Friday, July 19, 2013

FIPID - 07/19/13

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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Religious leaders help perpetuate male power and female mistreatment, the former president said.

‘America has no functioning democracy’ – Jimmy Carter on NSA

Jimmy Carter: Unchecked campaign contributions are 'legal bribery' (Jimmy is on a role this month)

Your Choice In Utensils Can Change How Food Tastes

PISS TESTING IS A FAILURE | Vice (Profanity)

'Pernicious' Effects of Economic Inequality

Sinkholes: When the Earth Opens Up (lots of pics)

NASA uses 3-D printing to make a rocket engine injector at 70% reduction in cost and a 66% reduction in manufacturing time.

The Drone That Killed My Grandson
"I LEARNED that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died. The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen...My grandson was killed by his own government. The Obama administration must answer for its actions and be held accountable."

A Philadelphia School's Big Bet on Nonviolence
In a desperately poor, dangerous part of town, Memphis Street Academy decided to ditch its metal detectors and focus on supporting students. Violence dropped by 90 percent.

Politics and Business
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Schieffer: House farm bill 'like welfare for the wealthy'

Costco CEO: Raise The Minimum Wage To More Than $10 Per Hour

Paid via Card, Workers Feel Sting of Fees (Surprise! Sneaky companies take advantage of workers.)

Don’t let DOMA fool you — the Supreme Court is restricting your rights

Life without parole? No child deserves that.
...an investigation by the Center for Law and Global Justice found that the United States remains the only nation in the world known to sentence children to life without parole — a sentence to die in prison.

Law and Justice and George Zimmerman
The exoneration of Travyon Martin's killer is a stark reminder of the limitations of our judicial systems and the choices we make about the laws under which we live.

Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA

Justice Samuel Alito Might Have Quintupled His Net Worth in 2012

Fifty Years of Murder in America, Mapped

Here’s Why JP Morgan Is Being Accused of Enron-Style Shenanigans

Science and Technology
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Why You Have To Scratch That Itch
Things that made a normal mouse scratch like crazy had no effect on mice with no Nppb. But when those mice were injected with the substance, they scratched, too.

Here Be Dragons: The Mythic Bite of the Komodo
The truth, of course, is of little comfort to anyone planning to visit the islands where dragons roam. Don’t worry, you won’t die of sepsis from a Komodo bite. You’ll just die when the gigantic lizard with inch-long serrated teeth dripping with hemorrhagic venom tears your flesh to shreds.

Energy production causes big US earthquakes

Can Caresses Protect the Brain from Stroke?
Neurons cut off by a stroke may have the inherent ability to reroute blood flow and save themselves.

All Charged Up: Engineers Create A Battery Made Of Wood

Fun, Interesting, Disturbing and Offbeat
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From funny to fit; man sheds 155 pounds

Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960

In the Words of the Presidents
Jefferson coined more than 100 new words including pedicure; card-player Harry Truman popularized the phrase fair deal; George Washington added 37 terms to the lexicon, including hatchet man; and Teddy Roosevelt denounced irresponsible journalists as muckrakers.

Ohio Man Rips Off Part Of His Penis After Taking Hallucinogenic Mushrooms: Police

Leah Remini Flees Scientology (The King of Queens actress)

The Ultimate Weight-Loss Incentive: Dubai Will Pay Dieters in Gold

Christman Genipperteinga
He was a German serial killer in the 16th century, who is said to have murdered 964 individuals, from his youth and over a 13-year period, from 1568 until his capture in 1581.

Beer drinking king dies in competition tragedy
"He had drunk six litres of beer, and when he won he lifted the trophy."
"Then he just started to vomit without stopping and he never spoke again,"

Videos
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Talented bear

Now that's a victory dance

Master craftsman makes a hatchet handle

Pics

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Complete Idiocy Makes for Pretty Amazing Fireworks Photos

Can haz halp pleez?

