'They Were Just Like Us, and They Lost Everything' —  Can empathy for refugees be taught? A few weeks ago, I scrambled to evacuate my area with the only five items I could grab—my phone, passport, water, money, and medicine—in the 30 seconds before I had to flee. Many of the roughly 65 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people around the world today have had to make panicked choices like these; more than 4,000 have died at sea in overcrowded boats and rafts attempting to reach Europe from the Middle East. On Thursday last week, more than 200 additional people lost their lives in two separate shipwrecks off Libya. But my own “escape” was far away from that, on the safety of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had organized the Forced From Home exhibit. The aim was, in part, to put the staggering numbers of the crisis into tangible terms for those of us who don’t have to contemplate actually being forced from home. So I took on the identity of an asylum-seeker from Honduras while my tour guide, Ahmed Abdalrazag, pled with the group to hurry up. If we were really fleeing, he explained, our time would be up and it might be too late. We got on a raft like the ones in which so many have risked, and lost, their lives in recent years—though this one stayed on dry land—and later, we were detained at a fenced border where our various legal classifications determined our future. At each stop, hardships from the journey forced us to give up one item, until we were left empty-handed in front of staged refugee tents—where in real life another series of ordeals await those who make it that far. MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, the international aid group and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is touring the exhibit through five U.S. cities this fall, with a series of West Coast stops planned for next year. So far, according to an MSF spokesman, more than 17,000 people have attended, including over 3,400 students. MSF provides medical and related humanitarian aid in over 60 countries, often in dangerous circumstances—the group describes its mission as assisting “victims of conflict, natural disasters, epidemics, or healthcare exclusion.” In Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan recently, MSF-supported hospitals and the people who work there have themselves been victims of conflict. With the Forced From Home exhibit, MSF is trying to communicate, in concrete terms, the reality of people fleeing from those places and elsewhere, including Burundi, South Sudan, and Central America. Official action to mitigate this reality has been frustratingly slow. It has been more than two years since the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) first reported that the number of displaced people worldwide had surpassed the figures following World War II.  But as my colleague Uri Friedman wrote in September, the UN General Assembly only recently held its inaugural Summit for Refugees and Migrants, and the declaration that emerged from the meeting delays specific measures by UN member states for two more years. The timeline of the UN plan is not comforting to the refugees or concerned observers. The crisis figures are familiar, but remain unfathomable—one in 113 people displaced “by conflict and persecution in 2015;” and 54 percent of 21 million refugees from just three volatile countries: Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia. It’s easy to be numbed by the numbers. Or even actively repelled—across Europe and the United States, 2016 has seen a surge of anti-refugee protests and rhetoric conflatingrefugees and terrorists—sentiments that influence elections and produce significant legislative and societal results. In a sense, the refugee crisis has helped generate a corresponding crisis in empathy. But if national and international political solutions seem sluggish or even impossible, what hope is there for refugees in the meantime if not for the empathy of individuals? Where there is a confluence of human suffering and nationalistic backlash, can empathy be taught, sparked, or successfully deployed? The MSF exhibit can be seen as a test of these questions. It creates an empathetic response by tying the visitor’s experience to an individual’s—each participant is assigned a specific displaced person’s identity, and each tour is given by an aid-worker who has served in an MSF camp. Throughout the journey, the guides share their own personal stories about people they lived with, worked with, and ministered to, further illuminating the individual suffering behind the numbers. Abdalrazag, a physician with MSF originally from Iraq, first got involved with the organization when he was in a camp as a refugee. On his tours, he talks about a friend of his who, after living in a refugee camp tent for years, so desperately missed a wall to lean his back on that he hugged the first wall he saw in his new home. After the tour, Abdalrazag admitted that this was his own experience, one he sometimes obscures because his memories are painful to recount. Another guide, Sarah Khenati, a psychologist with MSF-France who has worked in the Central African Republic (CAR) and the West Bank, shares a story on her tours about a woman who was raped and impregnated while fleeing her home, then involves her groups in the ensuing MSF discussion about how best to treat the woman after her psychotic breakdown. Tatiana Chiarella, an MSF nurse from Brazil who has been touring with the exhibit, explained how she sees the value of these kinds of personal stories: “For people living in the U.S., or even my people in Brazil, we are so far from the situation that you may hear their stories but you don’t realize it could happen to any one of us.” The people she treated “were just like us, they were doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers, and suddenly this happened—they have war in their countries and they have to flee for their life and for their families—and they lost everything.” Maybe it’s strange to shift the discussion of a massive problem down to the granular level, especially when the world needs a response to match the scale of the crisis. Yet individuals generate a human response that statistics can’t. Updated crisis figures from UNHCR don’t go viral. Images of a drowned Syrian toddler on a beach in Turkey, or a wounded boy in an Aleppo ambulance, do. And they focus observers, however briefly, on the human cost of conflict.   Still, the problem is bigger than the tragedies of Alan Kurdi and Omran Daqneesh, so the question remains whether concentrating on a single victim can generate an empathy that expands to include others suffering outside those particular frames. According to Jamil Zaki, assistant professor of psychology and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, even though empathy is a fundamental human emotion, people are not exactly wired for a globalized response. “When we evolved, we were in small groups of interdependent individuals, so the people that you would run into and subsequently empathize with were probably family or extended family,” he explained. “And nowadays, we’re given the unprecedented opportunity to empathize, reach out to and help, not just the people who are right around us, but people all around the world. That’s a really enormous challenge as well as an opportunity, and I think that sometimes, our more evolutionarily old or primitive … emotional responses are not really perfectly designed for the modern world.” This is even true of people who are already inclined to be sympathetic to refugees—the people, in other words, likely to visit an exhibit like MSF’s in the first place. On the tour I took, I met Cameron, a student from Charleston, South Carolina, who said: “It pains me to see how unaccepting communities can be of refugees especially when a good amount of people in the U.S. can trace their ancestry to people who left their home because of economic or political issues.” He added, “I think it definitely made me more empathetic and understanding because you only get so much information from the news and other media sources.” U.S. President Barack Obama, in his 2006 Northwestern University commencement speech, called attention to what he saw as a national “empathy deficit.” He advised the graduates that, in a culture that does not encourage empathy, “as you go on in life, cultivating this quality of empathy will become harder, not easier.  There’s no community-service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You’ll be free to live in neighborhoods with people who are exactly like yourself, and send your kids to the same schools, and narrow your concerns to what’s going in your own little circle.” That warning came 10 years ago; five years before the Syrian Civil War began, and eight years before UNHCR first identified a new record in the number of refugees worldwide. As David Desteno wrote for The Atlantic last summer, a recent study from the University of Michigan found, based on empathy assessments of 13,000 college students between 1979 and 2009, that “levels of compassion and empathy are lower now than at any time in the past 30 years, and perhaps most alarming, they are declining at an increasing rate.” If we think of empathy as malleable, it’s an emotion that we can actively choose to engage with and develop. The barrier that the MSF exhibit and other calls to empathy might bump up against is our basic wiring: If our relationship to empathy is naturally individual and impulsive—Zaki describes it as “staccato”—how do we create the sustained empathy suited to an ongoing and outsized crisis? Will the impact of an exhibit like Forced from Home—or photos of children whose lives have been ended or upended by war—be momentary or lasting? And what difference does any one person’s feelings make to finding a genuine solution? Some of the answers may lie in the way we think about empathy. If we think of it as malleable, it’s an emotion that we can actively choose to engage with and develop. Zaki emphasizes that empathy can be strengthened with practice: “Empathy is under our control more than we think it is. ... It’s our responsibility to exercise empathy responsibly, and it’s an opportunity for us to connect with more and more people if we work hard at building it.” Most importantly, Zaki says, “convincing people that they can build their empathy actually helps them to build [it].” He points to training programs that can change people’s responses to others’ suffering. A sampling of these empathy interventions across the country range from increasing care for homeless people in the Bay Area, to teaching empathy in middle schools to prevent bullying, to training police officers in Washington state to have compassion for citizens with mental illness so that they can be helped or hospitalized rather than arrested, though it’s too early to judge their effects. The refugee and the empathy crises can—but don’t have to—leave us with an action crisis. Even if MSF succeeds in generating empathy, the feeling by itself is not a solution. Still, it’s hard to see how there can be a solution without it.

I don't care about refugees.  We can't have empathy for every single person in the world.  There are just too many.  It's not practical.  You can't turn individual problems into global problems, and global problems into individual problems.  It's just too much.  I also loved how that one person said that this type of thing could happen to anyone.  No.  No it couldn't.  I don't live in a shithole country where I have to flee persecution and get raped and impregnated and go crazy along the way.  I live in a civilized country where people aren't animals and you can mostly go about your daily life without too much trouble.  These people need to fix their own countries, not use civilized people as a crutch.


The person is male. Racially, the person is white. The person is 41 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 28000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 2.0 in openness, 2.5 in conscientiousness, 1.5 in extraversion, 2.0 in agreeableness, and 1.0 in stability.

