Society's ChildS


Eye 1

Want to see a U.S. ball game? Iris scan, please

Alan Levin and Jonathan Levin
Bloomberg
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 05:00 UTC

Comment: An Orwellian society is becoming more real every day due to one of the greatest lies ever told: 9/11.


Lazaro Torres, a die-hard Miami Heat fan, was scurrying to reach his seat before tip-off one night last month when he hit an all-too-common roadblock: Two dozen fans stirring impatiently in the security-check line. Not a problem. He slid into a special entrance line, laid two fingers on a print scanner and, with the Heat's rapid blessing, cruised into the arena.

"It's been great," Torres, a 43-year-old season-ticket holder, said of the service, known as Clear, which offers queue-skipping privileges for six U.S. sports teams including New York's Yankees and Mets baseball franchises. His interview was necessarily brief. "I'm running a little late."
Biometric security clearance
© Scott McIntyre/BloombergClear security clearance
Attending a game used to be a low-tech pleasure: Buy a ticket and grab a bleacher seat. Now, with metal detectors and bag checks standard at almost all major sporting venues, companies have begun offering biometric and other tools to create the equivalent of express security lanes like those in airports. Those fingerprints and iris scans also allow teams to track fans' behavior and purchasing habits, helping them rake in more revenue and fatten profits while triggering at the same time the privacy concerns that dog this sort of technology in other parts of the economy.

Clear, owned by Alclear LLC, also provides similar security services at 16 airports, where passengers can get fast-tracked for $179 a year.At stadiums, teams pay a licensing fee and fans nothing.

Other companies offer streamlining at stadiums and other venues to government-vetted members of PreCheck, the Transportation Security Administration's service for airline travelers. And Walt Disney Co. theme parks offer expedited fingerprint-based identity scanning to customers who've bought certain passes.

Comment: "There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment... It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time." - George Orwell's 1984

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Snowflake

The boors on Ivanka's Airbus

Thomas J. Craughwell
The Spectator
Tue, 27 Dec 2016 16:21 UTC
Ivanka Airbus rude passenger
Ivanka Trump was just the latest air traveler to experience boorishness from passengers.
Just days before Christmas, Ivanka Trump was accosted by a fellow JetBlue passenger who felt moved — no, the correct word is "entitled" — to dump on her his displeasure that her father, Donald Trump, had been elected president. The boor in question is an attorney named Dan Goldstein. His husband, college professor Matthew Lasner, tweeted the play-by-play as Goldstein ambushed the First Daughter-elect. Inside Edition's story on the confrontation featured Lasner's tweets. (You can watch the piece on YouTube).
"Ivanka and Jared at JFK flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them."

"Ivanka and Jared on our flight. My husband expressed displeasure in a calm tone."

"JetBlue staff overheard and they kicked us off the plane."
Lasner posted a photo of Ivanka at the moment Goldstein got in her face, with a caption via Twitter, "Ivanka just before @JetBlue kicked us off our flight when a flt attendant overheard my husband expressing displeasure about flying w/ Trumps."

After the incident, JetBlue released a statement which read in part, "If the crew determines that a customer is causing conflict on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane. In this instance, our team worked to re-accommodate the party on the next available flight."

Less than eight weeks before this surprise attack on Ivanka, Scott McCartney published a story in the Wall Street Journal on the rise of passengers' bad behavior on commercial aircraft. These public displays of vulgarity include placing dirty shoes on clean seats, kicking, on purpose, the seat of the passenger in front of you, trimming fingernails and leaving the clippings on the floor, and, that perennial favorite, struggling to cram your carry-on into an already overloaded overhead bin.

Comment: All the stress that accompanies the experience of flying these days still doesn't excuse the exceptional rudeness displayed by Daniel Goldstein. It is the very type of 'agressive self-centeredness'.

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Red Flag

Second patsy? Alleged accomplice to Christmas market attack suspect detained in Berlin


RT
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 15:59 UTC
berlin truck attack
German Police have detained an alleged accomplice of Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri during a raid in the German capital, the Federal prosecutor's office reported.

The detained is a 40-year-old Tunisian man living in Berlin. The man was taken into custody on Wednesday morning after police raided his apartment and work place in Berlin's district of Tempelhof, the prosecutor's office statement says.

The man' contacts have been retrieved from Anis Amri's mobile phone, which he reportedly left in the truck cabin following the Christmas market attack on December 19.

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Ambulance

Car rolls down ravine in southern Peru - at least 12 people killed


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 16:02 UTC
Peruvian police van
© John Seb Barber/Flicker
At least twelve people were killed after a car rolled down the ravine in Peru's southern region of Ayacucho, local media reported.

The incident occurred on Tuesday when a car with 16 passengers fell 300 meters (about 984 feet) into the abyss, the driver was reported missing, according to La Republica newspaper.

Police forces and firefighters arrived at the scene, while three injured people were taken to a local hospital, the newspaper said. The reason for the incident is under investigation.

According to preliminary data, the driver lost control of the car.
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Cupcake Choco

Washington State teenagers' attitudes toward marijuana shift after legalization


RT
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 15:00 UTC
women dressed marijuana leak
© Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
A nationwide study finds teenagers in Washington State perceive marijuana as increasingly less harmful, following various stages of legalization for recreational use. However, that same effect was not found in Colorado.