Monday, July 15, 2013

Zimmerman Trial

Justice System On Trial In Court Of Public Opinion | NPR

The George Zimmerman trial has prompted a national debate on race and the American justice system. It's a far-reaching, and important, discussion, says legal expert Andrew Cohen in his recent column on The Atlantic. But it is also one that by definition is kept out of the courtroom. Host Jacki Lyden talks to Cohen about the differences between the courtroom and the court of public opinion.

JACKI LYDEN, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Coming up, how one African-American parent explained the Zimmerman ruling to his son.

But first, one of the outcomes of the trial of George Zimmerman is likely to be what the jurors were able to consider and whether a legal trial can fully satisfy divided public, even when it's the only constitutional means we have.

Legal analyst Andrew Cohen examines this question in a piece for TheAtlantic.com in which he considers the limitations of our legal system. He joins us now from Denver. Andrew Cohen, thanks for being with us.

ANDREW COHEN: It's my pleasure.

LYDEN: First of all, you write that the Zimmerman verdict exonerating him is, quote, "a blunt reminder of one of the limitations of our justice system" because, again, quoting you, "criminal trials are not searches for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." And as you say, they never have been. Could you explain what you mean, please?

COHEN: Sure. Well, what I mean is a trial is a challenge of its attested evidence. Judges throw out relevant evidence all the time. They don't allow jurors to see it. Prosecutors argue to keep certain evidence away from the jury. The defense argues to keep certain evidence away from the jury. And in this particular case, we know that there was a lot of evidence that both sides wanted to give to jurors that the judge didn't allow.

The reason why this wasn't the racially tinged trial that it could've been is precisely because the judge forbid it. So we look at trials and I think sometimes we ask too much of the judicial system. We ask too much of lawyers and judges and jurors. We're not necessarily going to get the whole answer. And clearly, we don't have the whole answer even though the legal process - at least the criminal legal process now against Zimmerman is over.

LYDEN: You say trials aren't moral surrogates. And it's almost in your view as if there are two trials going on here. One is the evidence and George Zimmerman's account of his conduct. And the other is the law itself, this Stand Your Ground law, which many people would hold excessively broad. That's an interesting parallel.

COHEN: Well, the point I was trying to make in the piece and the point that I sort of lived with for the past 15 years or so as I've covered the law is that a trial is a microcosm. It is a sliver of the truth. And you can't have a trial like this and have both sides arguing about the extent of the self-defense law, for example. The reason George Zimmerman is innocent today or free today, anyway, the reason why he wasn't convicted last night, in part, is because of the broadness of the Florida law.

If people are upset by the verdict, if they don't think it's a just verdict, the solution is to try to change the law to make the self-defense defense more narrow so that it doesn't apply in situations like this. That's - the larger point I'm trying to make is there is the court that has now been concluded, and there is the court of public opinion.

And the court of public opinion is allowed to take in all of the things that are reality, the moral, the ethical, the racial components to this story in a way that the legal system not only isn't built to do but isn't allowed to do under the Constitution. The judge's job over the course of the past few weeks has been to give George Zimmerman a fair trial, to observe the bill of rights, to observe the rules of evidence. And she did that very well.

LYDEN: Let me just ask you about that. You think that she did a very good job, and that's one of the points you make here.

COHEN: Yeah. I don't think you can fault this judge in any material way. She made some ruling against prosecutors that precluded them from bringing in evidence. She made some ruling against the defense, which they objected to very strongly. Remember, just a couple of days ago, the defense objected to the inclusion of the manslaughter option, which, of course, ended up being something that wasn't relevant.

So this is a judge who kept control over her courtroom in a very high-profile case, a case that easily could've spun out of control because of its racial component. And I think that neither side really is complaining about the judge. And when you get that in this kind of a case, it means the judge has done the job she was supposed to do.

She isn't supposed to or allowed to bridge the racial divide that we have in this country. She's not supposed to look into the larger issues about racial classifications and so forth. That's not her job, especially as a trial judge.

LYDEN: Andrew, civil rights groups have been calling for a civil trial, a wrongful death civil action against George Zimmerman. What do you think? What do you expect there?