DAKOTA FANNING PARENTS SPLIT ... Hot Dad Back on the Market —  Dakota Fanning's mom and dad are done after almost 27 years ... TMZ has learned.  Dakota's dad, Steven Fanning, just filed for divorce from his wife, Heather, citing irreconcilable differences. Their kids are both of age, so child support isn't an issue -- Dakota's 22, Elle is 18.  As for spousal support, it's as a bit of a mystery ... Steve didn't check any boxes asking for support from Heather.  That said, he says he still needs to figure out how he and Heather are going to split their property. But we're guessing this stud will be just fine when it's all said and done.

I think divorce is always sad, even when children are grown.  However, this is also just one divorce in a great big world and I can't say I really care.  I thought it was sort of peculiar how tritely the article dealt with the situation, though, seemingly paying more attention to how hot the dad was instead of the dissolution of a family.  And you wonder why marriages dissolve after 27 years and the kids grown.  What changes to push people to divorce at that point.  Maybe for married people that's not a complicated question, but I'm not married so I don't know.  Either way I think it's too bad for the girls that their parents are divorced.  But I'm not really moved by it.


Saudi women file petition to end male guardianship system —  A petition signed by more than 14,000 Saudi women calling for an end to the country's male guardianship system is being handed to the government. Women must have the consent of a male guardian to travel abroad, and often need permission to work or study. Support for the first large-scale campaign on the issue grew online in response to a trending Twitter hashtag. Activist Aziza Al-Yousef told the BBC she felt "very proud" of the campaign, but now needed a response. In the deeply conservative Islamic kingdom, a woman must have permission from her father, brother or other male relative - in the case of a widow, sometimes her son - to obtain a passport, marry or leave the country. Many workplaces and universities also demand a guardian's consent for female employees and students, although it is not legally required.   Renting a flat, undergoing hospital treatment or filing a legal claim often also require a male guardian's permission, and there is very little recourse for women whose guardians abuse them or severely limit their freedom. How much do you know about life as a woman in Saudi Arabia? WATCH: Are Saudi women really that oppressed? The 'Rosa Parks' of Saudi Arabia 'Flabbergasted' In July, an Arabic Twitter hashtag which translates as "Saudi women want to abolish the guardianship system" went viral after a Human Rights Watch reportwas published on the issue. Saudi women tweeted comments, videos and artwork calling for change. Bracelets saying "I Am My Own Guardian" appeared. The women counted on the petition all gave their full names, though more signed anonymously. Hundreds of women - one estimate suggests as many as 2,500 - bombarded the Saudi King's office over the weekend with telegrams containing personal messages backing the campaign. Human Rights Watch researcher Kristine Beckerle, who worked on the report, described the response as "incredible and unprecedented". "I was flabbergasted - not only by the scale, but the creativity with which they've been doing it," she said. "They've made undeniably clear they won't stand to be treated as second-class citizens any longer, and it's high time their government listened."    However, there has been opposition from some Saudi women, with an alternative Arabic hashtag, which translates as #TheGuardianshipIsForHerNotAgainstHer, gaining some traction, and opinion articles, like this one on the Gulf News website, arguing that the system should be reformed and applied better. Ms Yousef, who was stopped by police in 2013 for breaking the country's ban on women driving, said she did not expect any negative consequences from the petition: "I'm not worried, I'm not doing anything wrong," she said. She and another activist took the petition to the Royal Court in person on Monday, but were advised to send it by mail. She said a key demand is that an age between 18 and 21 be designated, above which a woman be "treated like an adult". "In every aspect, the important issue is to treat a woman as a full citizen," she said. She and other activists first raised the issue five years ago. "We never had a problem with campaigning, but the problem is there is no answer. But we always hope - without hope, you cannot work," she said. There has been no official response to the petition yet.

I don't care about Saudi women at all and don't care about their campaign to end the guardianship requirements in their country.  I truly could not care less.  My brother lives in Saudi Arabia and it's a vile place full of vile people.  The more they suffer, the better.  What's interesting is that the women, in their bondage, actually hold a strangely revered place in society.  I'm not sure what an analogy would be, perhaps the elderly.  On one hand, it's true they have many limitations on their lives.  On the other, because of that they're treated as almost untouchable.  So my brother could theoretically get into an argument with a Saudi man, but never with a women.  It's a strange, paradoxical thing, and I wonder if the Saudi women understand it before they end it.


Study reveals why seabirds eat plastic in the ocean —  The human sense of smell is important. It alerts us to different dangers including spoiled food, poison, fire, and so on. But other species on this planet have no sense of smell like humans have. In fact, a new research revealed that the sense of smell of seabirds, which they use to hunt for food, have put them in danger. Not surprisingly, humans ARE to blame.   Published last week in the PNAS, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers said that ninety percent of seabirds eat plastic flowing in oceans. By 2050, the team revealed that virtually all seabirds will be eating it.   So the question now is why do seabirds eat plastic?   The paper said plastic in the ocean emit the scent of a sulfurous compound which seabirds have relied upon for thousands of years. It tells them where to hunt for food.   In other words, the compound trick them into confusing marine plastic with food.   Lead researcher Matthew Savoca said–via the UC Davis website–that in order to understand the problem, we have to think about how animals look for food.   Researchers learned what plastic in the ocean smell like by putting beads–made of the three most common types of plastic beads–into the ocean at Monterey Bay and Bodega Bay in California. They placed it in mesh bags to protect the species there, and tied them to an ocean buoy before collecting them about three weeks later.   Then, the team brought the beads to UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology where scientists are often found analyzing wine chemistry. Using the chemical analyzer provided by food-and-wine chemist Susan Ebeler, the research team confirmed that the beads emit the sulfur compound dimethyl sulfide, or DMS, a chemical cue released by algae, which coats floating plastic.   Co-author and UC Davis professor Gabrielle Nevitt had previously established that the said compound triggers seabirds to search for food. DMS is released when algae is eaten by animals (like crustaceans). So while the algae doesn’t smell like food itself, it does emit the scent of food being eaten which works like a dinner bell of the birds.   The paper also revealed that birds that track the scent of the compound to look for food are about six times more likely to consume plastic than those that don’t.   Professor Nevitt said their research gives spotlight to species that don’t receive a lot of attention, like petrels and species of shearwaters, which are impacted by plastic ingestion. These species, she added, are hard to study as they nest in underground burrows. So they’re often overlooked.   Apart from that, the study could open the door to new steps to address the growing plastic pollution in oceans which not only plague the seabirds, but also sea turtles, fish and other marine animals.   Apparently, the problem starts on land. According to NOAA, one of the biggest sources of ocean pollution is called nonpoint source pollution which occurs as a result of runoff. It includes many small sources like boats, septic tanks, cars, etc, and larger sources like farms, forest areas, etc.   A study published last year said that the top five countries that dump plastics into oceans are China, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. It projected that by 2025, plastic consumption in the region will increase by eighty percent.

I honestly find this article more amusing than anything.  I absolutely loathe birds.  Can't stand them.  Want them all dead.  I don't even care how that affects the food chain or nature.  I just can't stand birds.  So the idea that they're so stupid they'll keep eating plastic and threaten their species' very existence, is amusing to me.  I think the article also misses some important information that I'd be curious to know, but I also don't care that much.  I also think it's amusing that Asian countries are all the worst at dumping plastics in the ocean.  That's why the straw thing in the U.S. is missing the point.  We're not the problem.  The Asians are.


A Palm Oil Company Threatens The Third Largest Population Of Orangutan In Indonesia —  The Sungai Putri, meaning River of the Princess, is an exquisite natural forest located in West Kalimantan, providence of Indonesia. It is about 141,000 acres of forest land, has extensive peat areas of up to 14.5 meters deep at some points, and can provide a home to about 750 to 1750 orangutan. Because of these numbers, it is the third largest population of critically Endangered orangutan Species in the province. Due to the fact that the Indonesia government has committed to protecting peat, forests and orangutans, it is alarming that there is no protection to this forest.   The forest is at critical risk of being cut down by a company named PT Mohairson Pawan Khatulistiwa who have plans to clear more than half of their liscence area to covert into an industrial tree plantation. The company is also planning on building a drainage canal from the north to the south side of the area for which some work has already reportedly began.   The Indonesian government has stated its international and national commitments to reducing carbon emissions and deforestation, protecting and restoring peat swamp forests through the Peatland Restoration Agency established by the president and stabilizing all remaining wild orangutan populations. At the same time, they allowed the company to obtain a lisence permissing the destruction of this forest land, peat and the orangutans who live in that habitat.   A satellite image taken of the land in 2016 confirms that about 58 percent of the 48,440 lisence area still remains covered in tall tree peat swamp forest and the rest is covered in medium height swamp forest, heath forest and hill forest.   At the deepest part of the dome, the peat is 14.5 meters deep, with large areas deeper than 3 meters. Indonesian laws such as the Government Regulation no. 71 of 2014 do not allow peat development in areas with more than 3 meters peat.   Threatened orangutans living in the area also raises much concern. The most recent orangutan survey for the 57,000 Sungai Putri block estimated up to 1,750 orangutans. These orangutans will not survive in areas where all forest is cleared. If conversion plans go ahead, some 500 to 1,000 orangutans will likely die or will be in need of rescue. The Indonesian Orangutan Forum FORINA recently recognized this as the largest population of orangutan located in the region and if they lose their habitat they will have  no other place to go. Indonesia’s current national action plan for orangutans aims to stabilize all wild populations by 2017, and destroying the habitat of one of the largest remaining populations is incompatible with that.   A well known developer Norweigian professor who specializes in tropical forests says, “These developments seem to violate Indonesia’s own legal processes not to mention its international commitments. Claims about absence of forest, peat and endangered species – here and elsewhere – clearly need to be assessed and verified in a transparent manner. Those who dispute the conditions can provide their data”.   Improved management is desperately needed in Sungai Putri. There are lots of illegal logging happening in the area, as are fires. According to the Global Fire Watch data, in 2015 alone, there were about 250 fires that occurred on the margins of Sungai Putri. The risk of more fires would only increase if Sungai Putri was drained and deforested as planned.   There are opposing conflicts regarding the deforestation.  Some people welcome the development of the peatland area because of the potential employment opportunities it can bring as well as the possibility to get compensated by the company for their lost traditional land uses. Others see it differently. However, according to the latest science studies, the development of coastal peatlands will never be sustainable.   Instead of going through with this development, there are other solutions available that would allow Indonesia to fulfill its development and poverty alleviations objectives but they require careful planning and close collaboration efforts between the private sector, governments, non-governmental groups, and local communities. The time to initiate those collaborations and find sustainable solutions for Indonesia is now!