A new era is under way for marijuana in the US. It is legally approved for recreational use in six states and Washington, DC, and 28 other states are in some process of decriminalizing the federal Schedule I drug. But as states move to end the prohibition of marijuana, researchers are finally able to study the cultural shifts that result from it.

A study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that from 2010 to 2015, teenagers in Washington viewed marijuana as increasingly less harmful over time. In addition, teenagers began trying pot at higher rates.
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Heart - Black

Saudi man jailed 1yr, fined $8k after calling for end to strict male guardianship over women


RT
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 08:52 UTC
Saudi women
© Faisal Nasser / Reuters
A Saudi Arabian man has been sentenced to one year in jail and fined $8,000 after calling for his country's government to end its system of male guardianship over women.

A court in the eastern city of Dammam found the man guilty of "inciting to end guardianship of women," Okaz newspaper reported on Tuesday, according to AFP. He was also fined 30,000 riyals (US$8,000).

The conviction is in response to posters the man put up inside mosques, which called for the government to abolish strict rules giving men wide control over women.

He was arrested and questioned for the posters, admitting that he put up the flyers in several mosques as part of an "awareness campaign." He said he launched the campaign after finding that some of his "female relatives were facing injustice at the hands of their families."

Police also determined during questioning that the man was also behind an online campaign to end male guardianship over women. That campaign, widely shared on Twitter, included a petition signed by thousands of Saudis in September.

Comment: See also:

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Megaphone

Student allegedly forbidden from preaching in the school's "free speech zone," sues school


RT
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 12:02 UTC
Georgia Gwinnett College
© Georgia Gwinnett College / Facebook
A lawsuit is accusing Georgia Gwinnett College of censoring free speech. A student was allegedly forbidden from preaching in the school's "free speech zone," itself a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution, the lawsuit states.

The issue of freedom of speech in academia has been an increasingly hot button issue, especially for Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), a public college in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Chike Uzuegbunam, a current student, claims that he was prevented from preaching at one of the school's two "free speech zones" despite having followed the school's request procedure.

The lawsuit was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian nonprofit involved in lawsuits defending business owners' rights to refuse to provide services to same-sex couples.

The lawsuit claims that Uzuegbunam "sought to share his Christian faith peacefully" on the campus but was told to get permission to speak at one of the two "speech zones" on campus. The speech zones are open 18 hours each week, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.
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Attention

Express Train Derails in Northern India, At least 2 Killed, 26 Injured


Sputnik
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 07:33 UTC
train derailment
© Sputnik/ Vadim Grishankin
At least 2 people were killed and 26 injured when fifteen express train coaches derailed in India's northern Uttar Pradesh state, local media reported Wednesday.

The accident occurred at about 5:20 a.m. local time [23:50 GMT] 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from India's Kanpur city, The Times of India newspaper reported.
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Green Light

The Chinese Century? China opens world's second-longest bullet train line (it already operates the longest)


RT
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 12:34 UTC
china bullet train
© Aly Song / Reuters
One of the world's longest high-speed railways has started operating in China, linking the country's prosperous eastern coast to the less-developed southwest, the state Xinhua news agency has reported.

The 2,264-kilometer Shanghai-Kunming rail line runs across the five provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan. It cuts the travel time from Shanghai to the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province Kunming from 34 to 11 hours.

According to train driver Wang Jinda, the trains can travel at speeds up to 330 kilometers per hour.

Comment: There's China, and then there's everybody else:

china high speed rail
© WikipediaHigh speed rail in service or under construction, by country - based on UIC figures (International Union of Railways)


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Family

'No one knew it was going to be as big': Drug epidemic leads to foster care crisis in U.S.


RT
Wed, 28 Dec 2016 11:55 UTC
Mother and child
© Toru Hanai/Reuters
Across the United States, the opioid epidemic isn't just affecting addicts. It's hurting their children, who are going into an increasingly beleaguered foster care system. Demand for foster homes can't keep up with the numbers of kids needing placements.

Across the United States, the opioid epidemic isn't just affecting addicts. It's hurting their children, who are going into an increasingly beleaguered foster care system. Demand for foster homes can't keep up with the numbers of kids needing placements.

Indiana is particularly feeling the burden in its foster-care system due to the drug epidemic in the state. "It is very hard. We get multiple calls daily from the Department Of Child Services looking for homes for children that have been removed and we have to turn them down because we just don't have any open beds for them," Jen Rasey, who manages 13 foster homes in the South Bend area, told WSBT.

Earlier this month, the director of Indiana's Department of Child Services told the General Assembly Budget Committee that the opioid epidemic has meant more children having to be removed from their homes. It's a trend occurring in at least 32 states.

In the 2015 fiscal year, there were nearly 429,000 children in foster care around the country, a 6.7 percent increase over fiscal year 2013, according to data released in October by the Administration on Children and Families (ACF). There was also a significant boost in the number of children entering the system in 2015, with 71 percent of states reporting a hike between 2014 and 2015.
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