COHEN: Well, I think we'd expect that to be quite different than the one we've just seen. The rules of evidence are a little bit more lax in a civil case. The burden of proof is different in a civil case. It's only preponderance of the evidence rather than reasonable doubt. And there's no Fifth Amendment protection against self-incriminations.

So if we were to see a lawsuit, a civil lawsuit by the Martin family, George Zimmerman would have to testify under oath. He would have to be subject to cross-examination by the Martin family attorneys. And that may be, alone, an incentive for the family to go after him, even though it's apparent that he doesn't have a whole lot of money at the end of the day.

We've seen it in the O.J. Simpson case, we've seen it in other high-profile cases where the civil case looks very much different than the criminal case does. And I would bet if we get a civil case here, that's going to be the case.

LYDEN: Andrew Cohen, thank you very much for speaking with us.

COHEN: It's my pleasure.

LYDEN: That was Andrew Cohen. You can find his piece at theatlantic.com. He's also a legal analyst for CBS News.

Monday, July 1, 2013

FIPID - 07/01/13

Fun Interesting Pertinent Information Dissemination

Top Picks
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Why Some Schools Want To Expel Suspensions
"It's simple. It doesn't cost money. It's just connecting with kids and having a strong instructional program," he says.
The year before Huerta took over as principal, there were 683 suspensions. Heurta says suspending students had become a reflex to poor behavior. But when he took over in 2010, he said, "No more." The results have been dramatic: just two suspensions in the past three years.

Tens of thousands in Iran protest against Khamenei, chant 'death to dictator' (video)

Some Tech Companies Find Ways Not To Hire Americans

Similar Diversity

Harvard Red Meat Study: Over 100,000 Subjects Studied Up to 28 Years
“This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death,” said Hu. “On the other hand, choosing more healthful sources of protein in place of red meat can confer significant health benefits by reducing chronic disease morbidity and mortality.”

From the creator of the Game of Thrones

Politics and Business
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Muslims want separate Muslim state in Oslo

What Do America’s Gay Families Get Now That DOMA Is Dead?

Next Time You Ask For A Raise, You Might Want To Round Up

We then took this into the lab and studied it in six studies involving hundreds and hundreds of people. And it all bore out the feeling that the more precise a number is, the less rounded, the better you do in the negotiation.

Internet Surveillance and Free Speech: the United Nations Makes the Connection

Communications surveillance should be regarded as a highly intrusive act that potentially interferes with the rights to freedom of expression and privacy and threatens the foundations of a democratic society.

Legislation must stipulate that State surveillance of communications must only occur under the most exceptional circumstances and exclusively under the supervision of an independent judicial authority.

BUSTED: Bankers Caught On Tape, Joking About Bailout, And How They'd Never Pay It Back

Indiana gives BP a pass on mercury
After a 2007 Tribune investigation, BP pledged to tackle its Whiting refinery's toxic discharges into Lake Michigan. Today, state regulators allow the pollution to persist.

2 Senators Say the NSA Is Still Feeding Us False Information

U.S. Mayors to Obama: Quit Cracking Down on Marijuana
Now the U.S. Conference of Mayors is begging Obama to leave them alone. At their annual meeting taking place now in Las Vegas, the mayors – among them Republicans and Democrats – unanimously adopted a resolution arguing that "states and localities should be able to set whatever marijuana policies work best to improve the public safety and health of their communities." The mayors also came out for amending federal law to explicitly allow states to craft their own marijuana policy. And they're asking Obama in the meantime not to waste federal law enforcement resources trying to undermine the will of their voters.

The Conference of Mayors has been inching up to this position for several years. Two years ago, the group adopted a separate resolution declaring the war on drugs a failure.

Ireland agrees compensation for Magdalene Laundries survivors
The Irish government has agreed to pay up 58 million euros (48.93 million pounds) to hundreds of women forced to work at the Catholic Church's notorious Magdalene Laundries after a report found that a quarter of them were sent there by the Irish state.
The laundries, depicted in the award-winning film "The Magdalene Sisters", put 10,000 women and girls as young as nine through uncompromising hardship from the foundation of the Irish state in 1922 until 1996.