I'm mostly bothered by this story because of how much it demonstrates our inability to do anything about these large issues.  Even if we, in the West, have the means and desire to do something about these issues (and we don't), the rest of the world doesn't see things like we do.  Indonesia doesn't even live up to the agreements that they presumably agreed to.  I feel bad for the orangutans, I guess.  I'm not sure what their situation is but I guess it's bad.  But how can you have any hope or faith in humans tackling all these big issues when we're so prone to dealing with our economies and self-interest, and so rarely sacrifice in any real way for something long term or for someone/something else?


Man Is Shot in Charlotte as Unrest Stretches to Second Night —  A second night of protests set off by the police killing of a black man spiraled into chaos and violence after nightfall here Wednesday when a demonstration was interrupted by gunfire that gravely wounded a man in the crowd. Law enforcement authorities fired tear gas in a desperate bid to restore order. The city said on its Twitter account that the unidentified man was on life support after what officials said was a “civilian on civilian” confrontation. The authorities provided no further details. Charlotte officials had said earlier that the man had been killed in the unrest. The Police Department reported that four officers had injuries that were not life-threatening. Gov. Pat McCrory’s office said late Wednesday that he had declared an emergency and had “initiated efforts” to deploy the National Guard and the state Highway Patrol. The shooting heightened the tension among the demonstrators and the police alike. City officials were quick to say the police had not fired any live rounds, but riot police personnel did fire repeated rounds of tear gas. The scene of the shooting and the largest demonstration of the evening happened along a crowded street in Charlotte’s city center, where the sound of gunfire mixed with the noise of people banging objects into vehicles. The gunshot victim lay motionless on the ground, his eyes open, as people surrounded him and blood pooled among their feet. He was taken into the nearby Omni Hotel, and a series of confrontations played out afterward as the police kept people from entering. There was sporadic looting. Twitter messages showed that the team store of the Charlotte Hornets of the N.B.A. had been broken into and gutted of merchandise. “We are working very hard to bring peace and calm back to our city,” Mayor Jennifer Roberts said on CNN. A spokesman for Ms. Roberts said she had requested and planned to review on Thursday a police dashboard video of the encounter with Keith L. Scott, the black man who was shot and killed here on Tuesday. But she said she would not make the video public. Around 10 p.m., the police ordered all civilians, including members of the news media, to leave parts of the Uptown neighborhood and threatened to arrest those who did not comply. When the crowd did not respond immediately, the authorities fired more tear gas within minutes. After that, it appeared that the crowd started to disperse, although some stragglers remained in the area. The unrest in Charlotte came after two other police-involved deadly shootings in the last week. First came the shooting of a teenager in Columbus, Ohio, who had been brandishing a BB gun. Two days later, on Friday, was the shooting death in Tulsa, Okla., of a man who had his hands above his head before an officer opened fire. And then it was Charlotte, where Mr. Scott, 43, black like the other two, was shot by a police officer in a parking space marked “Visitor” outside an unremarkable apartment complex. On Wednesday that parking space was both a shooting site and a shrine, and Charlotte was a city on edge, the latest to play a role in what feels like a recurring, seemingly inescapable tape loop of American tragedy. “To see this happen multiple times — just time after time — it’s depressing, man,” said Tom Jackson, 25, who works with mentally disabled people. He didn’t know Mr. Scott but was drawn here nonetheless, one of many strangers and friends who came to pay their respects and make sense of their sorrow. In addition to the fatal attacks on police officers in Baton Rouge and Dallas, it was another grim snapshot of America’s continuing crisis in black and blue, this moment amplified by presidential politics. And as usual, there was very little consensus on what went wrong and how to fix it. At a news conference on Wednesday, Kerr Putney, chief of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police, said officers had found the gun that the police said Mr. Scott had brandished before an officer, who is also black, fatally shot him and were examining police video of the encounter that unfolded as Mr. Scott stepped out of a car. Family members of Mr. Scott have said that he was unarmed and was holding only a book. Chief Putney said Wednesday morning, “We did not find a book.” The response of B. J. Murphy, an African-American activist here, could not have been more different: “Everybody in Charlotte should be on notice that black people, today, we’re tired of this,” he said, adding an epithet. “We’re tired of being killed and nobody saying nothing. We’re tired of our political leaders going along to get along; they’re so weak, they don’t have no sympathy for our grief. And we want justice.” All three shootings are under investigation, and are rife with questions. The police in Columbus said that the BB gun wielded by 13-year-old Tyre King was built to look nearly identical to a Smith & Wesson Military & Police semiautomatic pistol. Mayor Andrew J. Ginther blamed the shooting, in part, on Americans’ “easy access to guns, whether they are firearms or replicas.” In Tulsa, the police said investigators found the drug PCP in the shooting victim’s S.U.V. The drug is known to induce erratic behavior in some users. But Mr. Crump, who is representing the family of the victim, Terence Crutcher, said the discovery of the drug, if true, would not justify the deadly shooting. In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Crutcher’s father, the Rev. Joey Crutcher, said his son had marched in protest of earlier police killings and had thought about how to protect himself during interactions with police officers. They had planned to go to a church event aimed at teaching people how behave around the police and avoid becoming another hashtag shared on social media by Black Lives Matter protesters. “I never thought this would happen to my family,” Mr. Crutcher said, adding that he had counseled his son all his life about how to behave around the police. “I said, ‘Whenever you’re stopped by a police and you’re in that situation, raise your hands up, always let them see your hands, let them see that you are not going for a gun.’ And that is what Terence was doing. I said, ‘Always put your hands on your car.’ I made that specific, ‘your car.’ And that’s what Terence was walking to do on his car so that they could see his hands.” John Barnett, a civil rights activist in Charlotte, said during a raucous news conference near the site of the shooting that Mr. Scott had been waiting for his son to arrive home from school. “The truth of the matter is, he didn’t point that gun,” Mr. Barnett said. “Did he intend to really sit in a vehicle, waiting on his son to get home from school and then plot to shoot a cop if they pulled up on him?” Adding to an atmosphere loaded with suspicion and mistrust, residents of the apartment complex gave varying accounts of Mr. Scott’s death. Some differed from the police on which officer fired the shots, and others said that no one had tried to administer CPR for Mr. Scott as officials had said. Brentley Vinson, the officer who the police say shot Mr. Scott, is black, as is the police chief. “Since black lives do not matter for this city, then our black dollars should not matter,” said Mr. Murphy, the activist. “We’re watching a modern-day lynching on social media, on television and it is affecting the psyche of black people.” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said Wednesday that the Justice Department “is aware of, and we are assessing, the incident that led to the death of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte.” Responding to another police shooting, the state’s attorney in Baltimore County, Md., Scott D. Shellenberger, announced Wednesday that no charges would be filed against any of the officers involved in the Aug. 1 shooting death of Korryn Gaines or the shooting of her 5-year-old son. In Charlotte, Rakeyia Scott, Mr. Scott’s wife, said on Wednesday the family was “devastated” by the shooting. She described her husband as “a loving husband, father, brother and friend” and called on protesters to remain peaceful. At a campaign rally in Orlando, Fla., Hillary Clinton spoke about the shootings here and in Tulsa. “There is still much we don’t know about what happened in both incidents, but we do know that we have two more names to add to a list of African-Americans killed by police officers in these encounters,’’ she said. “It’s unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable. We also saw the targeting of police officers in Philadelphia last week. And last night in Charlotte, 12 officers were injured in demonstrations following Keith Scott’s death. Every day police officers are serving with courage, honor and skill.” Her Republican rival, Donald J. Trump, reacted on Twitter. “Hopefully the violence & unrest in Charlotte will come to an immediate end,” he wrote. “To those injured, get well soon. We need unity & leadership.” Unity, thus far, has been in short supply. On Friday, Mr. Trump earned the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police. But polls show that his support among African-Americans is negligible, even though he has singled them out in promising to solve the ills of poverty and violence that he has characterized as plaguing black neighborhoods. On Wednesday, Mr. Jackson, the man who came here to mourn, was not thinking about the current presidential candidates. The police, he said, “are out here killing people, and they don’t even know their backgrounds,” he said. “They could be killing the next president.”

