The global effects of the emergence of monkeypox strains that are highly adapted to humans could be devastating,' the report adds.
Because of 'the apparent rapid evolution of this virus, health authorities in presently unaffected areas should become vigilant and actively prepare to take immediate action', it concludes.
So what defensive action could we take if a mutant monkeypox virus is unleashed in Britain? Well, it seems we are at least well prepared and have Tony Blair to thank. After 9/11, the former Prime Minister ordered £80 million worth of the vaccination for use in a 'smallpox plan', to protect the population in the event of a terrorist attack that used the virus as a germ-warfare weapon.
At the time, the initiative was condemned as a waste of money, not least because one of Blair's chief political donors '-- Lord Drayson '-- owned the company that manufactured the inoculations.
Monkeypox, thought to have been spread by prairie dogs, was detected in the US in 2003
Now however Blair's controversial move may prove an unwitting masterstroke of forward planning, because all the available evidence shows the smallpox vaccine may effectively protect people against infection from monkeypox, too.
Indeed, it the smallpox vaccine that will be given to contacts of the healthcare worker in Blackpool. Furthermore, the majority of Britons aged over 50 could well already be protected, as they were already vaccinated in childhood against smallpox.
By sheer chance, we appear to be well-positioned to deal with any monkeypox 'apoxcalypse'. But it's only a matter of time before the next virus emerges.
In his book Spillover, the award-winning American natural-history writer David Quammen warns that the human race faces a viral 'doomsday' if deadly infections learn the contagious trick that flu and cold microbes employ '-- spreading in coughs and sneezes.
'If an infection such as HIV could be transmitted by air, you and I might already be dead,' Quammen says. 'If the rabies virus '-- another zoonosis '-- could be transmitted by air, it would be the most horrific pathogen on the planet.'
We have been warned.
2TTH
Ex-Massachusetts state Sen. Brian Joyce found dead; was awaiting trial
Breaking News EmailsGet breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
WESTPORT, Mass. '-- Former Massachusetts state Sen. Brian Joyce, who was awaiting trial on federal corruption charges, was found dead in his home Thursday, authorities said.
Joyce, 56, was found dead by his wife, according to a statement from Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for the Bristol District Attorney's office.
"Foul play is not suspected in the death at this time," said Miliote.
The state's chief medical examiner planned to conduct an autopsy and the investigation remained "active and ongoing," the spokesman said.
A Democrat who served as assistant majority leader, Joyce was first elected in 1998 and left the Senate after not seeking re-election in 2016 amid the federal probe. He moved to Westport, Massachusetts, from Milton after his political career ended.
In December 2017, Joyce was named in a 113-count indictment charging him with racketeering, extortion, wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors said he accepted up to $1 million in bribes and kickbacks in exchange for helping companies and then laundering the money through his law office, disguising it as legal fees.
Then-acting U.S. Attorney William Weinreb said at the time that Joyce violated his duty to his constituents "by accepting bribes and kickbacks in exchange for his official action."
Joyce pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and was free on $250,000 bond. A trial date had not been set.
Joyce's attorney, Howard Cooper, had maintained that his client was innocent of all the charges against him.
In an email Thursday, Cooper wrote that he had no comment but that Joyce's family was asking that their privacy be respected during a difficult time.
WCVB-TV reported that Joyce had been involved in a car crash on Wednesday, but it was unclear if that incident was connected in any way to his death.
This story has been corrected to show Joyce left Senate in 2016, was first elected in 1998.
Clips
VIDEO - Memorial Services for CWO4 Gerald Wayne Overall - YouTube
(C)2018 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. All market data delayed 20 minutes.
New Privacy Policy -
New Terms of Use (What's New) -
FAQ
VIDEO - Kavanaugh hearing: C-SPAN callers share sexual assault stories.
U.S. Rep Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso) held a free rally in Austin Saturday, Sept. 29, and thousands of people turned out for it.The free event, which was held at Auditorium Shores, included performances by Austin music legend Willie Nelson and Texas nati
Maher Trashes Lindsey Graham: He Needs the 'Stabilizing Influence of His Dead Boyfriend'On Friday night, Bill Maher took some brutal shots Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for his fiery speech during the Kavanaugh hearing.
After joking in the monologue that Graham is ''familiar'' with the ''back door,'' Maher discussed with his panel how there was a lot of ''acting'' coming from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. CNN commentator April Ryan compared him to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who she says ''plays to an audience of one'' (aka President Donald Trump).
''He was rehearsed. He talked about the press, he talked about the Clintons,'' Ryan said. ''He was too rehearsed. He was so bombastic.''
Maher told his panel that he didn't believe that Kavanaugh's 10-year-old daughter prayed for his accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.
''He cried!'' Ryan pushed back.
''That's what actors do!'' Maher exclaimed. ''They make sh*t up!''
Maher then pivoted to the ''Trumpifying'' of people, including his SCOTUS nominee and the GOP senator from South Carolina.
''The fact that Trump can either find people like him or make him- Lindsey Graham needs the stabilizing influence of his dead boyfriend,'' Maher quipped.
That was a clear reference to Graham's close friend Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who passed away this summer.
Getting a wild reaction from the audience, Ryan literally pointed and clarified that ''he said it.''
''You won't get my politically incorrect cooties on you,'' Maher told Ryan.
Maher went on to call Graham's speech a ''performance'' and questioned if he was eyeing a cabinet position in the Trump administration.