Science and Technology
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Online throttling and site-blocking to be outlawed in Europe under net neutrality plan

Google forbids facial recognition apps on Glass in the name of privacy

Boeing using robots to boost 777 output
Manually, it takes a team of painters 4.5 hours to do the first coat. The robots do it in 24 minutes with perfect quality.

Plants 'do maths' to control overnight food supplies
Mathematical models show that the amount of starch consumed overnight is calculated by division in a process involving leaf chemicals.

Why Morning-After Pill Won't Stop All Unintended Pregnancies
Part of the explanation is that women don't use emergency contraceptives every time they have unprotected sex, says Espey.

Another reason is that estimates of the effectiveness of some types of emergency contraceptive pills may be too optimistic. They prevent up to two-thirds of pregnancies — not all of them.

Although it's not as often discussed, the most effective form of emergency contraception is an intrauterine device. Inserted following unprotected intercourse, an IUD can prevent 95 percent of pregnancies.

Our Beef With BuzzFeed's Viral Article On 8 Dangerous Foods

Malware Distribution by Autonomous System (Map)

We Still Have No Idea Why Women Have Orgasms

The Secrets of Surviving Infidelity
...it turns out that 4 in 10 marriages are challenged by affairs; and it also turns out that more than half of American marriages survive the affair. These are some of the surprising findings - perhaps surprising to some - that are discussed in Dr. Scott Haltzman's new book. His book is titled "The Secrets of Surviving Infidelity"...

“Science Cop” Mugged

Fang Shimin is a writer and blogger known by his pen-name “Fang Zhouzi,” or his nickname the “Science Cop,” for his self-directed efforts to police the underworld of Chinese science. Over the years, he has investigated and exposed the kind of fraud, plagiarism, and academic malfeasance that endangers China’s ambition to produce credible world-class innovation. Most recently, he was in the news for reporting that the former head of Microsoft China, Tang Jun, held a Ph.D. from a diploma mill called Pacific Western University.

Fang was heading home over the weekend, when a man approached him and sprayed him in the face with what he later guessed was an anesthetic intended to daze him. “Another man pursued me and tried to hit me in the head with a hammer,” he wrote in a blog post, as translated by ESWN. “I kept sprinting ahead. This man chased me but could not catch up to me. He threw the hammer at my head but missed.” The hammer-thrower eventually hit Fang in the hip, though the writer escaped and is recovering with minor injuries.

Fun, Interesting, Disturbing and Offbeat
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Meet The First Female Navy SEAL, Kristin Beck

This is the journey of a girl in a man’s body and her road to self-actualization as a woman amidst the PTSD of war, family rejection and our society’s strict gender rules and perceptions. It is about a fight to be free inside one’s own body, a fight that requires the strength of a Warrior Princess.

Kristin’s story of boy to woman explores the tangled emotions of the transgender experience and opens up a new dialogue about being male or female: Is gender merely between your legs or is it something much bigger?

Greek Gods, Shields, and Spears: Ancient Hellenes Make a Comeback
The followers are an odd mix. Leftists, who hate the Greek Church for its political power and nationalists who resent Christianity for crushing Greekness back in the days of the New Testament.

Jeremy Upshaw has an unusual perspective.
He came to visit from Stillwater, Oklahoma and heard about the gathering online.
“It’s more deep, more philosophical than I thought it would be. I thought it would just be very ceremonial. You picture the olive branches and the togas, spiritually, it feels like there is strong energy here. There is very good energy, everybody is peaceful and kind.”

Wine-tasting: it's junk science
Experiments have shown that people can't tell plonk from grand cru. Now one US winemaker claims that even experts can't judge wine accurately.

Jihawg Ammo: Pork-laced Bullets Designed To Send Muslims Straight ‘To Hell'

Jim Carrey’s Rant Against ‘Kick-Ass 2’ and 13 Other Stars Who Hate Their Own Films

The ‘Game Of Thrones’ Takeover Continues: Over 100 Babies Were Named ‘Khaleesi’ In 2012

Belly Dancing For The Dead: A Day With China's Top Mourner

Videos
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