This whole issue is bullshit.  Blacks get killed by cops less frequently than whites based on encounter rates.  The question the nation should be asking itself is not why cops are killing blacks, or how we can tolerate it.  The question is why there are apparently generations of blacks who don't feel it necessary to obey laws or comply with police, and are then surprised when police act in the ways they do.  This whole movement was also based on a complete lie.  The Ferguson thing was complete horseshit.  That Brown guy attacked a cop, tried to take his gun, and was rightfully killed in the process.  And yet the truth never comes out, just the narrative that blacks are being murdered by law enforcement.  It's disgraceful.


Garden ponds 'playing role' in frog disease spread —  Garden ponds are playing a role in the spread of deadly frog diseases across the UK, a study suggests. Ranaviruses can infect amphibians, reptiles and fish. In the UK, they have devastated common frog populations. This research suggests that the introduction of infected animals from aquatic retailers into ponds or moving species between different ponds may be exacerbating the problem. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Dr Trent Garner, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), told BBC News: "The virus seems to be spreading at a rate that exceeds the ability of a frog to hop, and there seems to be human-aided dispersal of the virus." Ranaviruses are a group of viruses found across the world and they affect different species in different ways. In the UK, one type of ranavirus was found to be present in the South East of England in the 1980s, and it has since spread. It can kill common frogs either by causing sores and blisters to form on the animal's skin or by causing their internal organs to bleed. "In a certain proportion of populations, the disease persists. And when it persists, frogs decline by around 85%, and they don't seem to be recovering," said Dr Garner. To analyse the movement of the disease in the UK, scientists looked at two decades of data recorded by a citizen science scheme called the Frog Mortality Project, which is now coordinated through Garden Wildlife Health. Genetic records suggested that ranavirus was not always present in the UK, and had probably been introduced to the UK on two separate occasions. The study also found that while infection is spread by the natural movement of amphibians, garden ponds could also be playing a key role. Dr Garner said: "Potentially garden ponds can act as stepping stones for infected animals to move around and reach new sites." He said that taking frogspawn or frogs from one pond and placing them in another could be helping to spread ranavirus. "There are also other species that could potentially carry ranavirus - ornamental fish for example. So I do think there is a case to be made to investigate their role in infections." Lead author Dr Stephen Price, from University College London, ZSL and Queen Mary University of London, said: "Ranavirus is one of the most serious health threats currently facing the UK's amphibian population. "So our findings that humans seem to have helped move the virus around, facilitating its rapid spread, could be translated into some straightforward ways to manage the risk of disease outbreaks." He added: "We certainly don't want to discourage people from adding ponds to their urban gardens - this remains one of the most positive steps we can all take to support wildlife. "But equally we would strongly urge people to try to limit how much potentially-infectious material they're moving into and out of their gardens in the process."

I didn't really feel anything from this story.  I don't care about amphibians and certainly don't care about them in England.  I just thought the science of it all was interesting, or the analysis . But it shows what humans do to all environments they come in contact with.  They change them.  The migrate and bring in new things.  And that affects stuff.  That's not always our fault, but that's the way of things.  And yet we think it's fine to let refugees and immigrants go where they want, as if there aren't repercussions for that. There are repercussions for everything.  Migration changes habitats.  Change isn't inherently bad, but it's inherently different, and people don't like that.


POLICE ASKING FOR HELP REUNITING UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN WITH FAMILY —  Police are asking for the public's help in their effort to identify a woman who was found wandering in the middle of the night without a coat in Northeast Philadelphia.   The woman was found shortly before 1 a.m. Monday on the 8700 block of Pine Road.   Responding police officers observed the woman walking towards Pennypack Park. She was not wearing a coat despite the cold temperature.   When the officers attempted to stop to speak with the woman, she was allegedly uncooperative and appeared to be confused.   She was eventually transported to the hospital for a medical evaluation.   Police are now attempting to identify the woman and reunite her with her family.   She appears to be in her late 60s or early 70s, 6'0", 175lbs, with gray hair; she was wearing a blue sweatshirt, blue scrub pants, and white sneakers.   Anyone with information is asked to contact Northeast Detective Division at 215-686-3153 / 3154 or call 911.

I wonder if this type of thing is going to become more common as more people are forced to take care of elderly relatives at home.  Or mentally ill relatives.  Or both.  I assume this woman has something wrong with her.  She's not that old and I have to believe something's wrong with her to be out like that.  Dementia or mental illness or something.  Anyway, it's got to be really hard to take care of someone like that.  Our ability to live a long time is a double-edged sword.  Our bodies keep working and our minds stop, or vice versa, I guess.  Anyway, I feel sad if some family is worrying about where this woman is.  She might be scared and confused too.


3,800 dead ... and more on the way —  (CNN)Rickety boats that should never have sailed. Unscrupulous smugglers with no regard for life. And desperate people risking everything. That mix of fear, hope and greed has now produced a horrifying record. More people have drowned in the Mediterranean this year than ever before: at least 3,800. That's about 90 a week. It's nearly 13 every day. Here's a look at how we got to this point. Why are they doing it? They have no choice. They are Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, escaping war. They are Nigerians and Eritreans in search of a better life. More than 65 million people have fled their homes; 1 in 3 of them are refugees. We're in the midst of the largest migration of refugees since World War II. The sheer number dwarfs the population of many countries. Would you risk these odds? Even though fewer people are crossing this year than in 2015, more people are dying as they try to make the journey. One person out of every 88 has been lost at sea trying to reach the shores of Greece, Italy or Spain. That means they're 90 times more likely to die on the journey than an American is likely to die of gunshot wounds. Where are they heading? There are three main routes across the Mediterranean. Eastern Route: Last year, the route from Turkey to Greece was the busiest by far, but a deal between the European Union and Ankara has brought the numbers down. Still, it remains a heavily trafficked route. Central Route: Libya has no government, which gives people smugglers plenty of freedom to operate out of north Africa. Traffic has been busy this year between Libya and Italy. Central Route: Libya has no government, which gives people smugglers plenty of freedom to operate out of north Africa. Traffic has been busy this year between Libya and Italy. Western Route: West Africa is far from the Middle Eastern hotspots and poor sub-Saharan African countries that produce most migrants to Europe. And relatively small numbers of people try to reach the continent from there. But even so, a steady trickle crosses the sea at the narrow point south of Spain.  Where are they fleeing from? More than a million people have fled Somalia. Nearly three million have escaped Afghanistan. But it is Syria, wracked by civil war for more than five years, that produces the most refugees: nearly five million. Just how bad is it in Syria? The Syrian refugees may outnumber any other country's refugees, but they make up less than half the number of Syrians driven from their homes by the war. Far more are internally displaced -- still in Syria, but living like refugees in the country. And then, of course, an unknown number of people have been killed in the war. International agencies stopped trying to count the dead years ago. The latest estimates by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the number somewhere around 430,000. If that's right, it means about one out of every 50 people in the country has been killed. Where do they go? President Obama vowed that the United States would resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees this year, and by August, the administration was saying it would surpass the target. Justin Trudeau vowed Canada would take 25,000 when he became prime minister last year. But far more are claiming asylum in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would take one million refugees. And all across Europe, refugees from Syria are claiming asylum. But far more stay in the Middle East. Syria's own neighbors host the vast majority of people trying to escape the war. And there's little hope the war will end any time soon -- so the refugees will keep fleeing. And they will keep dying.

I don't feel empathy for the refugees, who are complicit in corruption and worthless systems of government that lead to their need to flee.  Nor do I think they have any right to do what they're doing.  And every country has every right to keep them out and let them deal with their own situation in their own country.  But I fear the state of our country and the world when these people invade and infest good countries.  The weak and bad infect the good, and too many countries, like Germany, are allowing it to happen.  How disgusted would I be if I were a German citizen and Merkel said Germany would take in one million refugees.  Why not just hand the country over to Syria and these other craphole places and we'll go live on their sand piles?  It's lunacy.


Janet Reno, first female US attorney general, dies at 78 —  anet Reno, former US attorney general under President Bill Clinton, died Monday morning following a long battle with Parkinson's disease, her sister Maggy Hurchalla said. She was 78.   Reno, the nation's first-ever female attorney general, served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 2001. What is Parkinson's disease? In a statement, former President Bill Clinton said that he and his wife, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, were "deeply saddened" by the passing of Reno, calling her "an extraordinary public servant who dedicated her life to advancing justice, equality, and innovations in criminal justice that would save and lift lives." "As Attorney General for all eight years of my Presidency, Janet worked tirelessly to make our communities safer, protect the vulnerable, and to strike the right balance between seeking justice and avoiding abuse of power," Clinton said in the statement, listing some of her top accomplishments. "It's fitting that she spent her last years with family and friends, living in the house her mother built with her own hands. Janet was her mother's daughter. I will always be grateful for her service, counsel, and friendship." Convictions and controversies As part of the Clinton administration, Reno oversaw the high-profile convictions of numerous bombers including Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist infamously known as the "Unabomber;" Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for their roles in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. "Speak out against the hatred, the bigotry and the violence in this land. Most haters are cowards. When confronted, they back down. When we remain silent, they flourish," Reno said one month after the Oklahoma City bombing. Reno's time in office was also bookended with a pair of major controversies that gripped the country. In 1993, she took office as the Waco, Texas, standoff was already underway. On the 51st day of the standoff, the attorney general ordered federal agents to raid the compound -- a decision that resulted in the death of approximately 80 members of the Branch Davidian sect. "The buck stops with me," Reno said after the incident. She later said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that her decision was "obviously wrong." In April 2000, Reno played a pivotal role in the saga of six-year-old Cuban immigrant Elian Gonzalez. Gonzalez, found off the coast of Fort Lauderdale in November 1999, was the only survivor among a group of 13 Cuban migrants trying to make it to the US. The incident sparked an international custody dispute between Gonzalez's relatives in the US and his father in Cuba. Reno ultimately ordered a raid that sent Gonzalez back to Cuba. When Clinton's administration was rocked by the Whitewater scandal, Reno was the person tasked with appointing special prosecutor Robert Fiske to lead the probe in 1994. The Clintons were never charged with criminal wrongdoing. In Clinton's second term -- months before his impeachment -- the Republican-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted to cite Reno for contempt of Congress for failing to hand over key memos. Reno eventually provided those documents. Congress never moved forward with a vote on the matter. From Miami to Washington D.C. Born in 1938, Reno grew up in Miami, Florida, with parents who both worked as reporters for Miami newspapers. After attending Cornell University for her undergraduate degree, Reno enrolled at Harvard University for law school in the early 1960s. During her first year, she heard one of her heroes, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, speak at the Sanders Theater. "She was so wonderful and her voice was still so clear and so magnificent," Reno later recalled in a 1993 speech to the Women's Bar Association. "And I went up to her afterwards, and I said, "Mrs. Roosevelt, I think you are perfectly wonderful." And I will never forget her looking at me and saying, 'Why, thank you, my dear. Those words mean so much to me.' And she seemed to mean it." After law school, Reno worked for four years as an associate at Brigham & Brigham, before becoming partner at Lewis & Reno, where she stayed for four years. In 1971, Reno decided to work with the Florida House of Representatives as a staff director. After a brief return to the private sector, she was appointed as Florida's State Attorney in Miami, becoming the first woman to ever hold that position. Reno stayed in the job for about 15 years until Clinton tapped her to become the 78th US attorney general. After the White House At a ceremony to honor Reno in 2009, then-Attorney General Eric Holder praised his predecessor for her tenacity and tireless work ethic during her eight years in the job. "I don't know how many times she said to me, 'What's the right thing to do?'" Holder said. "It was never what's the easy thing, what's the political thing, or the expedient thing to do." In 2002, Reno ran to become Florida's governor, but narrowly lost in the Democratic primary. Reno died at her home in Miami. She had battled Parkinson's disease for 20 years.

I don't really feel sympathetic or empathetic for Janet Reno or anyone who knew her, but I vividly remember many of the issues she dealt with and so she represents a part of my past.  i guess I found this story nostalgic more than anything.  Reno was a very visible Attorney General, more so than most.  That was sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad.  I give her credit for admitting that what they did in Waco was wrong, although I'm not sure what the wrong thing to do was.  But she was also corrupt like they all are at that level.  Still, she's an interesting figure in political history.  Very visible.  Didn't hurt that Will Ferrell played her on SNL.


http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/europe/paris-attacks-one-year-on/index.html —  Lanterns, candles and calls for peace illuminated the City of Light on Sunday as Paris mourned 130 people killed one year ago in attacks throughout the city.   November 13, 2015, was like any other day for Georges Salines: Work, a lunchtime swim with his daughter Lola, watching the news on TV, and an early night. He had no idea, until the phone rang, jolting him from his sleep, that his world was about to change forever. "I went to bed ... without knowing what was going on in the streets of Paris," he recalls. "I was woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night, from my eldest son, who knew that his sister was at the Bataclan." Salines' 29-year-old daughter, Lola, had gone to a concert at the Bataclan by US rock band the Eagles of Death Metal. Midway through the show, ISIS-linked gunmen opened fire on the audience and detonated suicide vests; 90 people were killed in the raid, one of a series of coordinated attacks across Paris. Unable to reach her, the family spent hours trying to find out what had happened to Lola, calling emergency help lines and hospitals, even the morgue, but nobody could tell them if she was alive. Then the worst news, delivered in the worst way: They discovered via social media that she had been killed. "I hope she didn't suffer or see her death coming," her father says. French President Francois Hollande unveiled plaques at attack sites in the city -- at the Stade de France, outside the Petit Cambodge restaurant, in the Boulevard Voltaire, and at the Bonne Biere and Belle Equipe cafes. At the Bataclan, the President tore down a French flag to reveal the memorial, as the names of all 90 who perished there were read aloud in solemn ceremony. It followed an emotional performance on Saturday night by musician Sting, a fundraiser for victim support charities at the newly opened Bataclan. He began with the words: "We shall not forget them." The much-loved venue has been renovated to remove all traces of the massacre that took place there. On Sunday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a state of emergency, first imposed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, will likely be extended. With the country's presidential elections coming in April-May, the prime minister said the government needs to retain the extra powers delegated by emergency laws "to protect our democracy." 'Bloody battlefield' Denys Plaud was also at the Bataclan on the night of the attacks. He credits his survival to the fact that, when the attackers burst in, he was up on the balcony where there was more room to move to the music. "I love to dance, and that saved my life," he told CNN days after his escape from the Bataclan. "It meant I was not in the direct line of fire from the terrorists' machine guns." Plaud hid in a tiny room at the venue with 15 others; they waited as the gunmen got closer and closer, even shooting at the partition that sheltered them: "I thought, 'Oh my God, I hope that wall will stand.'" "For three hours, we had to listen to the shooting," he remembers. "That was terrible. Every time we thought it would end, it was just time for the terrorists to get their weapons reloaded, and then they would shoot again." Eventually, the police arrived and led them to safety across what Plaud calls "the bloody battlefield," urging them not to look at the bodies of their fellow music fans. "But ... it was not a direct path, I had to look where I was putting my feet. ... There was no way but to look at death." A year on, he says, the memories are "very fresh ... it's just like it was yesterday." Artist turns Paris attacks ordeal into graphic novel A nation traumatized By late morning Sunday, the first flowers to remember victims were placed among the autumn leaves at the Place de la République, which became the center of the city's mourning and expressions of national unity after the attacks. For many Parisians, it is an opportunity to begin getting on with life. The year since the attacks has been filled with shock, grief and mourning -- for the relatives of the dead, for those who survived, and for France as a whole: The nation was left traumatized. Extra police and troops have been on the streets of France since January 2015, when terrorists attacked the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people: Armed officers now patrol outside tourist hot spots, schools, government and religious buildings. Operation Sentinel has seen the mobilization of 10,000 soldiers to monitor and protect more than 11,000 locations across the country -- 3,000 of them religious sites, the rest a mixture of key infrastructure, industrial plants and "symbolic" places around the country. And despite all the extra security on the streets, what happened in January and November 2015 -- and other incidents that followed in 2016, in Nice, Rouen and Magnanville -- have impacted the country's morale. Plaud says Paris itself was left "in shock." Anger at these events has been linked to a steep rise in xenophobia; according to the National Commission on Human Rights, or CCNDH, there were 429 reports of attacks on, and threats against, Muslims in France in 2015 -- a rise of 223% on the previous year. This "wave of aggression against Muslims" ranged from assaults on women wearing the hijab to graffiti on places of worship and halal butcher shops. In one incident, the door handle of a mosque was wrapped in bacon. The CCNDH says the majority happened in January and November. The attacks have also damaged France's prized tourism industry: Almost 2 million fewer visitors have come to the country over the past year -- international arrivals are down 8.1% so far in 2016. But Plaud says the country has seen troubled times before, and is sure to bounce back: "I am confident; in Parisian history there have been a lot of events like that -- war, civil war. But Paris has always been able to recover." #ParisResiste Balloons were released into the skies over Paris, and as darkness fell, thousands of lanterns were floated on the waters of the Canal St. Martin, close to the scene of several of the attacks. A social media campaign, #ParisResiste called on people to display lighted candles in the windows of their homes on Sunday evening, to "light up the city" and "brighten the future." Salines concedes the day will be a difficult one for many: "Some families have chosen to take a vacation and go abroad even, because there will be a lot of media attention and there will be a lot of archive footage of last year -- I'm sure it will be painful to see these images again." Plaud suffered flashbacks in the months after the attack that forced him to give up his job as a math and physics tutor, but says he is gradually recovering. This week he returned to the Bataclan for the first time. "I want[ed] to come back to pay my last homage to the victims and people who died there," he says. "It is important even if it is very strong, emotionally, to be here." Both Plaud and Salines say putting pen to paper has helped them through the past 12 months. "I wanted to write in order not to forget," Salines says. "The writing helped me, because it was the only way in the first days that I could think about what had happened ... not without pain, but being able to stay calm and to keep some distance between the pain and my thinking." The idea for his book, "The unspeakable, from A to Z" came, he says, from "the messages I received from friends and family -- lots of them started with the words, 'this is unspeakable,' 'we don't know what to say,' 'there are no words.' They had no words but I had lots! I started to make a list of words and ... little by little it grew and it grew into a book." He says the dictionary-like form his writings took helped reflect the rapidly changing emotions he experienced in the weeks and months after Lola's death. "It was very close to what I was experiencing in terms of the shift between very different moods, even happening all at the same time, within a few minutes, from crying to laughing. When you read you go from one word to another, from emotional feelings ... to very funny." The first entry in the book: A is for absurd. "Because Lola, and I am sure all the other young people who lost their lives that day, were total strangers to the situation, the fight that the terrorists have and it is profoundly unjust." For Plaud, revisiting his experiences to write about them "was very difficult [but] it was therapeutic." "It was a way to exorcise the demons and all the horror I saw that night. It was dangerous because sometimes I had to go deep inside my memories of death." 'Grieving never ends' "The grieving never ends," says Salines. "I am at a stage now where I know that things are relatively stable -- the pain will probably last for the rest of my life but I don't break down in tears three times a day as I was doing at the beginning." Salines is sustained by his work as chairman of one of the support groups for those affected by the events of November 13, and by his memories of Lola. "Her life was maybe short, but it was a full life, full of happiness," he says. A publisher of children's and young adult books, Lola loved to travel and had a passion for roller derby. "She had incredible energy. We didn't know how she could do so many things in a day." "She did a lot of good things in her life, she had a great deal of pleasure, she was very enthusiastic," he says. "She had a good life. Writing about it was maybe a way of convincing myself, but I feel pretty confident that my daughter's life was a good life." Plaud says for him, the time has come to move on. "It's been one year now and I feel like it's the end of my mourning." "It is a good thing that life has come back again," he says. "We have to keep the memory, but you also [must] not be stuck in that horror, [you must] keep on living."

It's always harder to view these stories from the perspective of a single individual instead of as a group.  That's not to say we should necessarily do that, or that we necessarily get anything truly valuable out of doing that, but it's the reality.  And so I felt sad reading this, thinking about the loss this father felt, and all the terrible emotions he would have experienced from the beginning of the even to, well, his death, probably.  And the terror of the people at the concert.  And the anger of the people afterwards who committed harassment and whatnot against Muslims.  All of the emotions I felt and was chagrined by.  These are barbaric people and events.


Aleppo residents get warning by text message: You have 24 hours to leave —  Residents in war-ravaged eastern Aleppo received a dire warning early Sunday: Prepare for your city to be bombed and evacuate in the next 24 hours.   The warning came via text message, urging the sick and wounded to flee before a "strategically planned assault using high precision weapons occurs within 24 hours." Rebels were also given an ultimatum to lay down their arms and renounce their leadership, or be killed. The message was likely sent by the Syrian government as the regime is likely the only party capable of sending a mass text to the entire population. While there were no reports of a bombardment by Monday afternoon, witnesses told CNN that fighter jets had been spotted in the city, as deadly skirmishes were reported all over Aleppo. Who is left in Aleppo? Russian warplanes have since September last year backed the regime with airstrikes over rebel-held positions, pounding eastern Aleppo, where schools and hospitals have been crushed. The text message warning is seen as a response to Syrian rebels launching an offensive last month to break the regime's siege on eastern Aleppo. Assad: Go back to Turkey, or die Russia is the most powerful sponsor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and its air power has been a key factor in helping the government solidify its control over the city. What would make you care about Aleppo? Assad has insisted that he has no option but to "to clean" Aleppo and press on with the offensive. "You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey ... to go back to where they come from, or to kill them," he said. "It's going to be the springboard, as a big city, to move to other areas, to liberate other areas from the terrorists. This is the importance of Aleppo now." Fresh clashes broke out Sunday, with regime shelling killing at least 11 people in the al-Salehin neighborhood, according to the Aleppo Media Center activist group. Several other neighborhoods were shelled by ground artillery and heavy machine gunfire from helicopters, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. Rebel factions targeted army positions on the northern front line, causing casualties among Syrian troops, the SOHR said. The Syrian Army accuses rebels in eastern Aleppo -- who they call terrorists -- of using civilians as human shields. Humanitarian crisis The UN warned last week that eastern Aleppo was on the brink of starvation ahead of a "killer" winter. Residents there told CNN that their food stocks were running out, and that markets that once sold fruit and vegetables were now empty. A kilogram of meat, they said, costs around $40, a price that most in Aleppo simply cannot pay. The last significant aid delivery was in July, and the area is extremely low on medicine and much-needed fuel to run hospital generators and ambulances. The city has seen considerable death and destruction wrought by the civil war that has raged for more than five years. About 1.5 million people still live in the regime-held parts of Aleppo, while 250,000-275,000 residents are in the devastated rebel-held east, according to the UN. In July, about 200,000 people fled the city over a two days, according to a UN official, citing the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Turkey eyes Kurdish-held city Turkey has been carrying out airstrikes in northern Syria to back the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is currently moving in on the ISIS-held city of al-Bab. The city lies strategically between Aleppo and the ISIS heartland of Raqqa. The Turkish Army said it hit 15 targets on Sunday, including two ISIS "headquarter" buildings, an ammunition storage and 10 defense fronts. Ankara has said once the city is liberated, it plans to move on to Manbij, stirring sectarian tensions that complicates internationally backed operations to free Syrian cities from ISIS control. Manbij was in August freed from ISIS rule by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month said Ankara would not allow the Kurds to hold any territory west of the Iraqi city of Mosul. Manbij is just 40 kilometers south of the Turkish border. Turkey considers some of the Kurdish militia groups in the alliance as terrorists, including the YPG. But the SDF is supported and armed by the US, further complicating the conflict, which has already put Washington at loggerheads with Moscow. The former Cold War enemies, both of which are carrying out airstrikes in Syria, have long feuded over which groups should be targeted. The US supports and arms groups that it considers "moderate rebels," while Russia calls any rebel group that is opposed to the regime "terrorists."

I'm gonna be honest: I just don't care about this stuff anymore.  We're exposed to so many stories of trouble and heartache and loss and danger that I feel like I can't be responsible for it anymore.  Not financially, morally, emotionally, practically, whatever.  I just don't care.  Syria is an absolute mess and millions of people are suffering and I feel like I don't care because it's not my problem.  Either way its' not my problem but if it were smaller and I could do something about it, maybe I wouldn't feel so disinterested.  But we're just bombarded with this shit constantly to the point I just stop giving a damn.


Venezuelan children fainting in school because they are hungry —  Klaireth Díaz is a 1st-grade teacher at Elías Toro School, one of the biggest public schools in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.   Last year, she says, attendance was painfully low. Every day, of a class of 30 children at least 10 would be absent.   “The reason was always lack of food,” she told Fox News Latino.   She said she had a student who skipped class every single Thursday and when she asked his mother about it, she explained that Thursday was the day of the week assigned to her family to buy food at government-regulated prices – which involves standing in line starting sometimes as early as 3 a.m.   “She told me she couldn’t leave the child alone at home and didn’t have anybody to bring him to school,” Díaz said.   Diaz also once saw a child faint during a cultural event. Across the country, teachers have said they have seen children faint or fall asleep because they haven't had enough to eat.   “When he came to he told me that he had only eaten an arepa (cornbread) at 10 a.m. It was 3 p.m.,” she said.   As the school year progressed last year, Diaz said, she noticed more and more kids had stopped bringing lunch.   “At the beginning of the school year every children bring their lunch. At the end they didn’t. They said their mom didn’t have money to buy food,” she said.   Elías Toro School used to provide lunch through a feeding program, but it stopped years ago.   According to Miguel Pizarro, a lawmaker from the opposition, the government spends barely 5 bolivars per meal in public schools -- 5 bolivars are $0.007 at the official rate.   “A child who does not eat well does not learn well. Some children fall asleep and when you investigate what’s going on you find out it is because they don’t eat. When we see that a child does not bring lunch we have them share; we handle the situation so that they do not feel affected,” Diaz said. “Children are supportive in that regard.”   Congressman Pizarro called out the government of Nicolas Maduro for spending millions of dollars on weapons, not food. “Instead of fighting invented wars, we must fight hunger. With less than 2 percent of the national budget we could ensure that no schoolchild goes to bed on an empty stomach,” he wrote on Twitter.   According to a poll conducted last month by More Consulting among 2,000 respondents in Caracas, in 48 percent of the times children do not attend school, the cause is related to the food. Either they are feeling too weak for lack of nutrition, or their parents rather use the transport money to buy food, or they are in the food lines with their parents.   The poll revealed that 36.5 percent of children eat only twice a day and 10.2 percent just once. For 11.9 percent of the children, which means 964,737 kids, the 5-bolivars school lunch is their only meal of the day.   While currently almost 30 percent of people surveyed said their children attended private school, 17.5 percent of them stated they were going to change them to a public school.   Five percent of the parents surveyed were considering taking their children out of school altogether.   Additionally, a vast majority of public school are facing the new academic years with infrastructure problems. Carmen Teresa Marquez, secretary of Venezuelan Federation of Teachers, said that in many schools computers and desks were stolen during the summer period.   “That adds up to the fact that school supplies are impossible to pay for. People have to decide between buying a notebook or buy food,” Márquez told Fox News Latino.   The tag price for a list of supplies for a child from elementary school comes up to 111,577.33 bolivars ($17.7, and almost five times the monthly minimum wage), according to the Center for Documentation and Analysis for Workers.

I do feel for the people in the country, especially the starving kids, who presumably don't understand what's going on except for the fact that they're hungry.  But I also feel angry and disgusted about the situation.  Venezuela is extremely wealthy due to their oil reserves.  Their country should be vibrant and prosperous.  But it's not because of communist corruption.  Why do people want government to have more control over the things that people rely on to live?  Why centralize everything so that only a small group of corrupt people can ruin everything for everyone else, as opposed to separating things so no one group can ruin it all?  Who will watch the watchmen?  It's easier to do that when the watchmen are split up and separate.  But now Venezuela's problem becomes our problem.


The treatment of Calais camp children isn’t just neglectful – it’s abusive —  The Calais camp lies in limbo, with most of its inhabitants long gone. Those who remain face hardship beyond anything the camp has previously known. Before, there was shelter – now hundreds sleep on the fringes of its dirt tracks. Before, there was at least some sense of ease – now shocked and abandoned refugees live in a state of constant tension. Fire is a constant threat, and the bulldozers are coming.   Volunteers grapple not only with the urgency of the situation, but also with the knowledge that it should – and easily could – have been prevented.     When the French authorities began the registration and resettlement of refugees, those of us involved felt an initial sense of relief. But after three days of relatively smooth action the warehouse where the registration took place closed its doors. It did not open them again. This was despite previous assurances that all refugees would be accommodated. Those left behind had no chance of safely reaching asylum centres. Most minors, registered separately, were confined to a fenced-in yard and housed in shipping containers. The rest were left homeless alongside the adult population of the camp.   Despite being provided with up-to-date and detailed census information from my organisation, Help Refugees, and the local charity, l’Auberge des Migrants, the authorities chose not to take heed of these estimates. The 50-person, four-day census operation identified exact numbers of men, women, and children within the camp, and put the total population at 10,188. Though promised over 12,000 spaces in accommodation centres throughout France, almost 2,000 refugees have been abandoned once again by an uncaring government, and are left behind in the ruins of the Calais camp.   Over two weeks ago Help Refugees warned authorities at a local tribunal in Lille that housing minors in the “container camp” would be tantamount to exposing them to fire, violence, and extreme trauma. My colleague’s words went unheeded, and now seem almost prophetic. There are now approximately 1,500 children subjected to these conditions.   Children housed in the containers report choking on the smoke that blows in from their burning former homes. They say there is no drinking water, that the toilets are never cleaned and the showers are not working. Food is served only from 3pm to 5pm, and there is only one meal a day.   There is no drinking water. The toilets are never cleaned. The showers are not working. There is only one meal a day The authorities have utterly failed to safeguard these young people, and show little to no regard for their wellbeing, health, or mental states. The children in this camp are starved of care and attention, and are in constant danger. Their treatment is not just neglectful – it’s abuse.   The lack of organisation has permeated every aspect of these children’s lives. The crippling hunger pangs reported by many are alleviated only when groups of volunteers are allowed to distribute food. Without an identification wristband, children are not permitted to use the few still-working shower facilities – a fact made worse by the decision of the authorities to register some children without providing wristbands.     The stories you need to read, in one handy email  Read more Arbitrary security measures mean that services such as the Refugee Info Bus – founded by long-term volunteers to provide refugees with WiFi and legal services – are barred from approaching the container camp, cutting the children off from means of communication and legal assistance. With this, and the recent banning of human rights lawyers acting as observers from entry into the camp, it is feared that the mistreatment of the camp’s children will go unchecked.   Volunteers are banned from putting up tents to house the homeless adult and child refugees outside the container camps, in yet another example of the restrictions that serve only to further endanger refugees’ lives. With a large portion of the camp in flames, many are sleeping on the dunes surrounding the camp, exposed to the rain, the cold, and the people smugglers.   Despite desperate conditions and daily heartbreak, the volunteers of Help Refugees and other organisations continue to provide food, water, and some comfort to the refugees who are left. Many volunteers are from the UK, and express their devastation that their country is not answering France’s calls and the refugee children it is failing – at present, it seems unlikely that the UK will take in more than the 274 children it already has. Many other volunteers are French, and must bear witness, distraught, to their nation’s mistreatment of refugees already so weakened by months of subsistence in the camp.   On 1 November charities operating within the camp received notice from the French authorities promising that all children in the container camp would be transferred by bus to accommodation centres across France this week. A representative from the UK Home Office on each bus will ensure that any children legally eligible for asylum within the UK are able to apply for transfer to the UK. It is unknown how long this legal process will take.   This is a testament to the work of the volunteers and legal workers in the camp, and presents an opportunity for these children to leave behind the trauma and misery of life in a refugee camp. However, there are no guarantees, and charities must continue to work to ensure that refugees throughout France are given a far better standard of care than was provided for the children of the Calais container camp.

I have very little sympathy for refugees of any type.  They go to another country and expect to be accommodated.  A country and government's first priority should be to its own people.  These other people have no inherent rights to be taken care of or even allowed to enter the country.  We exist in a world of borders and law--for the better.  These people come from countries that are hellholes they must flee, and they are complicit in that.  How anyone can bang on the door of another country and expect anything is beyond me.  They have no right to that.  This refugee issue is going to get more problematic and I think it behooves non crappy countries to decide, well in advance, what they're going to do about mass refugee groups, how many they'll take, etc.  you can't wait until they're ther


73 killed in tanker explosion in Mozambique —  A fuel tanker exploded in northern Mozambique as residents gathered around to buy fuel from the driver on Thursday, killing 73 people and injuring 110 others, Mozambican media reported.   Dozens of charred bodies were scattered around the blast site in the town of Caphiridzange in Tete province, and government officials believed more bodies might be in surrounding woods, Radio Mozambique reported. Some badly burned people had tried to run into a nearby river, the radio said.   A truck driver from neighboring Malawi had turned off the main road to sell fuel to local residents, who were gathered around the vehicle when the fuel caught fire, according to Radio Mozambique.   Medical teams rushed to the scene of the accident, evacuating the injured in ambulances and other vehicles. Searchers looked for more victims, though their efforts were hampered as night fell.   The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Citing Mozambican reports, the Portuguese news agency Lusa said one theory was that a fire near the tanker set off the blast, while another theory pointed to a lightning strike as residents were collecting the fuel.   A national government task force planned to travel to the accident site on Friday.

This is a tragic story but it's also what happens in third-world countries where you pull a truck off the side of the road to sell fuel to citizens.  The world is an absolutely enormous place--beyond comprehension.  And death, suffering, and tragedy occur all the time.  I'm not going to worry about the lives of a handful of random people who I didn't know existed until I knew they no longer existed.  These people might as well be fictional characters to me.  Sure, someone is grieving them somewhere.  And this event probably really did happen.  But to me it's not real and it truly doesn't matter.  And, frankly, despite this modern age's attempt to argue the opposite, I don't think the world is any better a place because I know these people are dead.


Endangered Wildlife Are At Risk After 200,000 Liters Of Fuel Leak Into British Colombia’s Coastal Waters —  Ten days ago, diesel fuel was leaked into Heiltsuk First Nation water near Bella Bella, British Colombia. The leak was caused by a tugboat which crashed in a remote region off British Columbia’s Central Coast.   Following the oil leak, underwater dive images revealed endangered wildlife including abalone, amidst the fuel spill area. Efforts are being made by the Heiltsuk to help recover this protected species. Divers also discovered schools of juvenile herring around the sunken Nathan E. Stewart tugboat.   The outer boom which was put in place to contain the spilled oil had broke free on Friday causing the oil to spread and bad weather had prevented clean up crews from working on the spill for four consecutive days. By Saturday, salvage crews had recovered more than 40 percent of the 200,000 liters of fuel estimated to be in the vessel, but the damage had already been done.   Mike Reid, the Heiltsuk Aquatics Manager said that there is an increased concern about the marine life in the Gale Passage. This is an extremely sensitive ecological and marine rescue area and there is a crucial herring spawning area which is located at the south end of the passage.   “In the first week of the spill, we had the largest tides of the month at 17.4 feet,” he said in a release. “Even without bad weather, the speed of tides rushing through the spill site are likely to flush diesel into the area.”   The local clam fishery has been shut down and BC NDP leader John Horgan criticized the spill response.   “It was tragic to see the sheen of diesel on the water,” Horgan said, adding. “You couldn’t have picked a worse place to drop this boat into the bottom of the ocean.”   The company that owns the tugboat, Kirby Offshore Marine has made their apologies to the Heiltsuk First Nation and gave thanks to the agencies involved in the spill cleanup.   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), diesel is one of the most toxic types of oil for marine creatures.   Depending weather conditions in the area, 1500 feet of kepner boom will be placed around the primary and secondary containment boom for additional protection.

I don't really care about this at all.  I don't care about herring or abalone or whatever the diesel oil harmed.  I think it's ridiculous that the premiere of B.C., of the awful NDP party, would criticize the cleanup crew.  I'm sure they did the best they could in difficult conditions.  But what do you expect when a ship carrying hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel crashes in a relatively remote part of B.C.?  I'm sure the Indians will raise holy hell, since they think they own more than 100% of the province.  But what can be done about any of this now other than clean it up and try not to have it happen again.  Either way I don't care.


13 civilians killed by cross-border shelling in Kashmir, say India, Pakistan —  India and Pakistan say 13 civilians have been killed in cross-border shelling from both sides of the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed region of Kashmir.   At least seven civilians on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) were killed Tuesday and 15 others injured in shelling that came from the Pakistani side, according to local Indian authorities. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that six civilians on the Pakistani side had been killed by shelling from India Monday, and eight injured. Could India and Pakistan go to war? Women killed 'inside their homes' The casualties on the Pakistani side were in the Nikial and Jandrot areas, the statement said, adding that Pakistan's Director General had summoned India's Deputy High Chief Commissioner on Tuesday to strongly condemn the "unprovoked ceasefire violations." Of the Indian casualties, five civilians were killed in heavy shelling in the Ramgrah sector of India's Samba district, Sheetal Nanda, Samba's district magistrate, told CNN. Nine others were injured in the area. Two women were also killed in shelling in the Manjakote area of Rajouri district, according to Johnny Williams, deputy inspector general of police in the district. "The two ladies were inside their homes when shells landed there. They died on the spot," he said, adding that three others were injured in the strikes. Three civilians were also injured in India's Poonch district, police chief J.S. Johar told CNN. Neither side has responded to the allegations of ceasefire violations. The latest clashes come at a time of heightened tension between the neighbors over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region that has been disputed territory between India and Pakistan for the past 70 years. Both of the nuclear-armed countries hold separate parts of the region and have fought two wars, in 1947 and 1965, over their claims. They came close to a third, in 1999. Tensions have flared since 19 Indian soldiers were killed in September in an attack by armed militants on an army base in Uri, about 63 miles (102 kilometers) from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the aftermath, India launched what it described as a "surgical strike" across the Line of Control to attack what it said was a terrorist launching pad. Pakistan denied that the target was a terrorist base, pointing out that two of its soldiers were killed. Amid the continuing fallout, India has relocated more than 10,000 people from around the disputed border area, and a top Bollywood director has refused to hire Pakistani actors.

I don't care about this at all.  There are well over one billion Indians and Pakistanis.  We have enough of them.  I don't care if a few get lost from these people fighting over Kashmir.  That's been going on for decades anyway.  I'm sure it's pointless, but these two sides won't back down so it'll keep going on.  They're too nuclear powers so that's the only thing that makes this kind of interesting.  I love how the Bollywood directors won't hire Pakistani actors.  Pakistan sucks.  They harbor a lot of terrorists and a lot of bad crap happens in, and comes out of, Pakistan.  I'm sure they're to blame for most of the hostilities in the region.


Video Shows Cop Punching Woman In The Face, But She’s The One Arrested For ‘Assault’ —  A uniformed Arizona police officer who was filmed punching a woman has been placed on administrative leave while the incident is investigated.   “Our agency is very concerned by what is depicted in this video,” police in Flagstaff, Arizona, said in a Wednesday evening press release.   The footage, shot and posted to Facebook on Wednesday, shows a woman struggling with two officers who apparently believe there is an outstanding warrant for her arrest. She can be heard on video saying the issue has already been resolved.   “You cannot arrest me until I know I have a warrant,” she tells the officers as she struggles with them.   Suddenly, one of them strikes her in the face with a closed fist.   Authorities have identified that officer as Jeff Bonar. They haven’t released the name of the woman, but she identifies herself in the video as Marissa Morris. “You just fucking punched me in the face,” Morris can be heard yelling after Bonar hits her.   A number of people appear to be watching the scene from a porch. The man who filmed the confrontation — identified by The Arizona Republic as Danny Paredes — can be also heard shouting, “Hey, you can’t hit a girl like that.”   Bonar cuffs Morris and the two other officers lead her away and place her in the back of a patrol car while a man ― presumably Paredes ― can be heard saying, “I got it on video, Marissa.”   Morris’ boyfriend, Jimmy Sedillo, told The Arizona Republic he and his children, ages 3 and 9, witnessed the incident.   “She had a warrant a few weeks ago,” Sedillo said. “He still assumed she had a warrant.” Sedillo told Phoenix’s KTVK his girlfriend was ultimately charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.Morris, who reportedly remains behind bars, could not be reached for comment.   “An internal affairs investigation is being initiated,” Flagstaff police said. “Further details will be released as the investigation progresses.”

I feel no sympathy for anyone who gets punched in the face by a cop.  If you get punched in the face by a cop, you were resisting arrest, almost assuredly. And I have no sympathy for anyone who resists arrest, even if you don't feel you should be getting arrested.  The best way to deal with the police is to cooperate.  Why is this not obvious to people?  If you have nothing to hide then that will come out in the end.  If she had no warrant, what were they going to book her on?  They'd figure that out and let her go.  But instead she resists arrest and gets arrested for that, and punched to boot.  Which she deserved as far as I'm concerned.


3 U.S. military trainers killed in gunfire by security units at Jordan base —  At least three U.S. military trainers in Jordan were fatally shot by security forces Friday when their vehicle failed to stop at the gate of a military base, Jordanian and U.S. officials said.   The U.S. military service members “came under fire” as they approached a Jordanian training facility, said Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook. Few other details about the incident were given. Cook said U.S. and Jordanian authorities were investigating the cause.   Earlier, Jordan’s military said there was “an exchange of gunfire” after the vehicle’s driver ignored demands to stop outside an air base in southern Jordan. A Jordanian officer was injured, the statement said.   Other details of the incident at the King Faisal Air Base were not immediately clear. Investigators were trying to piece together the events, including whether a possible miscommunication was to blame.   The U.S. official said two of the service members died later in Jordan’s capital, Amman, where they were airlifted for treatment.   Jordan is a close ally of the United States, and military training by U.S. personnel is common. Jordan is also part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in neighboring Syria.   [Prominent Jordanian writer gunned down]   The U.S. Embassy in Amman said in a statement it was “in contact with the appropriate Jordanian authorities, who have offered their full support.”   A U.S. diplomat in Amman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said American and Jordanian officials “do not believe” the incident was terrorism-related, but he offered no further details.   The King Faisal base, about 150 miles southeast of Amman and near the border with Saudi Arabia, has long been used for joint exercises between Jordan and its various allies, including the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia. The base is also part of the network in Jordan to train Western-backed Syrian rebels.   According to U.S. diplomats and Jordanian officials, there are more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel based in Jordan, the majority serving as advisers to Jordan’s armed forces and Syrian rebel factions.   Jordan’s military has been on high alert since June, when a suicide attacker driving a bomb-rigged truck barreled through Syria’s border with Jordan, setting off a blast outside a Syrian refugee camp that killed seven Jordanian troops. It was the deadliest attack along the tense border, which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have crossed during the more than five-year conflict in their homeland.   In November 2015, a Jordanian police officer opened fire at a police training academy south of Amman, killing two U.S. contractors.

This incident made me feel bad.  I assume it was just an accident and a case of confusion and miscommunication.  But it still feels sad to think that someone was killed needlessly like this.  American troops do a lot for us and the rest of the world.  This is a bad way to go down.  I'm not sure what I hope happened.  Either way it was a tragic event.  It doesn't sound like the Jordanians did anything wrong.  They wee rightfully protecting their base.  It's very unclear what the Americans could have been thinking, but they clearly made a mistake and suffered from it.  Hopefully the truth is discovered and people can be content with the tragic event.